Request to tweak the chests level restriction in areas

[Calen]

I would like to ask the dev team to allow a wider level range for looting chests than currently possible, especially in the epic areas it would be welcome.
I believe the current restrictions are a bit too much in general.

1: When a higher level character sets out for a RP trip they will now no longer get a reward from a chest, the area it self can still be pretty challenging on it's own or have a boss that most players can't kill with two.

2: The server isn't always populated which results in that sometimes people just have to entertain themselves by solo running areas, not every build is able to solo epic content.

3: You enter an area with multiple levels, you can't loot level one but you can loot on level two. Mean while the mobs on level one can be equally annoying for you and still give you +35 exp but sadly you can't loot chests anymore.

4: Epic areas cost money with a small chance of actually getting something good out of it. It's not uncommon to get 56 gold and a +1 AC belt from the frost giants king chest o or something ridiculous as a scroll of shield from the balor chest. As a non caster class you'll have to spend a significant amount of money with often not getting anything good in return.

5: There is not much epic content compared to mid level content around level 20, the idea that I have to freeze my exp in order not to go above the areas chest level cap is purely ooc .


I would ask the dev team to reconsider this or at least be a bit more lenient with the levels.

[matelener]

The restrictions have been made more lax, atm, you should be safe to loot in areas 18+ CR as a level 30.

[Calen]

I ran with my level 11 in cloakwood mines, the first area I couldn't loot chests the second one I could (except one for some reason).
The difference between the mobs in 1 and 2 aren't that big, they can still kill you if you aren't careful and don't mule your gear.
I'll test this another time later on this character once the chest reset to see if it was a fluke.

I welcome that change , cheers for the quick response.
Is there a plan to overhaul the epic areas loot up to some extend, to remove the +1 and +2 items.

[YYA]

First of all, I have a question about the chest level restrictions, does it only consider your actual class levels, or does it take into account Effective Character Level?

I am just asking because in my experience, when my character meets the listed the CR of an area, it usually starts to drop nothing but 25-50 gold pieces. Not to mention that these areas still seem to give something like 20-50 experience points per kill, and from past experiences I know that there are some (**) areas that are just plain lethal until a character reaches early to mid-epics. And all of it this tends to be far more pronounced in the Underdark, and especially if a character lacks a multitude of wands and potions for various immunities, etc. As for an Underdark example, the CR10 Titanfist is far easier area than the CR9 Stonespear cave with its 35+~ AC Stonespear Adepts.

Anyhow, I starting to actually consider just buying a bunch of invisibility potions to run between the countless skeletons (chests without locks) of this server. Which probably was not the original intention when these changes were made.

[Snarfy]

First of all, I have a question about the chest level restrictions, does it only consider your actual class levels, or does it take into account Effective Character Level?

It's character level related, so the loot restrictions in UD kick in quicker thanks to ECL. Some areas are just plain goofy, like the goblin caves with the mushrooms, I'm pretty sure the chests there stop giving loot to characters before they even reach CR of the zone(this is not the norm though).

Anyhow, I starting to actually consider just buying a bunch of invisibility potions to run between the countless skeletons (chests without locks) of this server. Which probably was not the original intention when these changes were made.

After testing the loot tables extensively, and after getting stuck having to repeat visit the same CR appropriate areas to find anything worthwhile, I eventually ended up resorting to this for my "quick loot fix" during my sparse play time. I found a 20 minute run that will net me a pile of items, usually valuing about 15k, and once in a blue moon I'll even find something decent, so I don't really bother going to dungeons much anymore.

[YYA]

First of all, I have a question about the chest level restrictions, does it only consider your actual class levels, or does it take into account Effective Character Level?

It's character level related, so the loot restrictions in UD kick in quicker thanks to ECL. Some areas are just plain goofy, like the goblin caves with the mushrooms, I'm pretty sure the chests there stop giving loot to characters before they even reach CR of the zone(this is not the norm though).

That is at least some silver lining then that other areas do not quite follow the Goblin Lake/Cave pattern, because one the reasons to go to those Goblin Caves was the chests found inside, coupled with enemies that explode, knock you down, and spam countless offensive spells at you while being able to self-buff to something like 35+~ AC, in addition to the possibility that multiple Goblin Chieftains spawn with their practically endless casts of DC 19 Shadow Daze... Sure, go there if you have a party, but doesn't really make sense to try to solo it with certain builds.

Anyhow, I starting to actually consider just buying a bunch of invisibility potions to run between the countless skeletons (chests without locks) of this server. Which probably was not the original intention when these changes were made.

After testing the loot tables extensively, and after getting stuck having to repeat visit the same CR appropriate areas to find anything worthwhile, I eventually ended up resorting to this for my "quick loot fix" during my sparse play time. I found a 20 minute run that will net me a pile of items, usually valuing about 15k, and once in a blue moon I'll even find something decent, so I don't really bother going to dungeons much anymore.

And if your character has just leveled up, a trip to Myrkul is in practice just a few short area transitions to sell away the loot you have just gathered. So, a high strength level one Tanarukk Barbarian or a level three Monk Tanaruk Monk with the Dash feat? I think I would lean Monk, because the movement speed keeps incrasing with furthr levels, and you will be able to do some of the weekly quests while at it.

[gedweyignasia]

I haven't updated my spreadsheet since the level restrictions were made more lax, but it's my understanding that things have improved. That said, let me try to respond with my perspective as a developer, which might not reflect the opinions of all our other devs.

1: When a higher level character sets out for a RP trip they will now no longer get a reward from a chest, the area it self can still be pretty challenging on it's own or have a boss that most players can't kill with two.

Areas equal to or higher than a character's CR should all have better loot than before the restrictions went in, except one or two that were giving out top-tier loot by some oversight prior to the loot rebalance.

2: The server isn't always populated which results in that sometimes people just have to entertain themselves by solo running areas, not every build is able to solo epic content.

This server is first and foremost an RP server and a multiplayer environment. It will not be balanced for singleplayer content. Some players are able to run content solo, and we allow them to, but we don't make it our primary focus. My focus when building is on content that will allow a player to RP with the people around them. When the server population is low, I would see having a player solo-grinding as a detriment, since it effectively reduces the population even further.

3: You enter an area with multiple levels, you can't loot level one but you can loot on level two. Mean while the mobs on level one can be equally annoying for you and still give you +35 exp but sadly you can't loot chests anymore.

Can you give examples of areas and character levels where this happens? This may be an area that's below your CR where the boss and some harder enemies give better loot, so those chests aren't dropping below your level. I'd like to eventually revisit the system to make it more fine-grained, but I have some other priorities at the moment.

4: Epic areas cost money with a small chance of actually getting something good out of it. It's not uncommon to get 56 gold and a +1 AC belt from the frost giants king chest o or something ridiculous as a scroll of shield from the balor chest. As a non caster class you'll have to spend a significant amount of money with often not getting anything good in return.

Areas are designed for parties of 3-6 players depending on how strong their builds are. It may be advisable to consider your party composition before setting out. Just as locked chests are specifically designed to reward bringing a rogue in your party, some elements are designed to reward bringing a caster or heavy melee combatant.

5: There is not much epic content compared to mid level content around level 20, the idea that I have to freeze my exp in order not to go above the areas chest level cap is purely ooc .

This is an ongoing issue, and we're working to create more content at all levels, but mid-to-late epics deserve additional consideration. If you are struggling to profit from dungeon runs, please consider my response to #4.

[yyj]

Thanks for your well written response gedweyignasia, very insightful.

I think the way loot works right now is fine personally.

[gedweyignasia]

Thanks for your well written response gedweyignasia, very insightful.

I think the way loot works right now is fine personally.

Glad to hear it's working for you! I'd like for it to be better, but there's a lot of other things to do. My to-do list right now is:
- Combat XP logging
- Scry improvements to show locations for taverns and interior shops
- Split KEMO benches into 3 pieces so the chat appears above the correct head and you have a variety of animations on the ends as well (still only able to lie down in the center)
- Make PC props persist across resets, change the default action to examine on PC props (let players break others' placeables?)
- Books, libraries, and lore update (details not public yet)
- Dungeon #2 (mid-to-high epics)

(No promises that any item on this list actually gets done, it's just what I'm working on.)

[DaloLorn]

"Combat XP logging"? What's that about?

[Valefort]

Knowing exactly how people earn exp by killing what at what level kind of idea.

[Steve]

Knowing exactly how people earn exp by killing what at what level kind of idea.

Big Brother State!!!

[Calen]

I believe the loot is not properly tuned, given the design philosophy of BGC could be different than what I consider good design.
First of some basic design concepts.

A: In a perfect world you do not design a dungeon around muling, by allowing muling you effectively remove the difficulty from the dungeons.

B: This how ever can be countered by putting back the level restrictions on items, now leveling up will become rewarding as you can equip new gear.

C: It's preferable that dungeons drop items that help with the level range the dungeons.

D: Finding an item you can use as a player is enjoyable more so then selling them all for gold.

By doing this you create a system were you can balance encounters around a gear level and thus attempt to create fun content.
This server does exactly the opposite in terms of design.

A: As a dev you spend time designing encounters with in a dungeon ,just to see people plow through it because the level 3 warrior is wearing full epic gear.

B: Because of that these players no longer value your content, they will flock towards an area that gives them the fastest exp rate.

C: Further more the chest do not drop items appropriate for the content, this is especially glaring at the epic levels were the loot table is polluted with low level gear.

You can create a beautiful dungeon like the ice cave which can be challenging on it's own , and players mainly ignore it because there is no reward for clearing it.
The majority of the loot for that level 22 area are still +1 items , thus if I were to gather gold to buy from the epic shops this place is one to ignore.
Especially with the +35 DC traps,magic spamming mobs and maze like lay out ,it's in fact a place that will cost gold.

The same can be said for killing the Balor with a group or the Frost giant, this is the end game content of this server.
What do you get most of the time? 56 gold and a holy water or if lucky a +2 short sword. Items that you've gotten from the orc cave or the graveyard so to say.
Not every item needs to be good, but they do need to be appropriate for the encounter.

Currently the loot table is just poluted in order to make it harder to find appropriate gear, but this has been done up to such an extend that it is pretty much impossible to collect +3 gear by adventuring alone before you hit 20. Thus being confronted with the power creep and higher AC demands.

Honestly I would put back item level restriction and up the loot on every chest by a lot, perhaps even make harder dungeons more rewarding loot wise.

[gedweyignasia]

A: In a perfect world you do not design a dungeon around muling, by allowing muling you effectively remove the difficulty from the dungeons.

It would be much easier to balance dungeons if gear was not muled, but that's clearly not the case in BGTSCC. Trust me, we all really wish our jobs were that easy.

B: This how ever can be countered by putting back the level restrictions on items, now leveling up will become rewarding as you can equip new gear.

Re-enabling item level restrictions is not straightforward. All characters with items equipped beyond their level would be invalid and unable to log in. (Not to mention how unpopular that policy might be with the majority of the players.) We've talked a lot about how to reduce the average gear level to even out the playing field on average. There isn't an easy solution to this.

C: It's preferable that dungeons drop items that help with the level range the dungeons.

This sounds good in principle, but when you consider how many times people will run a dungeon before moving on to the next levels, it's less feasible than you might hope. On top of that, we don't have a level rating for every item in the game. We had a dev working on that, but it's a little subjective and you wind up with some levels that have a lot of items and other levels where there are very few. If +2 gear is all Level 15, you might have almost nothing at Level 16. You can start grading it more roughly, but it's not an easy system to design, and it's a colossal amount of work.

D: Finding an item you can use as a player is enjoyable more so then selling them all for gold.

Absolutely! I remember the first really good item I got, back on my first character. It was a +3 Nat AC necklace that gave me +1 to every skill and to universal saves, I think. That was 2013! Of course, if these were easier to find and never left circulation (good items in BGTSCC tend to keep circulating), it'd hardly feel very special when you found one. Instead you'd tell yourself, "These +3 necklaces with all those saves are standard, and the stuff I find in dungeons is crap. I hardly even find those necklaces."

See, it's really hard.

A: As a dev you spend time designing encounters with in a dungeon ,just to see people plow through it because the level 3 warrior is wearing full epic gear.

Yes, but we have to design the content for the average player, not the tails of the distribution.

B: Because of that these players no longer value your content, they will flock towards an area that gives them the fastest exp rate.

That's unfortunate, and even worse if you try to make that content less appealing to grind so that they will explore more diverse areas instead of grinding Xvarts all day, they are upset with you for messing up their routine. It's very hard.

C: Further more the chest do not drop items appropriate for the content, this is especially glaring at the epic levels were the loot table is polluted with low level gear.

Again, since the best items stick around forever, you can't give great stuff very often at all. We could give good items a lot more often if there were ways for players to lose items to mimics, dying, etc, but players would be up in arms.



I hope this gives you some insight into what our process is like and how frustrated we are by these same issues.

[Calen]

At this point of the server I would actually vote for a complete vault wipe and start from scratch, given that might result to the end of it.


By removing the level restriction ,a big hole as been dug which is difficult to adjust because of mechanical problems.

When it comes to adjusting gear I would only bother with the +20 areas, as for loot in general.
You can have say level 24 content drop +3 items and have level 30 content have a bigger chance to drop superior gear.
From there you could consider adding 'epic level 30 content' with just unfairly hard bosses that require you to have specific gear.

Another way to approach it is just having level 30 chests have more high quality potion/scrolls next to their usual gear.
In terms of vendor value a +2 and a +3 aren't any different up to some point you can at least have the epic boss fights drop +3 gear.
When it comes to exp grind, it's mainly because A: no level restriction B: poor loot optimization which as you pointed out is hard to fix.


Fixing the gameplay on this server requires a lot of tedious work and will be met by a group of players that will be disgruntled.
I fully understand the frustration of trying to balance a system like this, even when you speak of 'loot chests'.
You'll quickly find your self discussing class design,server culture, encounter design,.

The only sour apple I would consider biting through is level restrictions as we do not have that big of a player base.