Collection Quest Ground Spawns

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by gcubed, Dec 13, 2012.

  1. Nelson Lorekeeper

    "Tough" collection set(s) aimed specifically those who want to do collections, with a reward aimed, also specifically, for those who like to do collections. Sounds like a win-win.

    As an add-on to this idea, you could implement the difficult, optional, collection set in each zone that, as a reward, would give you a piece toward a meta-collection set. The reward for the meta being a trader satchel-flagged bag for collection items.
    Augur likes this.
  2. Augur Developer

    I can't say for certain, but based on how the Collection Items are built, I would assume that the bag would be able to hold any collectible items for the official Collections, but not items that are collected for other, various quests or events.
  3. Talif Augur

    Collections have long been one of my favorite parts of EQ2, so I've really enjoyed having them finally come to EQ. What I miss is the rare collections that lead to an item that allows you to see an entire other hidden set of collectibles. Those hidden ones generally gave purely cosmetic items (usually really nice house items), so there was no real "requirement" to complete them to advance in the game, but they had definite value as chase items.
    Augur likes this.
  4. artofnoise Augur

    Initially I was unimpressed with the 40-slot pre-order container. Only recently have I really started to get into the whole collection thing and /claimed the 40-slot. It "rides" with my collector, who works on one zone until he has enough for my main alt. and a couple friends. As such there may or may not be enough room for an entire zone's collectibles. I would certainly use the 64 (or just larger) collector bag. Even if it was pushed to the bank sometimes.

    I too have noted the near-worthlessness imposed on the "common" collection items. It would be interesting if the system somehow encouraged (forced) player bartering or trading. However, I cannot think how this would be accomplished, let alone guarantee that it wouldn't be abused or broken by someone.

    I VERY much like the idea of pushing collection sets into older zones, be it hotzone or otherwise. Yet another way to revitalize those places from time to time.

    I can see why you wouldn't want to tie these things into "must-have" content. That could create periods of resource conflict in a similar way that the Mech Guardian event did a few years ago.
    Augur likes this.
  5. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I have 2 of the 40 slot collection bags, 1 on my main account and 1 on an alt, the main account has is sat in a shared bank slot, the alt carries it with her. I unfortunately carry too much other junk to carry it on my main or I would....need a bigger bank :p

    One of my guildies over the weekend had collected over 130 pieces to hand out to members of the guild on our first raid of the week, the guild bank isn't big enough to have all the collection items in there. Another large bag for collections would be much appreciated. :)
    Augur likes this.
  6. Augur Developer

    Thanks for all the feedback so far on this! It sounds like there's a pretty universal interest in a larger collections bag that can be acquired in-game. I'll talk with the team and figure out how we want to implement it.
    artofnoise likes this.
  7. artofnoise Augur

    From a more technical curiosity side, are the collectibles now using a fixed coordinate for each vs. letting them "drop" as they spawn? Or am I totally off track?

    I assume these two things are unrelated, but I had hoped work on the collection spawns might help uncover something linked to the random wackiness of how things interact with the "world". Specifically, how objects/mobs/etc. interact with geometry (or the "ground") when spawning or dropped. I am guessing it is more related to a given location vs. a global effect, however.
  8. Augur Developer

    We didn't make any major changes to how the collection system spawns items. Each collection set still has a list of 100-400 possible coordinates that the items can spawn at. Each set has a limit on the maximum number of spawns that can be up at any given time. When there are less active spawns than that set's limit, a script pulls a coordinate randomly from the list of possible spawn locations and puts a random item from the collection set there (based on a weighted list).

    So there are fixed coordinates, but it's still a very large list of options that it chooses from randomly with each spawn.

    Our code team did put some work into the ground spawn system in general to fix the despawning items bug for Collections. The changes they made are universal and should also fix any other areas where something similar is happening. Nothing as major as what you're talking about here (which sounds like it would require a major rewrite of the code), but we'll continue to improve the system as it's warranted.
  9. CaptAmazing Augur

    My personal experience is that I have a lot of bag space so am able to carry a lot of them, but a few times Ive gotten so loaded up that I had to dump them befor I made it to the guild bank.

    Mostly just delete the ones that are so common you can pick up 9 or 10 of the same one a night. Being in a zone and doing the collections for yourself, you get a fairly good idea which ones are rare.

    I'd have no interest in a bag for the.
    Augur likes this.
  10. artofnoise Augur

    Thank you for the confirmation, Augur. Most of what you said is what I logically expected (can we say that in EQ?) Having a large list of potential spawn locations for the system to pull from keeps it much more interesting. Simply knowing where they all are is not enough. :)

    At least there were some tweaks made that will see benefits elsewhere, which is always a good thing. The solutions to problems sometimes come from unexpected places. I was doing a major spit-in-the-ocean with making the connection to how all mobs/objects interact with geometry.
  11. Greymantle Augur

    Hmm anyway to set it so that there no more than a fixed number of the same spawn up as well? Like others have said, i have literaly found 6 in a row of the same common item. Would be nice if the rare's were not quite so rare :).
  12. Revulsion Elder

    I know this might sound equally dumb when I ask this but is it possible to get the droppable ground spawns say in the bazaar where they are currently being sold and get the reward for them if you dont currently have the RoF expansion or do you have to get the RoF expac for the rewards? if you dont have to have the expac and still buy the collection items in baz and get credit for them? just curious one of my guildies asked me that last night and I had nothng to tell him wasn't sure but if its possible to get the rewards from it can he still do it by buying the collection stuff out of bazaar ?
  13. Augur Developer

    Haha, we can say it, but that won't necessarily make it true ;) Happy to help!

    We like having some randomness involved with the spawns, but that obviously opens the possibility for unlucky streaks, like you mentioned here. The most rare collection item in the game has a 5% spawn rate (and that's in the big Shard's Landing set where the most common is only 9% because there are so many items).

    For most of the sets, the most common item is still less than twice as common as a rare. So while it's likely that you'll find common items in sequence, it should be rare that you find the exact same common item over and over.

    If you're able to point me towards a specific item that you're finding way too often, I can investigate the code to make sure it's working. Otherwise, I'd assume that you just had a bit of bad luck.

    We're always open to tweaking the spawn chance if it's not fun as it is, but I'm not yet convinced that the current spawn rates need adjustment.
  14. Kaenneth [You require Gold access to view this title]

    To encourage trading, you could make each item in a set more likely for a particular class... only if the item is determined on pickup instead of placement tho.
    Augur likes this.
  15. Fenthen aka Rath

    I'm so glad I finished these off, and it only cost me 1.4 mil + a few hours of camping/running/killing. =P
  16. Augur Developer

    Thanks for the suggestion! I'd love to hear more thoughts from you all on how the system can be improved.

    I don't think this particular idea would work. The technical side of things require us to select the item when its spawned, rather than picked up. I'm also not sure that restricting sections of the collection system based on class or another character-specific factor is a wise design choice. It would encourage trading like you said, but I'm worried that it would also encourage behavior that is less fun than the current system.

    I suspect that a lot of players would simply be forced to farm longer on their main character, without fully realizing why particular items were eluding them while they were getting flooded with one. Players that understood the system might instead feel forced rotate between alts/boxes to be the most efficient collector for each item, which isn't fun gameplay either.
  17. Revulsion Elder

    so no answer to my question if you do not have the new RoF expansion can you still do the collection quests items from bazaar and still get credit for them or do you have to have the RoF expansion to get the credit and or reward for the collection items that are for sale in the bazaar?
  18. Fenthen aka Rath

    You cannot click on the Collector Edition ones if you only have basic-RoF.. I'd imagine it may be the same for non-RoF accounts.

    Go buy one of the 20p collection items and find out!
  19. Revulsion Elder

    thats cool wasnt sure if you could or not I will let my guildie know to go buy one and see if he gets the update for it under the collections . thanks guys wasn't sure but we will see.
  20. artofnoise Augur

    Or players would quickly figure it out and just run around on the appropriate class to get those items. Damn you, spoiler sites! :)

    As these are ground spawns (items) and not mob or object spawns (ie. something with a loot window), it would be more difficult to even use something like the dreaded Trivial Loot Code. Although it occurs to me that would be one system that could introduce a more "personal" factor for each player. I cannot imagine what the back end code/server resources needed to do that would be, however.

    Each character would need back end tracking that gradually weighted factors such as, 1) do you have other items in that collection set, 2) how many collection items total have you picked up in that set. #1 could be tracked (in part) via the Achievement checklist. This would require the character has "collected" (right clicked) items to have them weighted. This would just give you a slightly lower chance of picking up items you already collected, perhaps. I have no idea how #2 might be accomplished.

    Unfortunately, the down-side always comes with abuse potential. Collectors could finish everything and then start a career as a Collectible Farmer. Not the greatest source of griefing in EQ but it could happen. I've seen a little bit of that with players working on higher tiers of their Slayer achievements.