Rare Creature Expectations

For many who are returning to EverQuest after 23 years, they are confronted with the "rare creature" description when they consider an NPC on their adventures. I'm not sure when they added this, but I do not believe it was present in the golden age of EQ.

The concept of a rare creature is integral to EQ because without them, gear upgrades would be next to impossible for most players as they would rely on quests and vendors. Yikes! Most MMORPGs borrowed from EQ and have included this mechanic in their worlds. Loot from mobs in MMOs is a tried and true cornerstone mechanic.

I remember seeing my first Ancient Cyclops back in 2000 in South Ro. When I saw this rare and elusive creature, the adrenaline kicked in and my heart started pounding. It's an experience that I will never forget.

I believe most players feel that way about encountering rare creatures. It's like you just won the lottery. There's a sense of anticipation about what you will find on his corpse after you vanquish him. It's an EQ tradition that rare creatures drop special loot: common, uncommon, and sometimes they can drop very rare loot. The Sebilite Guardian in Old Seblis is a good example of this, as he can drop up to 4 useable items with varying degrees of rarity.

That said, there is nothing more disappointing to finally locate and kill a rare creature and find out that he hasn't dropped anything. I felt this many times while killing rare creatures in Trakanon's Tooth zone. There are at least 23 rare creatures that can spawn there on the forager and hunter spawn cycle. At least half of them have no loot tables at all but are considered to be rare creatures nonetheless. I'm sure this lack of itemization was an oversight.

In my opinion, all rare creatures in EQ should have a loot table that drops appropriately powerful loot commensurate with the level and difficulty of the NPC (no cloth caps please). I also think that all rare creatures should have have a 100% chance to drop either a common, uncommon, and in some cases rare item.

The best solution would be to for the devs to go back and ensure that rare creatures follow these established conventions and put usable or existing usable loot on them. Or they could simply remove the rare creature tag on these mobs and then players would have no expectations that they would drop usable loot. Thanks for listening.

They're probably not going to add new loot to classic era mobs and most TLP players would probably be against it if they tried. They're probably also not going to mess with the rare flags since most of these spawns are tied to hunter achievements. Classic is already kind of a weird era anyways in that the strength of drops don't necessarily correlate with the level of the rare, so some dropping nothing at all isn't really an issue. A little ways into the expansions rares become extremely homogenized, dropping equipment, spell runes, purity augs, etc... exactly matching the tier of the zone in which they spawn.

Also kind of debatable that a game was borrowing from EQ just by having a rare/named mob mechanic. Sort of a really common thing in both MUDs and single player RPGs predating EQ by decades.

The moniker of "Rare" mobs refer to those added to hunter achievements a few years back

It is not the same as "Named" mobs but they both can be

Originally when the "rare" tag was added the requirements were SUPPOSED to be that the NPC dropped unique loot to that NPC and was not a guaranteed spawn, but Kunark kind of broke that standard with Trak's Teeth and to a greater extent Swamp of No Hope.

I can't think offhand if there are many cases after Kunark where there are "rare" NPCs that don't drop anything unique (or on a shared unique table). Maybe a few in Luclin such as Lorekeeper.

Going back and changing loot tables adding/modifiers items on those seems like a large ask unless you offering to fund their payroll this next year, but does seem fair at least combing through the kunark rares and detagging the needed ones since this sounds like the only real era where its an issue.

Though one could argue now that the rare tag just means it is part of the hunter achievement for those 100% WR bags, which I guess doesn't start still til GoD.

The work involved would be opening up a NPC database and changing a few values. It might take a few minutes at best. It's not rocket science.

(Actually, I've offered two concrete suggestions (GoFundMe and Patreon) in previous posts on how EQ players could fund the devs for projects like this. Many things in EQ could be improved off the clock and the devs who volunteer to do this could be compensated for their time and it wouldn't cost Darkpaw a cent.)

Regarding the issue at hand, It would be helpful if the devs officially defined what "rare creature" means, so players can adjust their expectations accordingly. Changing the rules with every expansion just leads to needless player frustration when they actually find out what the new rules are.

If I was creating a fantasy MMORPG, I would use the following definition:

Rare Creature -- A rare creature is a special NPC that occasionally spawns in any outdoor or indoor zone. Rare NPCs can spawned by players who vanquish placeholder NPCs and/or spawned by timers. Each rare creature has a 100% chance of dropping one uncommon, rare, or ultra rare item of player usable loot that is intended to be used by level appropriate players adventuring in that zone.

That rare tag would then already have to be with an (*) since some servers rare mobs drops work differently do due to the loot rules on Mischief/Thornblade... either way, I'd rather devs focus on new content / fixing bugs / quality of life updates over the semantics of what a rare mob is

They kinda have defined it.."rare creatures" are the ones flagged for hunter achivements. Thats it. Some don't have special Formal Names. Some mobs who do have Formal Names aren't "rare". For the most part your definition of Rare Creature fits, but its not what defines the /con message / bonus % chance. Thats just the hunter achivement.

There are dozens "rare" mobs in POP zones which drop no unique loot, or at least not every time (not even close).

The official definition of a rare creature in EverQuest is pretty important. Without rare creatures that drop rare loot on a consistent basis, EQ would cease to exist. The MMORPG convention that rare mobs drop rare loot is foundational and intrinsic to this genre. On the other hand, the concept of achievements (borrowed from Xbox) are superfluous and not integral to the functioning of fantasy virtual worlds.

The hunter forager cycle in Trakanon's Tooth creates about 25 rare creatures and is a good example of the confusion that results when rare creatures are not officially defined. Half of them are itemized and the other half are not. Some of the itemized rares have a chance at dropping nothing at all.

What is a player that is new to EverQuest coming from another fantasy MMO, going to think when that rare creature they just killed drops nothing?

They are going to feel let down and dejected because they risked getting to that rare mob and got no reward. Players don't like having their expectations subverted. Remember all the great debates about risk vs. reward on the official forums 23 years ago held between devs and players? I do. This is standard MMORPG 101 design.

Most MMO players today have the reasonable expectation that rare creatures will drop uncommon and rare loot. I would fully support the devs giving us an official definition and having them itemize all rare creatures.

That may be true, but that doesn't make it acceptable. It's quite possible that the devs didn't have the time to itemize these rare creatures in PoP and other expansions.

The original EverQuest itemized every rare creature in all the high end dungeons which created the gold standard mechanic and player expectations that rare creatures drop uncommon and rare loot. That's the main reason players go to dungeons in the first place.

Rare creatures are hit and miss, there are some marked as rare that drop no loot, there are others not marked as rare that does.

Really needs an intern to go through and check everything. But I'd rather they fixed the mess they made with invis and body types before messing with unimportant stuff.

Are there any creatures marked rare that aren't in hunter achievements? Or are there hunter mobs not flagged as rare? That's what the /con is about, not loot.

Why is it unacceptable? Because you feel you're entitled to loot on every single rare mob?

Ok, and not every plane is a high end dungeon. What's your point? Not every single "rare" creature in original EQ had loot. It takes about 17.8 seconds to find one that doesn't.

If you're concerned with only high end zones, I don't know of any high end plane nameds who drop nothing off hand.

I think Brontus just likes to rant. Rare tag means it likely spawns off a PH and is part of hunter achievements. Yes some older zones like Traks Teeth has an absurd amount of rares, but wanting them to redo all the mobs in the older xpacks are a waste of time and development resources.

It's not about entitlement. It's about having the reasonable expectation that rare creatures drop rare loot. That mechanic is the cornerstone of all fantasy MMORPGs.

And yes, players should feel entitled that mechanics are coherent and consistent across all expansions.

there are mobs in the game which aren't supposed to be in yet - siren's grotto is a good example, tons of rare mobs with no loot table yet.

this is because the no loot rare mobs were added later and their loot would be overpowered.

I'll volunteer to itemize the unitemized rare creates in TT for Darkpaw at no charge complete with icons and lore. While I'm at it I would propose removing the unnecessary NO TRADE flags from the Hangman's Noose, the Meditative Blanket, Grim Pauldrons and the Korzanz Kit`ioukl.

Loot is consistent. Not every rare has loot. That starts as early as Classic.

Also, if they were consistent with mechanics since classic, we would have some pretty garbage game play right now.

The rules for hunter originally were dropped unique loot and had a PH. The expansions they have added added hunter to for older zones don't follow the same rules, so there are some conning rare and appearing on hunter which shouldn't.

There were a couple of Seeds of Destruction mobs which con rare and are not on hunter when I did it a while back.