Can we have some Mischief love for casuals, soloers, and non-campers?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Brontus, May 1, 2021.

  1. Accipiter Old Timer


    And the ghoul sentinel.
  2. Tyreel Augur

    Has the question been answered yet of "Will this loot table replace, insert in to current tables, or in addition to the normal drops from rare NPCs?"

    If i was to bet the cleanest implementation would be an additional loot table to (avoid/simple fix if) breaking or spilling over to other servers.
    Brontus likes this.
  3. Magician9001 Augur

    FBSS is cheaper and more accessible for the same reason CoF is cheaper and more accessible in SoV and Luclin than it is in Classic. There is more other good haste items for sale.

    Sky trash belts are tradable, so people will farm them. More items in the economy means lower prices.
    Classic is one month so on top of people farming them when raiders replace them in Kunark they will now sell those Sky belts on the market instead of destroying them. Then in SoV when raiders start replacing those Sky quested belts they will also sell those.

    Also because FBSS is now cheaper people wont stick AFK 50 in the room for 2 months straight. So frenzy as a XP camp is now much more accessible.
  4. andross77 Elder

    Thinking that when someone says 'whatever hear a casual wants' has to mean 'BiS' is frankly a ridiculous assumption.
  5. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    I think too many people are getting hung up on the early eras. Casuals will have a GREAT time starting in Luclin+ (PoP for sure) as raiders are replacing their gear from 1-2 expansions back and selling it on the bazaar. There's just going to be too much of it for it to be that expensive and velious era raid gear will be better than group-tier pop gear. This is pretty much true for all gear through TBS, raid gear from 2-3 expansions is just better than the best stuff a group player could get.

    Classic/Kunark people are still going to be scrambling for scraps on their mains and primary alts but pretty soon the faucet is gonna be cranked to max.
    Ions and Bardy McFly like this.
  6. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    Thanks for the feedback to my idea!

    One of the points brought up is that eventually casuals, soloers and non-campers will get access to better loot as the expansions start to unlock and as supply and demand kicks in and prices go down in the Commonlands tunnel. This is true.

    What we must not forget is that the first 4 weeks for casuals is pretty brutal especially for melee classes without accessible itemization. The average melee class goes from rusty to tarnished to bronze and fine steel (if they are very lucky) in the first 1 week. Dropped magical weapons are extremely rare at low to mid levels in classic EverQuest. Players know this and as result tend to roll caster classes such as mages which are not reliant on gear. This creates a role imbalance of too many casters and not enough melee. We need more tanks not less during this critical 4 week period when the server opens up.

    If a player is level 30 in two weeks, fine steel weapons are just not going to cut it, especially versus undead which are immune to non-magical weapons. Seeing no options for them to get geared up organically by fighting mobs and looting better gear, that player could get frustrated and prematurely quit. Don't forget new players know nothing about camps and where to find all the named mobs.

    Since Darkpaw Games has indicated that Mischief is an experimental server, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to consider implementing a random drop system for players to address the inequities in the itemization system introduced in 1999 for classic EQ.

    Thanks for listening :)
  7. Tankkin Journeyman

    People have been so focused on the "random" loot part that they forget its going to all be tradeable. This opens up a ridiculous amount of options for the "casual" gamer, especially as more expansions go on. Learn to trade. Some people love the trade game and they will flourish in the tunnel. Random drops are fun, but I really don't think its going to be necessary at all for a casual gamer to have solid gear, for cheap. Stuff like planar armor is all droppable that rots so often lol
    Brontus likes this.
  8. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    Good point! I get that. I love trading too. I love selling high quality bear pelts and bone chips to make some fast plat. I'm just worried about the new players that may not know these tricks and that some supplemental itemization via random loot table would not hurt.
  9. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    There are a LOT of magic weapons that players will see on this server that otherwise are never utilized because they come from really unconventional named. Their ratios aren't amazing but they are better than fine steel and almost all of them are magic! (provided a group is always sitting somewhere at least 1 named spawns)
  10. yerm Augur

    There are some named that are just ridiculously common and their loot is either trash or becomes so common that after a day it's trash. Mobs like rahotep and gnoll embalmer for the teens will constantly be up. Enterprising people can do cycles like south karana or frontier mountains very easily with double named and if you get them down have yourself rares every few minutes or maybe faster with enough churned. Grieg's end will probably stay THE xp spot since its named were near constant respawns once killed on selo (even on non selo they're constantly popping up) and now their loot won't be so overcommon as to go worthless.

    Likewise for raids, maybe you can only handle some entry level stuff like phinny and hate minis... no problem anymore. The bottom rung of loot is boosted when everything is even. Also, instead of farming what drops the absolute best stuff, you're like to see people focus their raid farming on what drops the most stuff, so way more raid loot into the economy on top of no-nodrop meaning more raid loot into the economy.

    Meanwhile, there's nothing to lead me to believe that plat itself will be all that much more prevalent.

    I'm expecting someone who is "casual" because they can only log in for maybe a couple hours a night and just a couple nights a week, and maybe looks at a long grinding session only like once a month, and never once joins a raid, to finish every expansion wearing moderately decent raid gear. I expect a player who is "casual" because they like to make lots of alts and never focus on one to have every single alt twinked out rather easily just from normal gameplay. I expect someone "casual" because they just want to box a few toons by themselves antisocially and do their own thing to be able to leverage that reliability into good raid gear and actually do extremely well. This will be a casual friendly server.
    radclifc likes this.
  11. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    A basic concept in RPGs it that you should earn your loot by killing the NPC and taking their stuff. Players feel a deeper sense of satisfaction when they they acquire loot this way, than when they purchase it from a vendor or a fellow player.

    Classic RPG boards games like Dungeons & Dragons have always had the mechanic that to get loot you had to kill an NPC. Imagine if you could purchase all your loot from a vendor in D&D? It would make the game pointless. Sound familiar?

    So let's be honest. Even with the new Mischief loot drop rules, most normal players and casual players won't be "camping" named spawns. They'll end up having to grind for plat or selling Krono and then they'll end up purchasing gear from other players in the Commonlands tunnel. Will there be a greater variety of loot? Yes.

    The problem is that the Mischief loot system still does not address the fundamentally flawed itemization that existed in EverQuest up until about Omens of War and later on when Defiant gear was introduced. EQ's almost non-existent and poorly tuned itemization in the first few expansions unfairly penalized people with casual playstyles.

    In EverQuest most good loot comes from named mobs. Period. Unless you camp specific mobs you have no way to realistically upgrade your gear and advance your character properly.

    The most successful MMORPG in the world (developed by hardcore EQ raiders) that shall not be named solved this problem by giving every mob a tiny chance to drop useable loot. Every mob in this MMO has on average a 0.3% to 0.1% chance to drop a "green" item from a table of level appropriate gear. That means you have to kill 1,000 mobs to 3,000 mobs on average to get a particular item that you are looking for. Remember, this is uncommon loot, not rare loot, and not epic loot.

    If DarkPaw were to introduce a random loot on random mob system, it would give non-farmers, non-campers and non-hardcore player a tiny chance to get a valuable item. This random loot system would still be very rare and would not impact the economy negatively. Asking the developers to consider low drop rates like the random loot found in some zones of the Omens of War expansion and even the Defiant drop rates is not an unreasonable request.

    Everyone should have a chance to obtain useable loot from mob in EverQuest not just a select few who monopolize the rare spawn camps. Thank you.
    andross77 likes this.
  12. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Replace is the best interpretation from the information given so far.

    This would be best summed up either as very wishful thinking, or a an incredibly bad bet.
    Don't quit the day-job.
  13. HoodenShuklak Augur

    50% ra in a batphone guild is pretty well regarded as the cutoff for casual.
  14. Skiidzmanx New Member



    I'm seriously behind the idea of random potential for loot even not off named, per the level range. I'd like to truly play Everquest, and level ANYWHERE. I just want to explore, kill, and hey, if a lucky item drops, sweet.

    It doesn't have to be super high % drop rate chance.
    radclifc likes this.
  15. Tyreel Augur

    I was betting more that this was the cleanest way for them to do it code wise than actual way it happens.

    Lowest effort and safest way to do something with least chance of having a game breaking issue is what i would have expected before current owners now who knows.
  16. Bristlebard New Member

    100% correct historically. I do think free-trade changes this dynamic. What is my basis? You say live servers are easier, but my experience on trying to catch up on CT (I fell behind when my guild went to EQ2) was 100% in line with my experience on Phinigel. Speaking as only one person who has always taking a casual approach to the game, the first time I ever caught up to current expansion was on FV (free-trade) during EoK. I did eventually start raiding in later expansions, but I was expected to be "caught up" to do so. The inability to catch up on live and progression servers had been a sticking point..

    I think the non-raiding grouper segment of the population will be a bit more "sticky" with this rule set. Free-trade changes the game for those who are capable players, but choose not to raid for whatever reason.
  17. BreakmanDX New Member

    This, exactly. This is actually how I assumed it was gonna work -- ANY named mob can drop ANY item from ANY other named mob around the same level. I hope it's how it works, it'll make it more fun for everyone no matter how they play the game, and let everyone get far more access to cool gears and plat than they'd have ever been able to otherwise, without nerfing the hardcores' ability to still do so.