Coming Soon: Discussion Thread (2020)

[Hoihe]

https://imgur.com/a/vqZpu1g

CR 24 Stone Giants.

Consumables used:
Dimension Door to bypass strength check
Heroism scroll.

Spells used:
IMA + Shield + Mirror image to allow me to go faster. Could have done without any, but it'd have been very slow with crit immune enemies.
Keen Edge x2 for my sustain and my damage weapon.

https://imgur.com/a/vqZpu1g

Bug was found: The boss (the Stone Giant Thane) does not drop a key to open his chest.

[Valefort]

Re-hooked areas

[chad878262]

So it has been a couple weeks, wondering what the general feeling is with the changes. From my perspective I have done several loot runs, foregoing my normal adventuring for mad-sprint to clear an area and I gotta say loot is definitely better when you are in CR appropriate area's (which includes 'easier' CR areas IMO, such as going to CR 7-10 when you are level 15 or CR20 at level 30). I started out going to several different area's, but then the past week and a half did 12 'runs' in Cloudpeaks (FG Keep, Lich, Elite Lizardlings) in order to compare the same area over several runs. While I have provided feedback staffside on more specifics of a few of the better runs, my general finding is that 2 out of the 12 times I found something epic and, when I did it was more than one epic. The other 10 were not 'bad' per say as I still didn't lose gold even while using consumables (PfE, Deathward, IMA, and Stoneskin wands, mostly), but were full of stuff I just sold to vendor. Now, the PC I used has maxed appraise so even +1 items sold for around 1,000 gold, so I realize for some the same run may have simply broke even or only made a little, but when you consider each use of a wand costs approximately 2-500 gold, even using the above 4 wands 4-5 times comes to about 10K. When you factor in those couple times where I got 3 or 4 very good or even great epic items it is more than breaking even, overall.

My thought is that where looting experience is 'bad' subjectively speaking is that each time I either was getting amazing stuff or vendor trash, never anything that was just good or interesting. From my perspective it just doesn't seem like you have much chance of findling like a Greater named item (the stuff that is slightly weaker than 'epic' but still better than a plain +4 weapon - for example Greater Vilebite Axe or something). If possible, while I continue to work on a more thorough rework of the table, what I would like to see is possibly to lower the chance of the highest tier/epic drops, but increase the chance for the Greater stuff and raise the floor of what happens on a 'bad roll'. However, these are just my thoughts, would be interested to hear from others, especially those who have gone to the same area 10 or more times and tracked or at least kept mental notes on their runs to not just guess at it. It's easy to remember that 10 out of 12 runs didn't drop anything of much interest, maybe a couple AH items that have some chance of selling at best, but it is important to remember those other 2 runs as well.

Cheers everyone, thanks.

[RagingPeace]

So it has been a couple weeks, wondering what the general feeling is with the changes. From my perspective I have done several loot runs, foregoing my normal adventuring for mad-sprint to clear an area and I gotta say loot is definitely better when you are in CR appropriate area's (which includes 'easier' CR areas IMO, such as going to CR 7-10 when you are level 15 or CR20 at level 30). I started out going to several different area's, but then the past week and a half did 12 'runs' in Cloudpeaks (FG Keep, Lich, Elite Lizardlings) in order to compare the same area over several runs. While I have provided feedback staffside on more specifics of a few of the better runs, my general finding is that 2 out of the 12 times I found something epic and, when I did it was more than one epic. The other 10 were not 'bad' per say as I still didn't lose gold even while using consumables (PfE, Deathward, IMA, and Stoneskin wands, mostly), but were full of stuff I just sold to vendor. Now, the PC I used has maxed appraise so even +1 items sold for around 1,000 gold, so I realize for some the same run may have simply broke even or only made a little, but when you consider each use of a wand costs approximately 2-500 gold, even using the above 4 wands 4-5 times comes to about 10K. When you factor in those couple times where I got 3 or 4 very good or even great epic items it is more than breaking even, overall.

My thought is that where looting experience is 'bad' subjectively speaking is that each time I either was getting amazing stuff or vendor trash, never anything that was just good or interesting. From my perspective it just doesn't seem like you have much chance of findling like a Greater named item (the stuff that is slightly weaker than 'epic' but still better than a plain +4 weapon - for example Greater Vilebite Axe or something). If possible, while I continue to work on a more thorough rework of the table, what I would like to see is possibly to lower the chance of the highest tier/epic drops, but increase the chance for the Greater stuff and raise the floor of what happens on a 'bad roll'. However, these are just my thoughts, would be interested to hear from others, especially those who have gone to the same area 10 or more times and tracked or at least kept mental notes on their runs to not just guess at it. It's easy to remember that 10 out of 12 runs didn't drop anything of much interest, maybe a couple AH items that have some chance of selling at best, but it is important to remember those other 2 runs as well.

Cheers everyone, thanks.

The only ares I've hit repearedly are the reaching woods, troll caves and ogre cave (while leveling 22-26, grouped and solo). I havent written down all my findings but my general feeling is that there is very little sellable loot, I've barely gone to the auctions to sell at all. The trash loot I find for the most cases sell for below 1400 gold which is my biggest problem as that used to be my main income. With that said I have also found some high tier gear but I can count it on one hand. I agree with you that it seems like either you find trash gear or you find epic. I mostly find +1 to +2 gear, whether its ab, ac or attributes but most of it has been +1.

[Hoihe]

I havn't really done repeat runs,

But I've went to the following areas as a level 29 PC:

Frost Giant Fortress (solo) - earlier post shows I didn't find anything worth selling, with 50 gold and a cheap scroll being most finds
Greypeaks (party) - I once found a 666 gold drop, otherwise it was 50-100 gold with a scroll or potions. The General's chests and the Balor's chests gave me +2 studded leather, +2 chainshirt, +2 mace
Stone Giant Fortress (solo) - I found gold and cheap scrolls/potions in chests, a +2 studded leather on a skeleton, in boss room found a wand and a +2 scythe.
Nashkel Mines (party) - Gold and cheap potions/scrolls. Occasional books. Never anything I could sell until pit fiend sarcophagi, where I found a +2 battleaxe.
Durlag's Tower (Solo, first level) - Found nothing I could sell, backed out early due to level drain. May revisit.
Spirit Troll Cave - Didn't find a chest until 2/3 way in, backed out due to caster mobs making it risky to progress.

Part runs don't have screenshots as I was focused on playing.

[Steve]

You Staff guys and gals asked us to wait a whole month to get a good review!

Even you guys can’t wait to get better returns!!! Lol.

[Tanlaus]

I’ve mostly stayed in the UD, since it is less trafficked anyway, so there are less epic areas but between the ruins of Oghrann, lava caves and deep drider wilds I’ve probably done about 20 or so runs at this point.

My current thoughts echo Chad’s. I’ve found more than my fair share of epic items, and lots of “50 gold and a scroll/potion.” Overall loot feels better to me, I’ve made more over the last few week that I normally do and this is without selling some of those epic items, but psychologically those runs where you don’t pull anything do feel like a disappointing waste of time, even knowing the bigger picture.

So, lowering the possibility of epic items but raising the floor for higher tiered chests would probably go a long way towards smoothing out the experience.

For people who don’t know, Chad has taken up the Herculean task of cleaning up and organizing the several thousand lines of the loot table. That will go a long way to helping smooth the curve from low to high tier chests.

[chad878262]

You Staff guys and gals asked us to wait a whole month to get a good review!

Even you guys can’t wait to get better returns!!! Lol.

We are waiting a month before making any changes. however, I felt that a little past the halfway point it'd be good to see if folks are still thinking "this sucks and is just flat out worse in every way to before the change." or if, like me some folks found that loot is better. The issue is that one run (and honestly even my 12 runs) isn't a huge sample size, but thus far that is all we have is isolated details of a run or a few runs. I'm hoping that some "dedicated looters" might comment with findings based upon double digit runs. Unfortunately for the most part it is uncommon for a lot of folks to post about positive things, but there is always "a chance"

[PaulImposteur]

Overall loot feels worse to me, compared to prior this update. At the same token with Epic shops in most cases I've just relied solely on those to build out characters that were in need of help. The flow of gold feels less steady when trying to achieve getting those.

I was being long winded, so hid it in the spoiler

Hidden: show

I think there's also a big part where I've become jaded to +3s since I have a good amount of Epic gear spread throughout my toons. I remember back in the day being level 24 and having a +3 was considered fantastic. The chests were filled with rags, and empty steins even at Durlags which was lol. Also back then only one person could get a chest a time, instead of shared loot. Which I certainly will never wish for that to be the case again.

Getting those big chunks of gold was nice for rounding out a character without relying on RNG. I've been here 9 years and don't recall ever looting a +4, which is a stroke of bad luck. Because only within the last two years is the first time I had a +4, and it was due to gold. Relying on the RNG systems while neat to find cool stuff, in theory should be rewarding it ends up just creating a trade-only/no-gold scenario. Which is what it used to be, which back in the day made gold essentially worthless (Before Epic Vendors)

I think having a larger sum of gold coming in isn't such a bad thing, so long as there are things to purchase, as finding something Epic is such a rare occasion and in some cases never happens. It was nice to see the increased gold so I could slowly invest it towards something that made playing a character dramatically more fun.

Overall I don't like the nerf to how much gold per a chest is dropping it feels 10x lower. Because of Epic Vendors being reliant on gold, looting a +3 ends up just being a temporary item until you fill out that slot. So while I do end up getting more +3s from this system (Still have yet to loot a +4), it ends up becoming Vendor trash.

The thing that surprises me most is that items on the auction house have not massively inflated in price despite the last two years of easily acquired gold.

Finding alternate ways to create gold sinks that would contribute to peoples enjoyment on the server and milking them of their gold I think would be more worthy of a task. Though I do appreciate all the work being done to try and bring things more in line with the vision of some.

Without a gold sink, adjusting how much loot we get doesn't change the fact we have an ever building pile of gold across the server. That gold is still in those coffers with nothing to be spent on. My first 7 years of playing I never broke 100k, which in retrospect is absolutely crazy how difficult things were. With an aging community and some of us having less time, due to work, family, and other things. I'm worried of a return to those painful years when I get 15gp and a scroll, and I even with rose-tinted glasses, they were not good times.

Over-all I think even now is an improvement over the olden-days. But making things slower doesn't in the end change the end result of us having an infinitely inflating economy. I don't think this change has enough impact to change the issue it is trying to resolve and leads to a less enjoyable experience when I'm running around for loot, when I'm short on time and no friends are on.

You can probably tell by this post that I'm a pretty casual player. Despite my years I'm not really part of any close-knit groups, never have been part of some of those higher echelons of RP groups. I'm a pretty casual player that RPs when I want to have fun, and grind when I want. To me overall, this change has been negative. But, in the grand-scheme of things I don't think its impact is too much of a detriment. I just wish efforts were put into adding more things to dump gold into.

[Steve]

2020/12/16—

Graypeaks (CR 27) with PC Lvl 30 Surface Aasimar (solo) — 3rd run after Loot Rebalance

Gr. Fire Elemental drop:
Potion of : Herb, Garlic

Gr. Fire Elemental Drop:
Darksteel Chainmail plain

Chest:
690gp

Chest:
62gp
Healer’s Kit +6

Chest:
29gp
Garnet
Scroll: Remove Curse
Fire Opal (appropriate!)

Black Pudding drop:
Helmet: Craft Trap +1

Beholder (in cave) drop:
196gp
Gauntlet: AB+2, EB +1, On Hit: Stun DC=14 50% / 2 rounds

Black Pudding, Elder drop”
87gp
Tower Shield: AC +4, Spell Failure +10%
Shuriken: AB +3, DMG Bonus Electrical 2, EB +1

Beholder Cave Chest:
1112gp

Chest:
1280gp
Arrow of Greater Dispelling

Chest:
41gp
Fire Agate

Chest:
900gp

---

---

Fire Giant General’s Cave—

Fire Giant General:
5194gp
Banded Mail: SR 16, 60% weight reduction
Heavy Shield +4

General's Lair Chest:
30gp
Bullet of Screaming

General's Lair Chest:
51gp
Potion of Shield

General's Lair Chest:
884gp

General's Lair Chest:
39gp
Scroll of Flame Arrow (appropriate!)
Silver Necklace
Chainmail +1 AC


As one can see from this 3rd run, and the previous 2 runs, chests are not providing me with anything great, or even valuable except as trash sells for coin. The 3rd run finally dropped some +4 items (2), both those were from the Boss and a mob (which haven't been rebalanced).

So for me, in this 3rd run and third week since the Rebalance, I am not seeing better items at all.

PS— this isn't the only toon I've played in these last 3 weeks either. And on my other toons, I haven't seen any saveable "great" items, either. Mostly just trash sells for coin. Which is boring as shit, and was similar to how the loot experience was for me BEFORE the Loot Rebalance. Sorry guys and gals, I'm just not seeing what I'm supposed to be seeing!

Hidden: show

2020/12/08—

Graypeaks (CR 27) with PC Lvl 30 Surface Aasimar (solo) — 2nd run after Loot Rebalance

Chest:
54 gp
Potion of Ghostly Visage

Chest:
49 gp
Scroll of Slay Living
Alexandrite gem

Chest Outside Beholder Cave:
34 gp
Gold Necklace

Beholder Cave Chest:
49 gp
Potion of Bear’s Endurance Greater
Potion of Barksin

Yellow Named Fire Giant drop:
BURNING STICK!!! Haha funny devs.

Chest (got a crunch alert!):
Broken Item
36 gp
Potions of Bears Endurance
Grenade: Alchemists fire

---

Fire Giant General’s Cave—

Fire Giant General:
Quarterstaff Paladin 0 Level bonus spell; Fortitude -2
Shurikens +1
Scroll of Camouflage
5000gp

Chest:
Rapier +1
34 gp

Chest:
56 gp
Silver Necklace

Chest (got a crunch alert!)
Broken Item
54 gp
Crossbow, Light: EB +1, Mighty +3, Hide +1

Chest:
1547 gp

---

Stone Giants’ Chest:
46 gp
Garnet

Chest (got a crunch alert):
240 gp

Fire Giant drop (I know this doesn’t count, but…):
Clothes: CHA +1; Spell Immunity: Harm


The 2nd run was WORSE than my 1st run (in spoiler). And I am honest here, not omitting anything or skewing numbers.

Hidden: show

2020/11/30—

Graypeaks (CR 27) with PC Lvl 30 Surface Aasimar (solo) — 1st run after Loot Rebalance

Chest:
Scroll: Fireball
Gold Piece: 726

Chest:
Light Shield +1
Gold: 69

Gr. Fire Elemental drop:
166gp

Gr. Fire Elemental drop:
Kukri: Massive Cries 2d6; Mithral; Spell Immunity: Grease; 60% weight reduction
Pit Fiend Ichor (poison): DC 27
Magic Quarterstaff: Sorcerer spell Level 1; Dmg Bonus Magical 1; EB +1
Burning Stick!!!

Chest:
53 gp
Scroll: Invisibility Purge

Pudding drop:
Scale Mail: AC +4; Reduced Saving Throws: Positive Energy -2; SR 18

Pudding drop:
Boots AC dodge +1

Beholder’s cave chest outside:
63gp
Potion of Spider Skin
Blade Barrier
Create Undead

Beholder’s Cave Chest:
34gp
Potion of Owl’s Wisdom

Beholder drop:
Quarterstaff: 20m Purple Light; Only Usable by Evil

Chest:
33gp
Potion of Vigorous Cycle

Chest:
Scimiar AB +2

Fire Giant (yellow name) drop
Katana +2 EB; Cold Iron

Chest:
882gp
Silver Ring
Magic Wand: Wand of the Heavens (lesser)

Gr. Fire Elemental drop:
222gp

Stone Giant Camp Chest:
54gp
Bolt of Fire (232) Fire 1d6
Potion of Righteous Might

---

Fire Giant General’s Cave

Gr. Fire Elemental (Yellow Name):
Ring +1 Deflection; HP +6
Padded Armor: AC Bonus +1; Spell Immunity: Mass Charm Monster
180 gp

Rat: Mandarin Garnet

Fire Giant General:
5000gp
Studded Leather Armor +1

General's Cave Chest:
1100gp

General's Cave Chest:
36gp
Gold Ring

General's Cave Chest:
60gp
Scroll: Prismatic Spray

General's Cave Chest:
Banded Mail (plain)
Heavy Crossbow (plain)

---

All I can say is...

[yyj]

I will keep editing this post to add more results, I am trying to get at least 50 runs done, good picks will be highlighted with a different colored text
Edited to add HD of character looting
The characters running this are currently 24 and 26 respectively.

The 4th chest is always the boss chest.

Just finished looting reaching woods on Shael Greencloak, these are the results:

CHESTS: lvl 26 character
1. 490 GOLD
2 100 bullets vamp +1
3. 51 gold , pot of bull str
4. 40 gold, fire agate

boss chest: 44 gold, lesser resto pot, fire agate
boss drop: scroll of cure light wounds

I had to use one health pot because I had to fight like 6 gnolls at some point, used charge from wands: deathward, heroism , improved mage armor and mirror image and fired 9 velvet darts.

2nd run lvl 26 character
1. 32 gold, glittering necklace
2. 35 gold, silver ring
3. 40 gold, copper necklace
4. 34 gold, copper necklace

3rd run

lvl 24 character
1. 1088 gold, fire agate, malachite
2. Light shield +1 -10% weight , plain ring, plain darts
3. wall of fire scroll
4. 128 gold, gloves of yellow rose +1

4th run
level 26 character
1. 1100 gold, mundane sling
2. 48 gold, copper ring
3. 47 gold , silver necklace
4: 24 gold, gold ring, magenta book of drow history

5th run
level 24 character
1. 52 gp, ring of nine lives
2. opal, 52 gold, broken item (the trap broke the chest iself)
3. copper ring, 54 gold, contagion
4. 464 gold

6th
Level 24 character
1. 1024 , malachite
2.36 gp, scroll of phantasmal killer, potion of deflection
3. 511 gp
4. 860 gp, thornskin lvl 30

7th
Level 27 character
1. 45 gold, Helm's Hold (mundane book)
2. 284 gold
3. 34 gold, holy water
4. 22 gp, Scroll of Heal, Scroll of mind blank, copper necklace.

8th
level 27 character
1. 233 arrow +1 , 32 gp
2. 42 gp, silver necklace
3. 34 gp, boots of striding +2, scroll of breach.
4. Scimitar +1 , potion of barkskin, potion of cure light wounds, 35gp

9th
Lvl 28 character

1. Agazanar scorcher, 42 gp
2. Mundane amulet
3. 38 gp, copper necklace
4. 698 gp, rainbow blast.

10th
Lvl 29 character

1. 28gp, Port Llast (mundane book)
2. 22gp, thieves tools +3 , scroll of Bless, scroll of Charm Person
3. 49 gp, garnet.
4. 876 gp, silver necklace, scroll of Resist Elements.

[MrSmith]

Cloakwood East, Mine (CR 6) with PC Lvl 7 (solo)

Mine Level 1 - I averaged 22 gold at the chests and secured a +1 deflection belt at the skeleton loot point.
Mine Level 2 - I average 17.5 gold at the chests and Warmace +3 Deflection (vs. Good) on one of the skeleton loot points. The rest was a potion of aid, etc.

Cheers!

[izzul]

found two adamantines today

character: level 11
area : island of ulgoth beard, cloakwood, cloakwood mines lvl 1,2, and 3, minatour, outside haunted house, gnoll cave, goblin cave, Xvart, wyvern, Thundar ride





seems the loot favors level appropriate areas.
back in the days, its very hard to find even one +4, seems some people found three +4 heavy shield, tower shield, and weapon easily these days within only few hours

[Valefort]

Feel free to connect on 86.253.172.101 to check things, would also help to spot problems !

[VillageGreenWitch]

First off: splendid that it's up!

Server transitions seem not working at the moment.

Farmlands -> Thundars Ride and Sharpwood -> Deeper Sharpwood returned the message "error: could not load module" and the game crashed.
Some texts are in french, too (like "you are in a full pvp area now" or "feat aquired: evasion")

EDIT: Characters that crashed during such a transition seem to receive the "could not load module" error upon next login and therefore cannot be used after such a crash.