Loot Changes

[DM SummerBreeze]

Speaking from a DM's perspective here (Though not for the DM team as a whole.)

Power creep is very real, and as mentioned a few posts before this, can very much effect how DM's are able to balance events. Sometimes we will balance and everyone will just cake-walk it due to having amazing items and power builds, other times if its less experienced players and we balance it similarly, it will become very difficult for them to progress in the event. Often times I encounter a mix of the two, where one or two (usually newer.) players struggle to progress while some of the older players with good items will walk all over the enemies.

This is why I tend to fly on the side of heavy RP in my events with a lower focus on combat generally, because balancing combat properly is extremely difficult to do these days with the power creep and some of the custom classes being wildly different in power scale in combat.

There is no easy solution to this really, the server is old and has had some up and down changes when it comes to power level, some very old equipment is VERY powerful compared to what we have now, and conversely around 2012/2013 the rules had changed and DM's and admins wanted to -lower- the power level of items given out, only to swing back the other way again a few years later (though perhaps not quite to the same extent as the early server days.). Though I do try to be rather rewarding in my DM events, whether is an RP related reward, or a number of random-roll chests show up somewhere to be looted. I like to try and respect players time spent.

I'd say that for the most part, people should be focusing on the RP aspect of their character and not worry too much about powerful items and mechanical power. I know thats probably wishful thinking for me, but the amount of influence a character can get through RP far exceeds any mechanical power that can be gained through items as far as I see it. Though I am aware everyone finds different things fun in these types of places. This is just my personal 2 cents.

[cosmic ray]

About 90% of the loot I find is comparable to the stuff I encounter in the Shadows of Undrentide campaign for levels 1-5. For those of you who have forgotten that campaign and don't know what I mean by this, it's NwN1's second official campaign, well known for being relatively low level and low magic compared to the OC. Amongst the other 10%, 90% of it is still only vendor junk. Talk about a grindy game, eh.

This is looting the highest level epic dungeons and bosses on the server, by the way.

[zhazz]

About 90% of the loot I find is comparable to the stuff I encounter in the Shadows of Undrentide campaign for levels 1-5. For those of you who have forgotten that campaign and don't know what I mean by this, it's NwN1's second official campaign, well known for being relatively low level and low magic compared to the OC. Amongst the other 10%, 90% of it is still only vendor junk. Talk about a grindy game, eh.

This is looting the highest level epic dungeons and bosses on the server, by the way.

Which is why a collective effort to move away from trading epics for epics, and instead buying them with gold, is the best thing that can happen for the game. Allow everyone to save up to buy an epic item. And make it easier for those with epic items to get other epic items they want, by selling and buying.

[MrSmith]

About 90% of the loot I find is comparable to the stuff I encounter in the Shadows of Undrentide campaign for levels 1-5. For those of you who have forgotten that campaign and don't know what I mean by this, it's NwN1's second official campaign, well known for being relatively low level and low magic compared to the OC. Amongst the other 10%, 90% of it is still only vendor junk. Talk about a grindy game, eh.

This is looting the highest level epic dungeons and bosses on the server, by the way.

Which is why a collective effort to move away from trading epics for epics, and instead buying them with gold, is the best thing that can happen for the game. Allow everyone to save up to buy an epic item. And make it easier for those with epic items to get other epic items they want, by selling and buying.

What is the value proposition for someone with a truly rare item to let the item go for gold when they could hold it for an equally valuable piece of unique equipment? I can't think of one.

How are you going to compel them to sell their one-of-a-kind item for gold and not barter it for a like item? I can't think of a way to do that.

I opine one of the reasons players barter epic items instead of opting to sell them for gold is because they are seeking an exchange of equal value. Gold's assessed value is relative to what you can do with it. You can't eat it, you can't defeat a boss with it, and you can't heal wounds with it. And on this server, you can't buy truly unique items with it.

Cheers!

[zhazz]

About 90% of the loot I find is comparable to the stuff I encounter in the Shadows of Undrentide campaign for levels 1-5. For those of you who have forgotten that campaign and don't know what I mean by this, it's NwN1's second official campaign, well known for being relatively low level and low magic compared to the OC. Amongst the other 10%, 90% of it is still only vendor junk. Talk about a grindy game, eh.

This is looting the highest level epic dungeons and bosses on the server, by the way.

Which is why a collective effort to move away from trading epics for epics, and instead buying them with gold, is the best thing that can happen for the game. Allow everyone to save up to buy an epic item. And make it easier for those with epic items to get other epic items they want, by selling and buying.

What is the value proposition for someone with a truly rare item to let the item go for gold when they could hold it for an equally valuable piece of unique equipment? I can't think of one.

How are you going to compel them to sell their one-of-a-kind item for gold and not barter it for a like item? I can't think of a way to do that.

I opine one of the reasons players barter epic items instead of opting to sell them for gold is because they are seeking an exchange of equal value. Gold's assessed value is relative to what you can do with it. You can't eat it, you can't defeat a boss with it, and you can't heal wounds with it. And on this server, you can't buy truly unique items with it.

Cheers!

Setting the maximum price that any item can/should be sold for is the difficult part. At least it opens the option of extremely rare item A being sold for maximum gold value, and that maximum gold value being used to purchase extreme rare item B. Regardless of the buyer having something the seller actually wants. That's the entire purpose of money in the first place.

One "simple" way of determining an items worth is to go to the auctions, and attempt to list an item. It will tell the game's estimatation of the item's worth. Is it going to be accurate? No. But it's at least consistent.

Right now those awesome items are hoarded by the players that get them. And they sit and rot in storage because nothing is every quite good enough for that player. It stiffles the economy of the game. When all items have a gold cost, then all items have value in the economy, because they represent a stepping stone towards something, rather than just fuel consumables.

In the end it's just pure greed on the part of the hoarders. And unfortunately a lot of players are hoarders.

[MrSmith]

Right now those awesome items are hoarded by the players that get them. And they sit and rot in storage because nothing is ever quite good enough for that player. It stifles the economy of the game.

"Hoarded" has a pejorative connotation.

When all items have a gold cost, then all items have value in the economy...

This simply is not an accurate statement. Every item has value, but only items listed with a price have an actual gold cost.

In the end, it's just pure greed on the part of the hoarders. And unfortunately, a lot of players are hoarders.

This reads like a value judgment. It's healthy to admire another character's success... Less so if one covets that character's possessions.

[athornforyourheart]

I'd say that for the most part, people should be focusing on the RP aspect of their character and not worry too much about powerful items and mechanical power. I know thats probably wishful thinking for me, but the amount of influence a character can get through RP far exceeds any mechanical power that can be gained through items as far as I see it. Though I am aware everyone finds different things fun in these types of places. This is just my personal 2 cents.

+1

just gonna echo this as my added two cents


Lastly, the whole concept of "Players are greedy because they horde" is so ridiculous to me. A good majority get their epic items through endless looting through the sometimes horrible loot table. It's their time and effort that they have to dedicate to mindless stomping and popping chests. Some of you log in and stand at the campfire or RP in a temple all day while others go hunt dungeons and dragons for epic loots. Both each have fun doing what they do. I'll admit, I rarely hear my friends who actually do dungeons all day complain about those who are rping all the time and get a majority of the DM events.

Bottom line, two styles. And each person has fun their own way. Their gear, they can do as they please... they shouldn't suffer negative backlash because they won't sell their epic finds for something as simple as gold (which you can find/get in more places than you can epic loot). One takes more effort than the other.

[MrSmith]

I've read crafting is not something the server plans to introduce in the near future, and yet a modified version of crafting is a practical solution to the server's economy.

Crafting components are necessary to make a wonderous or enchanted item. For example, on another persistent server, King's Tear is a precious stone that was required to craft a +4 weapon. Ring of Invisibility required a Pearl, etc. As it is, crafting components are simply sold for a few coins.

Add crafting components to the loot table. Once a character amasses the necessary component items to add an enchantment... let them post this IC on the forum and solicit DM support to role play enchanting their item.

There isn't any need to develop a complex crafting capability when the NWN2 engine already allows it, and DMs routinely perform these functions. If someone wants to add a specific enchantment to a cloak, ring, weapon, etc... they can seek out this knowledge in-game and through RP. This would increase the opportunities for RP.

Cheers!

[zhazz]

Right now those awesome items are hoarded by the players that get them. And they sit and rot in storage because nothing is ever quite good enough for that player. It stifles the economy of the game.

"Hoarded" has a pejorative connotation.

When all items have a gold cost, then all items have value in the economy...

This simply is not an accurate statement. Every item has value, but only items listed with a price have an actual gold cost.

In the end, it's just pure greed on the part of the hoarders. And unfortunately, a lot of players are hoarders.

This reads like a value judgment. It's healthy to admire another character's success... Less so if one covets that character's possessions.

I'll provide an example of the issue at hand. Try not to read too much into the words use, and instead focus on the message conveyed.

For the sake of argument I'm going to go way over the top in terms of a powerful item. Something so rare that it's doubtful it even exists, though the RIG may be able to produce one every 10 or so years given X number of players looting Y number of chests Z times per week for those 10 years.

In this case the player's name is HappyBob.

HappyBob finds a Mithral Full Plate +4 AC +32 Spell Resistance +2 Universal Saves. This is quite obviously a very powerful item. They have no use for it themselves, so they save it for the day when something of equal value comes along. Value in their eyes at least. So they list the item on the forums.

The months go by, and while a lot of players do offer quite powerful items, such as a Scimitar +4 EB +3 Vampiric +1d10 Acid, none are quite what HappyBob is actually looking for. They of course see the immense value of such items, but it's not what they're looking for. Other players offer a multitude of powerful items in exchange for that one item, but again none of them are what HappyBob is looking for, so those offers get refused.

Months turn to a few years, and the item remain unsold. More and more offers pile up, but nothing is quite what HappyBob is looking for. They know that they could of course accept any of the offers, but since what they're after is also exceedingly rare, they prefer to hold onto their item. Just in case someone happen to find that singular item that will make any sort of trade happen.

Those few years turn to more, and HappyBob starts to lose interest in the server due to other hobbies or just real life happening. So they decide to play less. At this point it's been at least a year since the last offer for that awesome they have, so they've sort of forgotten it's even there. Then they finally quit the server. During the few months that the start in contact on the forums none make any offers for their item. They no longer visit the forum, and the item becomes wholly unavailable.

Since the item was newer used on any character, nor was it sold to anyone, it might as well have not existed.

This has happened several times. The forum is ripe with trade posts containing excellent items that belong to inactive players. Of course not all items have been kept for the once in a billion chance of something similarly valued, but there are a few at least that are on that scale, where nothing seemed to suffice.



Now consider instead if there was an actual means of assigning a value to an item, and HappyBob maxed it out for that item they found as per server rules limitations (assuming such exists in this example). How that value is calculated isn't important right now. That's an implementation detail. We're talking overall design here.

With such a system in place, their item now has a non-abstract value that other players can immediately know. Yes, it might be maxed out by the system that values an item, but it at least has a value. Whatever item that HappyBob is going to want to buy is likely also going to max out on the value scale. But that's okay. Because as long as HappyBob can sell or trade their item for either gold or a multitude of other items combining to the same value, they will know that they can get the item they want once it becomes available.




I don't know about everyone else, but I definitely prefer the latter system. Both as a potential buyer, and as a seller. If I can sell my awesome item, and know for a fact that the revenue from that sale can definitely be used to get me what I want later on, then why shouldn't I make a sale? Someone gets an item they want, and I still get to buy my item when it eventually becomes available. Even if it never does, at least someone got to use the item I found, rather than it just collecting dust.

The devil is of course in the details. How to make such a calculation, I don't know. Whatever crafting system is eventually implemented will have to figure that out too. Because each and every crafting component will have to represent an economic value that will all combine to determine the final value of the crafted item.


Personally? I'd rather just remove anything but the stock standard +1 to +4 items, and let everything else be crafted. Crafting materials can either be found from drops, or be sold by special vendors at a given gold price. The latter would at least provide a determinstic value calculation for all non-standard items.

[Planehopper]

I have zero interest in allowing anyone to assign value to something in the way you describe.

Having been around a while, and operated enough trades to have some healthy experience in doing so, there is no way to assign value to something like that.

I have traded upwards of a million coins for an item, that other thought was worth less than 100k by finding the right trade partner. I have also traded items that some would consider 'better' than what I received in return (more often than not). It was all about what I personally valued more, and what the other person in the trade valued more. Why would anyone accept a third party valuation?

I don't see that happening. I don't see staff coalescing behind that idea that devalues supply/demand, and I dont see any third party being capable of assessing standardized values that it would require.

And whether i keep an item in storage from now until I leave forever... who's business is that, and how does that impact you in the slightest? It was never yours and you think thats a bad thing?

I'd rather just remove anything but the stock standard +1 to +4 items, and let everything else be crafted.

I doubt I even want to know how you propose to do that without a wipe.

[Rhifox]

Value is not something that can be determined by a third party. It's determined by the collective estimation of a thing's worth, compared to the collective estimation of the value of gold. Gold is only a valuable trade commodity if it can buy things, and when we have an economy largely dominated by endlessly tradeable, never-disappearing gear, gold is going to lose its relevance once people have purchased everything they can possibly buy.

Gold is heavily inflated on BG, which is why it's worthless, due to years of significant gain (sometimes through printing-money exploits) and limited sinks (especially among looters, who don't always have the incentive to spend their gold on RP projects, which is our biggest gold sinks right now). The only way to make gold value meaningful again in the way zhazz is describing would be to introduce a new epic store with even better items at even higher values. And that would only last until people bought everything they want from the store, at which point gold would soon become worthless again.


I have personally been considering introducing 100% RCR tokens that can be bought for with high amounts of gold, to introduce a sink that would appeal both to social RPers and looters. This would take some gold out of the economy and raise its value again. Gold with more value then begins to become a more viable trade item for loot. Likewise, it might be time to consider raising the price of consumables and consumable crafting, which are primarily used by looters and pvpers with lots of money. More spells could do with some gold costs, too, as consumable changes largely hurt martials, while spellcasters have few gold concerns unless they RCR.

In short, for gold to be a useful method of trade for gear, it must itself be a scarce and valuable resource. And for that to happen, we have to make perishable things more expensive and otherwise introduce things that people want to actually buy with gold (things that ideally will be bought multiple times).

[Steve]

If gold production from killing mobs and opening chests was reduced by 50%+….then you’d see a difference around hear.

Just like epic items produced by the RIG, whatever is scarce is what is I value.

I’ll also add this thought: there is a Random Item Generating NPC in the Wide, that is a good gold sink (if the damn NPC produced anything good, which in itself is rare). Simply “up” the quality and epicness and PRICE of these items.

I could also imagine a gambling-producing RIG NPC, where you have the choice to offer the NPC 50k, 100k, 500k, 1 mill, 2mill, etc, and each larger amount has a 40/60 percent chance of producing a lower tier/higher tier epic item from the Loot Table.

As Rhifox said and many others before, gold has to have a use, and a use that players are free to use without “supervision.”

[Hoihe]

I have a gold/item sink idea:

Players should have the ability to sacrifice 1/3 of items randomly on their person/storage to nullify any long-term injury or magical affliction (incl permastrikes) imposed on them by the DM team - either total loss of items or changing of values making the items worthless as all but sentimental reminders.

This would have no floor (ergo if your character only owns 3 +1 items, losing 1 +1 item still satisfies the same as if you lost 10 grandfathered items), but an effort should be made to police people who gift away their inventory/storage before trading their capital in for health.

[mastajabba]

Sounds to me like if you want epic items. Put in the work. It’s all the luck of the draw. End of story. System isn’t broken. You are not going to find epics by idle RP nor by throwing gold that the person who got the epic had to grind probably has a dragons horde amount of gold himself.

The easiest solution, find some friends and start hitting areas. You will a have some fun adventuring and you might get that epic star cutter or Izz’s +4 Armor +4 Cha mithral full plate.

[Snarfy]

I've read crafting is not something the server plans to introduce in the near future, and yet a modified version of crafting is a practical solution to the server's economy.

Crafting might also help in getting players back out into dungeons and various unused/neglected areas, assuming materials spawned in chests... and also assuming that those materials weren't subject to the zone level restrictions alas, we can all dream, cant we?

The easiest solution, find some friends and start hitting areas. You will a have some fun adventuring and you might get that epic star cutter or Izz’s +4 Armor +4 Cha mithral full plate.

I can only speak for myself here but, in addition to having no use for gold, scouring for epic gear is just not worth my time. I've looted over the years until my eyes bled and maybe found 5 items that were worth keeping, and another 5 that were classified as "epic" which I shuffled off somewhere or sold?

I don't give 2 hoots about finding uber items so much as I want to see more characters dungeoneering across the server(aka: adventuring) while finding anything at all, and not have to consult a flow chart while dancing around some arbitrary, immersion breaking, and distinctly OOC level restriction. Adventuring should be one of the more predominant activities on BG, all kinds of great roleplay gets generated by and spawns out of it, but it seems like it's paling in comparison to campfire gatherings filled with, IMHO, flat socialite roleplay.