Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

It sounds harsh, but hear me out.

Like 95% of the time, loot from drops and chests, are +1 items. Far too often, these are also armor, so there IS a weight issue. +1 items are also available from NPC merchants for very little coin at most all Starting Points for new PCs. Do the BG quests and a few hours in the graveyard, and your PC has 3k+ coin easy (on top of the starting 1k, or just, up the starting amount to 3k even!)

Essentially, +1 items are not worth it. I find more passed-over loot bags on the Server than ever before, because why? Players are just not interested in this crap. Yes, CRAP!!! Especially in the CR 15+ areas, where most PCs are already equipped with Epic Gear—thanks Level Reqs. removal!!—they just leave it. I'd rather see coin in those drops/chests. It makes more sense too!

I am also beginning to find more and more +2 items left on the ground, especially if they are Hide Armor +2. lol. But seriously, the economy is on the way to a Crash, big time, and many are not even picking up +2 items (from my experience as of late).

But, what still has value for the Epic Stores is gold coin. Gold coin also has a value at Mudd's Consignment, because that is the ONLY way to acquire items there—there is no trading.

The online Auction House is either coin or trades. And few if any people are bothering to trade/offer +1 or even +2 items, because essentially, you only need to play on BGTSCC for a week, and you'll have a enough coin to purchase VERY GOOD +2 or higher items on the Mudd's Consignment store.

So yes, I'm suggesting this: remove +1 / +2 items from the Loot Tables, replace that rate of items with just Coin or Gems, and let us find ACTUAL TREASURE, like +3 and up. The RIG would still produce +1/+2 items, as it does currently.

The coin and gems will be—or converted to—a vehicle for which we can ACTUALLY get what we want, cause no one wants +1 crap. It's a lot of Inventory space for very little. I personally would rather just see Coins pile up, as in, up the Coin output for Loot.

Please consider.

+1 stuff is fine to me... every few hundred gold from selling them helps. Yeah finding tons of +3 stuff would be better but +1 is still a profit.

How about finding the same "few hundred gold" in actual gold in place of +1 items, and not having to a) lug the gear back to a merchant, b) lug the gear back to a merchant.

Hmm... well i suppose that does work better.

What about those players just starting out? While it is likely that far more players use muled gear, we should still support low level play for those that don't and for new players.

How in the world would that help a crashing economy?

Steve wrote:How about finding the same "few hundred gold" in actual gold in place of +1 items, and not having to a) lug the gear back to a merchant, b) lug the gear back to a merchant.

That +1 item is going to be 250-1350 gp depending on the base item, enchantment type, merchant, and player character's Appraise skill. I'd rather keep lugging the gear back to a merchant than get 'few hundred gold' in place of these +1 items. Often enough the +2 items give the maximum NPC merchant purchase price too, even without skill point investment in Appraise skill.

And if you do not have enough strength to carry your loot, well, head over to the in game consingment store where you can often enough purchase cheap Bracers of Strength on a bargain!

dedude wrote:How in the world would that help a crashing economy?

And the economy ain't even crashing.

I like the variety. Reducing it down in this way, for me, is overly sterile and not fun.

i wear a few hats and one of these hats is loot runner. i make 95% of my coins off +1/+2 items. i also do not waste money buying gear for my alts. i essentially just wear what i can pick up. so no. taking away +1/+2 items is not good. i am sure im not the only one that plays like this either.

really bad idea from my perspective. i doubt i am alone here.

chad878262 wrote:What about those players just starting out? While it is likely that far more players use muled gear, we should still support low level play for those that don't and for new players.

Start off Level 1s with 3k coin. The first quests in BG net a Toon 2k. At Mudd's consignment, you can get stellar gear for 2–3k a pop. Players starting out will still earn the same coin via straight coin gains in place of loot. They would be saved from vending, that's all.

The economy is crashing when you have 5 x +3 dodge boots at Mudd's, and no one is buying. Removing +1/+2 from the Loot table won't save the economy, but it will save us from this farming paradigm (and present the opportunity for REAL treasure).

If you could earn THE SAME amount of Coin via coin from drops/chests as you do from carrying +1 loot to a vendor, would you really choose to spend that time vending, when it would be, more or less, a direct pay out?!

+1 and +2 items are actually fine. Finding those on a regular basis would be a step up from what many chests love to drop atm.

Honestly, spoons/broken items/other useless misc items, useless ammunition (+1-+4 and massive critical/elemental enchantments are good, the rest are just there to be tossed on the ground) and un-enchanted gear (including gear that just has a "requires X race/alignment" with nothing else) are the first items that need to go.

Steve wrote:

chad878262 wrote:What about those players just starting out? While it is likely that far more players use muled gear, we should still support low level play for those that don't and for new players.

Start off Level 1s with 3k coin. The first quests in BG net a Toon 2k. At Mudd's consignment, you can get stellar gear for 2–3k a pop. Players starting out will still earn the same coin via straight coin gains in place of loot. They would be saved from vending, that's all.

The economy is crashing when you have 5 x +3 dodge boots at Mudd's, and no one is buying. Removing +1/+2 from the Loot table won't save the economy, but it will save us from this farming paradigm (and present the opportunity for REAL treasure).

If you could earn THE SAME amount of Coin via coin from drops/chests as you do from carrying +1 loot to a vendor, would you really choose to spend that time vending, when it would be, more or less, a direct pay out?!

From my experience selling quite many +3 dodge boots, you still get from 10-20 bags for these easily enough.

I am both completely for, and completely against this.

I am for it because, frankly, most folks have zero interest in anything that is found. It's mostly, as was said before, +1 or +2 "junk" and as such, nobody will buy it. It's mostly sold to vendors. I stopped trying to pawn on Mudds because of that simple reason. Throw in the fact that there is NO level requirement for gear (which I'm against) and you've got pretty much no reason to even bother picking up said 'junk' items. Why bother?

Don't get me wrong. I'm fine with pawning it myself, but I've got a strong character. I'm a walking bag of holding. Other players however, may not be so lucky to have a character that they play normally that's as strong as Toman. But at the same time, I'm SORELY tempted to just pop a campfire, toss it all in, and go on my merry way. Sometimes, I want to just skip picking it up, since containers are iffy for me anyway (for some reason, my looting ability is wonky.) Besides, if we're already giving people the abililty to wear ANYTIHNG of any quality at any level, then just wipe the board of +1 and +2 and just start out with +3. I mean, why not? We've already got level 1s running around with gear WAY beyond what they 'normally' could use, so any notion of balance has already long since flown out the window.

On the flipside, I'm completely against it, because I, and probably many other characters, still have low level characters without much money. I personally don't really do the mule thing, so my other characters would get by on what they find, which is most likely going to be +1 or +2. Of course, just cleaning the slate of +1 and +2 and going +3.....eh, I dunno. Call me old fashioned, but I want a good risk vs reward, not just 'Here you go, i don't need this Vorpal Sword +3, since I found a +4. It's yours now. Have fun!'

So....eh, go figure.

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chambordini wrote:I think the best changes we could do is make magic items rarer in loot, it makes no sense that you can find something magical in every chest of every dungeon, also I'd limit the gold merchants have to buy items with from 1200-1400 * infinite that is now to far smaller amounts, and make merchants deal in specific goods, having a general merchant that sells every kind of weapon that exists as well as healing potions in the FAI, for example, makes no sense to me, healing goods should be traded in the Temple of Wisdom, melee weapons made of metal should go to blacksmiths or in lesser quantities to traders, exotic weapons like katanas should be sold by some foreign trader for example in the docks of Baldur's Gate. Ready to leave by ship or something.

My point is the way our looting system and store setups work is diabloesque, completely OOC. It should be setup in a way that is more congruent for the setting.

Also I don't think making the game easier on everyone by just having loot be great items would be a good idea, it'd just make the looting game extremely boring, and we'd have even more gold in our hands, you can make 10k gold in a single dungeon, say gnolls near the trade way, today, that doesn't take a week, takes 15 minutes. Our whole itemization could use a big revamp in my opinion but the changes I can think of I don't think anyone agrees with

I'd also pretty much just dump the RIG system, especially the naming part, it's terrible.

I support what you're proposing here, Chambo. You make good points in my opinion.

I would only drop the RIG if there was crafting, though. And even with my OP proposal, the RIG could still produce items with +1/+2 stats—I was mainly thinking of the static Loot Table, which I'm assuming is what is making 95% of drops/chests have +1 gear.

If it is the RIG that is generating such things, than by all that you find holy, please, PLEASE, take that line of code out!!!!