Plane of Growth trash dropping Vulak Loot needs to be fixed ASAP

If that is what floats your raid's boat, more power to you.

I doubt you could split a banana. I've seen you play.

I don't think you really appreciate how mind numbing it was to kill fay all of kunark, to kill VS all of kunark and to go after every single OW field dragon. The problem with uniform randomization isn't that the lower tier of raid mobs could drop desirable loot, the problem is that the higher tier (more difficult to attain) mobs are just as likely to drop garbage. Randomization worked really great in classic hate and fear to preserve player engagement- any trash could drop your armor, any mini could drop a cool item for you, any god could drop the other god's loot. These were neat innovations that really helped keep people motivated and showing up to targets that traditionally would not have helped them. They were also quality of life improvements because raid leadership did not need to clear all of hate/fear to satisfy any particular classes' armor needs- they instead could just focus on killing what was strictly needed. Kunark's uniform randomization was by contrast soul killing. Every fay kill had to be pursued, every ow field dragon had to be pursued, every VS had to be killed etc. The inability to prioritize targets in kunark was a dramatic degradation of quality of life for hardcore guilds, it discouraged raider engagement, and ironically it probably meant there was less open world content available to more casual guilds.

For what its worth, I don't care about gatekeeping good loot from more casual players, but I also think the incentives created by kunark's loot system promoted a meta game that was fundamentally unpleasant to play. Could some guilds simply have chosen to raid less, of course, and many individuals did (myself included)- but bare in mind what that says bout the game itself. The most challenging content needs to be the most rewarding content- how you weight or structure that is up to you, but if you don't do that it just makes the higher tier content feel like a tedious chore.

Isnt the point of it being random that its random? The little guilds who cant kill 25 bosses a week arent getting 25 chances at loot, they are getting 2-3 to spread around to their members. They might gets some ToV loot or they might get a PoG class BP an a Gem but its a fun random chance. Big high powered guilds get over 25 chances a week, and for them its a random chance too. If you want to be sure you are getting all the best loot then go to a normal ruleset server. Don't spoil the fun of people who are just quietly doing their own thing like you normally do by crying to the Devs.

I mean I think the obvious answer to your last point is that there is no normal ruleset server currently in velious era, and there is no normal ruleset server other than FV with free trade. Randomization, Free trade and early TLP expansions are a package deal offered to players without alternatives. If you don't expect people to give feedback about what is and isn't working on an 'experimental server' then I'm not sure what to tell you.

For what its worth I really have enjoyed the ruleset, I just think they hit a homerun with the classic raid loot system and they struck out when it came to Kunark. Kunark would have been infinitely better if randomization had respected the tiers of raid content, ie randomization of VP as a single pool, and randomization of the world dragons (maybe a third tier including just vs/fay as they did with phinny). Would this mean smaller guilds doing Fay/VS dz's would miss out on PD loot- I suppose yes- and again I am totally open to solutions that would open that loot up to smaller groups with a rare probability/lottery mechanic while not also having their loot tables intermingle with VP's. But I think the uniform randomization was just pretty bad when it was all said and done.

That said as to not be totally negative, I think kunark's epic loot pool (dark elves, royals, epic targets etc) was a master stroke and probably one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire expansion. I also think randomizing group loot continues to be awesome. I like the higher drop rates as well. I have no issue with making the content more rewarding, and making it easier for people to get the things they want with less of a time commitment. I think where this system has shined, it has been in delivering precisely that. I think where it has lagged, it has been in the unintended effects of combining different tiers of raid content and turning short spawn time / easy to kill mobs into urgent-high priority targets while high end raid dungeon content is left to feel unrewarding. I don't think that was their intent, which is why I think they are recalibrating with velious.

The devs Need to stop listening to the 1% elite krono lords! the "Bob" type players who use their guilds to farm themselves massive fortunes only stand to GAIN by making the nice loot more rare!!! the smaller guilds cant go kill vulak, we will never see the loot except by paying him and his friends. I am in a wonderful family style guild of all nice players, we field about 50-70 players on a great turnout. We will not kill vulak for many many weeks to come. The chance, even small, to have his loot on lower targets (not minibosses u can kill with 1group) but like Dain and stuff is HUGE TO US. We are all massive fans of EQ and spend tons in the store, look at our cosmetics. But we are only playing on this serrver cause its the one chance in 22 years to see the loot we never could see, cause family and work etc. If you take this random loot and pinatas away you will be left with a server with only one guild and 90% drop in players YOU MARK THESE WORDS.

The krono lords dont understand we dont want to play with them, we want to do our own thing and finally get some loot on this RANDOM loot server. Making it raid tiers where the best loot only drop from the tiny ammount of top targets who would drop that loot anyway makes no sense! The elite few 1% guild are already killing those targets and farming that loot. You are only taking it away from everyone else. And for what?? We are all here to have fun and play with loot we have never had before!!! and you already let certain vicious players rob us from having the sceptre of destruction forever. Now you want to let the top guild krono lord over us like on EVERY OTHER TLP. Here is a CLUE we are not playing on those other TLPS because everyone is tired of having to pay krono to those who play 24/8. Following Bobby's Advice will lead to the RUIN of this server and literally everyone i have talked to outside of his guild agrees. The tiered system is just REMOVING the randomness on a server called MISCHIEF.

You need to think hard about why the vast majority of your players are here. Dont listen to the 1%

You know Vulak loot is only basically dropping off Vulak right now right? My proposed list had 10 droppers (now 6 due to a guild waking sleeper) and going off what Ngreth's post that number may have increased or decreased based on his perceived way of how the loot should work.

The only reason I didn't include Dain as a potential dropper is due to the ability to chain spawn him through the shawl quest.

FWIW, the Tiers I have drawn up for Luclin have 2 versions. One with 3 tiers, being more structured, and one with only 2 being a bit more random (neither put Praesertums on the same level as AHR despite both being level 66).

Bobby the other day in tells , when I brought my concerns with this system up to you, you said "We wouldn't want Quarm loot dropping off Grummus, now would we?'

My response is simply Why Not. Why is having fun loot floating around on a server for , useful only for the handful of months it is in era , a bad thing??

You have a vision for this server no one else shares. You want to put a system over the random ness and pinatas everyone came here for. Explain to us all why there should not be more time loot on a server only in pop for a few months?? You will be in time farming and selling it week 1 that is why you want the loot like this stuff to be rare. Your system is not what the server asked for or signed up for

The latest edit to you comment you even say that you want to create "structure" to the loot with 3+ tiers. Dude you need to realize the vast majority of us are here FOR the randomness. We didn't come here to play in your vision of what loot should be. That is bullhonky. You might not be comfortable with randomness, that's fine go play on a normal tlp with the normal rules you are comfortable with. You come off as a guy who thinks guilds and players below him don't deserve the "good loot". Or more like you want to horde it and sell it those who don't join your Zerg style guilds. Why should anyone put up with this concept you put forward? It obviously only benefits you, it doesn't help anyone else to have less loot. We all came here for loot

If the devs go through with removing the pinatas and making loot more rare like this thread suggest, then the devs can expect a quick exodus from this server. We all know that, I just hope someone at the company is reading all this

Dude take a step back and breathe.

I rolled on this server because of the free trade on top of the random loot. The random loot rules have been quoted plenty of times in this thread but we all went into this with the same info of "Raids/Rares will drop loot from other rare/raid NPCs of a similar level within the same expansion." This was a bit more obvious with how it would work with group named early on because you had ~53 levels worth of NPCs to structure around which we see was now done with a bucketing system of level brackets. I have no idea how they are going to tackle future expacs where most NPCs fall into a max of a 10 level spread but I'm sure they've planned that far ahead .

As far as the raids classic was also pretty easy to figure out, almost everything was around level 55 and despite naggy/vox/inny/cazic being quite a bit harder than Phinny I figured he would drop the same loot because of just how few npcs there were in classic. We can look at the "of a similar level" and read it plenty of different ways whether to take it in the literal form of the mob level (which we've already seen isn't the case) or in the form of "relative difficulty / rarity" which is how I have always read it. If you honestly think Mraaka or a Growth Mini or a 6 hour respawning Lodizal is "of a similar level" to something like Vulak then I don't think we're ever going to see eye to eye on this and that's OK because you are welcome to offer your opinions just like me. Though I recommend you do it a bit more organized and from a less emotional place.

On a personal note, it's kinda weird to send me a hostile tell ingame, proceed to then have a normal conversation with me discussing the ruleset ending in a polite goodbye between us then turn around and basically attack me on the forums, I'd prefer you to not send me further tells ingame now.

So bobby is saying under idea that vulak will now only drop off the 4 warders, vulak himself, and 1 other dragon. So the poster was correct is saying its only on stuff the elitist guilds are farming. Vulak loot should definately have a chance to drop on easier stuff like Dain, Tormax, Yelinak, Hell even some of the harder dragons and stuff. I mean in kunark venril sathir had loot from Veeshans peak and we all loved it, that was cool as hell. So many people got loot they never got before. Now with this idea i think it will be just like all the other servers and back to boring.

Bobby in my post I clearly said that mini's shouldnt drop vulak loot, i dont really know what you are on about with that and lodizal? You are making up strawmen. Vulak loot SHOULD drop on way more than your tiny list of 6 things. We both agreed that your system was flawed because there was no way for loot to randomly share up/down a tier. We all want the tiers to have a chance to blend in randomness, you making this rigid structure based on your opinions of mobs diffculty is not what anyone signed up for. This is not the Bobby server. You can offer all the advice about which mobs might need to have loot changed around and the devs can look at it and see, but a whole freakin tier system to just keep the best loot to the top guilds targets is not what the vast marjority of us want. It seems only you and a handful of people think this is a good idea, to divide up all the loot. You havent explained why their shouldnt be more rare cool loot on this server, what exactly is your logic behind keeping people on a 22 year old game from gearing toons up for the first time ever in loot they have never seen before. Just cause it makes your loot seems less special? dude come on.

And on a personal note. I was pleasant with you in tells because at the time I had not read the full thread. I am not attacking you now, I am heavily criticizing your ideas. I have never sent you a tell before and its not like I plan to again, i simply sent you a tell saying how this idea would ruin the server. I still think that. And your comment about how Quarm loot should only be off the hardest of hard targets just doesnt sit right with me. You think we all need less loot, so your loot is more valuable and rare. I disagree and think we all need lots of loot and to have a fun time. Stop trying to put systems on top of a fun time.

This I agree with Vulak is level 70 Lodizal is level 60 and should not be on the same loot tables. Those with and without MotM shouldn't be on the same tables, other than that those of the same levels should be on the same loot tables.

And they need to do something with the WW so they are not just dropping their own loot tables.

I fully agree that Lodi shouldn't drop vulak loot. Bobby just made that up out of nowhere. Vulak loot should drop off more stuff than Bobby's elite tier system allows for though. There really is no argument to restrictions on loot like he wants other than to make the top guilds krono farming more profitable. I mean that is all this system does, is make guys like him more wealthy. Let the loot flow, I say. And almost everyone I know agrees with me. Oh and yeah what is up with WW? They aren't dropping any random loot

I believe there is a design that can be a good compromise here. It will take more effort to implement, but it should be possible. Using Planes of Power as an example, the raid targets can be tiered, and that tier effects the chances of dropping loot.

First, calculate the total number of items that are going to drop. It seems as though most of us like the mobs dropping more loot. I think the best way to do this would be to have a ramping chance of items dropping which could be linear or exponential. The system for this may already be the one implemented. The more loot you get, the less of a chance for the next piece of loot.
Four Items = 100% chance to drop
Calculate for Five Items = 90% pass move on to calculate for Six
Calculate for Six Items = 80% pass move on to calculate for Seven
Calculate for Seven Items = 65% pass move on to calculate for Seven
so on and so on

Then the system could be setup to give every raid target a chance at loot. Taking Grummus as an example his loot may be setup as the following:
Grummus Loot Table
Tier 1 raid targets (Terris Thule, Grummus, Seventh Hammer, Manaetic Behemoth) = 70% Chance for item to be from this table.
Tier 2 raid targets (Bertoxx, Saryrn, Aerin'Dar, HoH Trials, BoT Minis, Sol Ro Minis) = 15% Chance
Tier 3 raid targets (Agnarr, Mith Marr, Zeks, Sol Ro) = 7% Chance
Tier 4 raid targets (Elemental Minis) = 4% Chance
Tier 5 raid targets (Elemental Gods, Time Phases 1-3) = 3% Chance
Tier 6 raid targets (Time Phases 4+) = 1% Chance

At the other end of the spectrum we have Quarm, I can see an argument to just have his loot table be his own and I believe that would be fine with most people. You could also give him smaller chances to drop phase 4 loot which is still good. Maybe setup a system so that he always drops at least 4 pieces of his own loot, then make the remaining loot function similarly to the system above, but with less tiers of available loot. Possibly also having him drop loot from the elemental gods. Making him drop a large amount of loot wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion. His average drop table might look something like this.
4 pieces of Quarm Loot
3 Pieces of Elemental God Loot (Coirnax, Xegony, Rathe Council, Fennin Ro)
2 Pieces of Phase 4 Loot
1 Random Piece from Tier 3

This system can work for everyone, we would simply be debating what the chances should be for each tier of target and which targets belong to each tier. It gives the smaller guilds a chance at better loot AND it gives the higher end guilds a reason to progress. Let's try to find a compromise here that we can all agree on and try to get the development team to work with us. Arguing back and forth isn't going to get the changes we want, let's try and help them!

I have come back to the game for Mischief. I am a 37 year old with kids between the ages of 2 and 5. I came back for a casual and fun experience with friends of being overpowered without having to commit my entire life to gearing up the way I did 20 years ago.

Let the casuals have their casual server for once. Let the players be excited to loot something nice instead of buy something nice in the commonlands. Keep the loot where it is completely random.

Why? Because those players will try to go kill the top tier stuff anyhow. Suddenly, when they are over-geared on the easier content, they amazingly won't stop trying to kill the other content. They will try it because they finally will have a chance of actually beating it WHILE BEING CASUAL.

There is absolutely no skill or risk involved when you show up with 72 people in raid or 150 in OW and lag out the mob so it can not fight back and the fight ends with no one being below 80% mana and no tank going below 70% HP, we've all seen the streams.

Arguing that they should restrict the best loot to only a few mobs that your zerg guild can do, so that you do not have to do "every other mob as well" to corner the market and make the most KR is as selfish as it gets.

30 people doing a mob, that by the end of the fight they are working on fumes in their mana pool and every tank has died at least 5 times, now that is skill and dedication. If we are to award for risk versus reward, then the 72 person raids should get orc pawn scalps and any other skilled guild doing the same mobs with 30 people should get the top tier loot.

It sounds like for anyone that wants to change the rule set for the server.

Should probably play a different server.

The idea that an open world guild would simply decide not to do every mob is something top raiders don't seem able to fathom. If you were burned out by kunark's system it's your own fault only.