I think the key principle would be: Allow us a way to "out work" the RNG, vs "out roll" the RNG. For some people, that roll just may never happen. And if rare enough, the option to say "hey, here are 5k tokens. I've earned it" provides a motivation for the player to keep running the zones vs thinking "its too rare, who cares?".
Pretty much. I don't want the vendor/coin farming to be the absolute better way to get items, i just want it there to have a definite 'cap' on how much stuff you would have to run to get a specific item. Worst case should be I have to spend 2k tokens (or however much it may be), not that I just don't get the item at all after countless runs. Its one thing to say people aren't entitled to all the loot when they don't even run it, its quite different to say you aren't entitled to loot a mob drops even though you killed it 20 times. Not only that, if the currency is broad like ferrin is now, people will be running ALL the zones, not just the key ones that drop the items people want. For example right now all my guild runs is the EH zones and farm contested. If we could buy the items we are chasing with ferrin, we would be running ALL the zones. By making items buyable with ferrin you make all the zones that drop ferrin instantly relevant. More people running more heroics and probably on more characters, how could this be bad for an MMO? I'm sincerely trying to see the downside here. I mean you could argue players won't be running content for as long I guess, but I would argue you would have more people running more content up until they get the items they want. Opposed to now where you still have people running content, but not nearly as many or as much. Preventing people from being done 'too early' just becomes a case of how fast people accrue currency and not making items so expensive they just don't bother. Now with DLC's you can jump start grouping again with every release with new items and content. You just need to get an estimate of how fast most players will get the loot they want with RNG+vendor and try to land that point to a time before the next 'campaign' release.
Exactly. One thing I loved about TSO was that I was always working towards good items, even if the zone didn't drop something I wanted. Hell, make every single possible good drop available. Just at the right price.
Additional idea: Want to restrict the best items? Require that you have the achievement from clearing that zone as one of the purchase prerequisites!
Yea, then we end up with zones like Oss EH that the same 5 people go in every time it gets run. Not such a great plan, especially if they continue to create content that requires a particular setup. I do understand what you're getting at though.
True, that zone allows only slight variance. You can get away with 1 or 2 variables but not really more
I think we've had two completely different setups class wise for EH ossuary successfully run it. ITs not so much about the classes but the tools. AE block(s), mez, good aggro management. I mean you can't go in with a hodge podge group, its like putting a group together back in EQ1. Its a bit too strict on tanks and healers though, but I see that more of a class balance problem and its hardly grounds to completely dismiss the idea of requiring an achievement to be able to buy the loot they drop. Its not unreasonable to expect the person to have killed the mob once.
I put some of this stuff on reddit if people want to use the whole 'voting' method to who their concern level since we seem to be at least slightly migrating over there. http://www.reddit.com/r/EQ2/comments/31qwp4/loot_rng/
Sweet! I missed selling ragefire updates. While on that topic, I was right by the way, ragefire was totally trio-able with heroic gear (paladin/warden/illusionist). I fully expect EH Oss. to be similarly flexible.
I'd take people buying slots to get achievements so they can eventually buy the loot to literally zero control of the terrible RNG.
I can see the potential of a cross server DF helping with at least finding groups and thus being able to more easily run dungeons more often. This only helps run the terrible odds more often though and probably won't help much at all for any of the harder dungeons. You don't see a lot of PUG's clearing the ossuary EH. This is all assuming the cross server DF is forthcoming almost immediately after the DB upgrades are done, 1-2 weeks tops. I've heard about some 'combinable' upgrades in the DLC which could be an interesting way to offsetting the RNG. I just hope their drop rate is 100% otherwise its making the RNG situation much worse. Now only would you have to get it to drop at all, but multiple times and just for one player.
If beta is any indication they haven't taken the opportunity to make a new vendor that sells some of the dropped loot. I'm pretty dismayed by this. I know they don't like going back and 'revamping' or overhauling systems but rather add on to fix things, so I appearance items and a zeppelin. Perhaps the vendor will show more items as you unlock the ability to buy them or at live as to not 'spoil' the itemization surprises until release?
that's because they are adding in everything they forgot (or promised us in a game update) to a now purchasable "minixpac". So prepare yourself to pay yet again, which is horrible especially for those of you that got the $90 version of the AOM expac lol. You will now have $105 dollars invested soon in less than 5 months and that's just for the game, not including if you've put any money into SC or what not.
We have no plans to allow you to just token grind to fully geared. If we did that would just become the default way to gear up instead of running the zone for drops.
Any chance of being able to "token grind" the white adorns and spellshards that are currently "harvest grinded"? This would at least encourage more of the top end people to group up and run zones rather than to spend alll their time harvesting and leaving zones empty.
It worked in TSO, however. I don't think I remember a time where people wanted to run heroics, any heroics. Yes, we'd run the ones that had a chance to drop the specific piece we wanted first, but then we'd run all the rest, too. I really think a good combination is something like this. Requirements to buy any particular piece = Zone Difficulty Factor x Item Rarity Factor x Base Cost Factor + Access requirement met For example, say you've got 4 tiers of zones. ZDF = 1.5, 3, 5, 8 - These would match the tier of the zones. IRF = 2, 3, 4, 5 - 2 = Lgdry drop from named. 3 = Lgdry drop from boss. 4 = Fbld drop from boss, 5 = Rare Fabled + BCF = a fixed "starter value". For the sake of this, lets call it 100. Want a basic legendary item from a non-boss named in the first zone? 100x2x1.5 = 300 currency! Want a rare fabled piece from the zone boss of the hardest zone? 100x5x8 = 4000 currency! Etc etc. Just a raw math of it. I think you could set these values to be high enough so the grind wasn't "the most efficient" way to get the item, but a "viable method that requires high play time which = good for increasing population and grouping" I would strongly encourage a method that simply makes the token grind "viable". NOT "ideal". If it is viable, population and play times will go up.
