Update 9 Loot

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Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

I must confess that I am perplexed as to why Turbine have always found itemisation so hard. By 'itemisation' I don't just mean the design of the items but the overall effort/time/difficulty/reward ratio in instances.

Rockx is clearly a good guy. We all greatly appreciate the level of his engagement on the forums and he obviously both means well and works hard. Which means there is something else wrong, either some insurmountable difficulty or complication I don't get, or some deep cultural/design problem in Turbine.

I ran all three new 3-man the other day with a GRD/CPT and me on CMP. T2C modes for these are hard, especially in Scuttledells. They take time and effort. This is good, I'm not complaining. But from around 4 hours of play we got nothing other than deed completion medallions, bounties and a feeling of satisfaction. There is no reason to go back. It is very dispiriting. We had this with Fornost. I'll run anything once or twice for novelty, the new experience and deeds. But after that there has to be some sort of reward and a bounty doesn't cut it.

Why are we still having these discussions nearly six years after launch?

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You think that is bad? I spent my day, from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, farming the dungeons. We did run after run on tier 2. Mind you there is almost no way to do challenge mode as the trolls one shot the elves right off the bat. In that insane amount of time we never saw the teal journal drop which was one of the items half my group was in there for. We estimate that about 40+ runs were done in that amount of time. We always had 3 people looking for that journal. That means that about 120 chests ( 40 runs multiplied by three people per run) we never saw the item at all. Course the day was not a total loss and we found several agility rings that we were able to give to kinmates. But, when loot is there for your class and you never see it the discouragement grows immensely. We plan on repeating this later in the week to see if we can get just one to drop. RockX... fix your loot tables.

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Originally Posted by MOJO28

You think that is bad? I spent my day, from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, farming the dungeons. We did run after run on tier 2.

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From Turbine's perspective the fact that you did this makes the loot system a success. You went back time after time after time. Why would they change it? So you can get your item faster and go there less often?

After all those runs you probably have enough spare gold to do what I did - buy the teal pocket for 150g from the AH. Bind On Equip loot is the one great thing about the new instances.

To me the telling point about your tale is that you did all that on T1 despite the lower drop rate. That is logical. The increased drop rate for T2 and T2C does not justify the additional time and effort and difficulty, especially in Dungeons (where the devs answer to complaints about a stupid one-shot mechanic was to add a second stupid one-shot mechanic - the mind truly boggles). That disparity is what is such a mystery to me.

The loot has got to be proportional to how these instances are meant to be run.

If the devs want us to run them over and over again, then they have to be fast and a rare chance of something useful.

if the devs want something tougher, say t2, or t2 cm, then the instance should be much tougher, but the loot should be proportional, and the chance of that rare significantly increased.

Aeo

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Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

From Turbine's perspective the fact that you did this makes the loot system a success. You went back time after time after time. Why would they change it? So you can get your item faster and go there less often?

After all those runs you probably have enough spare gold to do what I did - buy the teal pocket for 150g from the AH. Bind On Equip loot is the one great thing about the new instances.

To me the telling point about your tale is that you did all that on T1 despite the lower drop rate. That is logical. The increased drop rate for T2 and T2C does not justify the additional time and effort and difficulty, especially in Dungeons (where the devs answer to complaints about a stupid one-shot mechanic was to add a second stupid one-shot mechanic - the mind truly boggles). That disparity is what is such a mystery to me.

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Read what you quoted. We ran tier 2 the entire time. I am a regular at watching the AH and have never seen the pocket item in there. People are asking for them in glff and no one has one for sale. Far as the gold goes. Apparently you have never run dungeons at current lvl. If you had you would notice that the mobs give about 20 or so silver and the chest is not much either. Far as running t2c I would like to see you try. If this is how turbine wants their loot system to go then it is flawed. I can spend this much time farming bg and come out with crystals, symbols and all sorts of teals. The fact that we spent 8 hours, and with 3 people looking for the same item, no one saw the thing. That to me is a flawed system.

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Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

I ran all three new 3-man the other day with a GRD/CPT and me on CMP. T2C modes for these are hard, especially in Scuttledells. They take time and effort. This is good, I'm not complaining. But from around 4 hours of play we got nothing other than deed completion medallions, bounties and a feeling of satisfaction. There is no reason to go back. It is very dispiriting. We had this with Fornost. I'll run anything once or twice for novelty, the new experience and deeds. But after that there has to be some sort of reward and a bounty doesn't cut it.

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Hey at least you got some bounties! :P When I did the challenge, the boss died right as the timer ran out so we died too. Completed it, got all our medallions and whatnot.. but the boss room became an insta-kill zone. Our two shiny chests were sitting there, but trying to run into the room meant instant death. Of course the ever helpful Turbine GMs couldn't loot the chests that were obviously sitting there....

But yeah, I completely agree with you. I have no desire to go back and run a lot of these challenges again. It doesn't appear to be worth my time and effort. So my friends and I stick to really quick t1 facerolls or just plain t2.

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

Sounds to me like you just don't like hunting shinies if rarity deters you, even while the drop rate is lower than maybe it oughta be.

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Sounds to me that you are presuming. Do not presume. You are talking to someone who ran Filikul for years after it got irrelevant, just for the Nanu housing item. I still haven't gotten it so I still join runs when they pop up. I love chasing after rare items as long as they interest me.

Except that's completely irrelevant to my point.

Before this new system, hunting shinines got you a ton of relics and IXP and other items as byproducts. Even if you didn't get what you wanted, something else dropped in each run. Your time was not wasted. Now? Now you don't get a thing of worth. You can run the same instance for 4 hours straight and get zero teals equipment in total in a small fellowship group. The average player doesn't like that. Not one bit.

Anyway, I already made my point in the earlier post. It was about how mindlessly farming a single instance gave more loot than the dedicated farming of any other instance, killing the instance cluster. You managed to make it sound about me. Congratulations.

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

But as for what Agis get: yeah there's Prudence from Twins. Don't know why you're laughing. Dead server?
Former Resident's Ring from Dungeons. Just get a group and rip through T2 non challenge once every 8 minutes. Eventually you get lucky.
There's Marubh's Something Bracelet from GG. Don't remember what it has besides 150 agi. Either 75 vit 38 fate or 75 fate 38 vit. Probably not more appealing than Huntsman, probably moreso than Footpad. Dunno your gear.
That's better than me as a might class, who basically just needed might rings and a pocket to upgrade. If I had owned a flask already, the journal pocket wouldve been a sidegrade.

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I'm laughing because I was a raider during the drought of 2010. We were running BG every week, because there was no alternative. I am sick of Barad Guldur. I would have gladly chased after it if it was in Iorbar's peak or Warg Pens (I never really grinded WP back then), but the reality that the one piece of equipment that I am truly interested in the update is in Twins is tragicomical. Durchest would have also made me laugh. I still haven't been to Durchest @85. I'm not desperate for loot.

I didn't mention rings because I know there is a ring. You may notice my post started with me saying I was running Dungeons. Why do you think I was running Dungeons? I'll keep running it until one drops.

As for that bracelet, it is trash. A bracelet with no critical rating is a waste of a bracelet slot for a Burglar. Or any DPS class, really.

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

I do think teal drop rate oughta be tweaked. I wouldn't ever argue that the loot chance in U9 isn't in a rough state. Like I said earlier in this thread, the teal-to-purple ratio in the check that occurs after it's been determined that loot was won oughta be shifted more in teal's favor.

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It's not just about the equipment. It's not just about chasing shinies. It's about the overall gains you get for your time input. If a single boss of a single instance sees more playtime than all other instances in the update combined, then there is something wrong with the reward plan.

Turbine has always been timid about rewarding players, but the current setup is a new low.

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

Despite too-low drops rates, the fellow who said that only Durchest is worth running thanks to Turbine was apparently ignoring that other content offers potential rewards that Durchest simply does not yield. And if someone wants those other rewards enough, they'll grind the content to get them. Which was the entire point of what you quoted.

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I've already made my point about this, both above and in my previous post. I disagree with you. I personally don't think a 1% drop chance on a teal is incentive enough to get the instance run frequently. Sure, some people will run it, but do you honestly think the developers want only "some people" to run the instance, after all the man hours that was put in? Do you honestly think they want 95% of the traffic to go through one 3 year old encounter? Wouldn't they rather have an In Their Absence scenario instead, where every instance saw frequent use? Yes, even Lost Temple was more popular than their new instances. That should say something.

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Originally Posted by MOJO28

The fact that we spent 8 hours, and with 3 people looking for the same item, no one saw the thing. That to me is a flawed system.

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I agree the system is flawed, but not for the reason you give.

The dogged pursuit of elusive teals has been part of the game since launch. Lagmas 44 times for Free-Cutter, Mordirith >50 times without getting Berghelm, Balrog >30 times with no Wig-Feld, Halls of Crafting ~20 times for Anvil, laughing as the Mistress gave us 2 pairs of Boots again...etc

At least with U9 there is teal loot worth running an instance over and over for. And this time Turbine threw us a bone by making the teals BoE so you can at least watch for them on AH or have a kindly friend pass it on to you. Otherwise from Turbine's PoV the system is working - it makes you run the instance over and over again. The fact that you want to punch walls at the end of your 8 hour session doesn't get recorded in Turbine's metrics. All they know is that you spent 8 hours in there. Why would they give you the Pocket faster, so you will run the instance less?

The real problem is that in all the other examples I listed (and there are many more) there was consolation if the teal didn't drop. In SoA that was 1-shot recipes, rep items, housing trophies and purple items. Post-MoM it was relics and IXP (often very generous amounts) or a unique barter item like in Roots of Fangorn. We were never in the situation where you could complete a challenge mode and receive nothing at all - nothing!

My concern is that U9 continues where Fornost left off. There is a very wide gap between what players expect from running hard content (and T2C is hard in Fornost and all three of the new 3-mans) and what rewards Turbine are offering. There is a miscommunication, or a breakdown, or a disconnect, of some sort which is leaving a gulf between Rockx's good intentions and hard work and the results as seen by players.

I find the new looting system excellent.

I find the quality of loots awful with few exceptions.There should be at least one 'awesome' teal loot in every instance for every class.

And finally , 2nd chest in t2Ch mode dropping bounties is stupid/awful/lame and turns this game into t1 farm easy mode, since it's much faster/easier and so gives better loot chances than the ''substantially'' (<-lol at this ) better t2.

Turbine does the hard part right and fails on the easy stuff , well played.
HOW HARD CAN IT BE MAKING DECENT LOOTS

This game is so casual nowadays. Call me elitist if it pleases you , but i see no point or benefit in running the challenging content.

Hopefully that changes in U10. If there was another middle-earth based MMO , i wouldnt think twice about leaving this easy-mode-wannabe-chinese-grinding game .

/rage_off

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Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

They take time and effort. This is good, I'm not complaining. But from around 4 hours of play we got nothing other than deed completion medallions, bounties and a feeling of satisfaction. There is no reason to go back. It is very dispiriting. We had this with Fornost. I'll run anything once or twice for novelty, the new experience and deeds. But after that there has to be some sort of reward and a bounty doesn't cut it.

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Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

Before this new system, hunting shinines got you a ton of relics and IXP and other items as byproducts. Even if you didn't get what you wanted, something else dropped in each run. Your time was not wasted. Now? Now you don't get a thing of worth. You can run the same instance for 4 hours straight and get zero teals equipment in total in a small fellowship group. The average player doesn't like that. Not one bit.
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Turbine has always been timid about rewarding players, but the current setup is a new low.

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Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

The real problem is that in all the other examples I listed (and there are many more) there was consolation if the teal didn't drop. In SoA that was 1-shot recipes, rep items, housing trophies and purple items. Post-MoM it was relics and IXP (often very generous amounts) or a unique barter item like in Roots of Fangorn. We were never in the situation where you could complete a challenge mode and receive nothing at all - nothing!

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This one page alone on the thread makes the issue obvious. Especially that last part. It's crazy kinds of disappointing to finally finish a challenge and get nothing.

The Isengard instance cluster had some desirable teals outside of the raid (Agi necklalce from Foundry, Huranc, Sarchol and Haul-Tagur from Pits, the Tac Mastery/Tac Mit necklace from Dargnakh, the warden shield from Fangorn's Edge, etc.). Sure, some runs you'd get exactly the stuff you weren't after, but at least you got *something* every time, and with the relatively small loot tables, chances were pretty good that if you did the instance about ten times you'd probably wind up with the item you were after.

The drop rates, for the 3-mans at least, is really off-putting. I haven't even run any of them yet because running full clear BG at least guarantees me tons of marks and decent medallions/seals, not to mention a pretty solid chance at gold items from Twins/LT. I've heard IP T2C is at least worth doing because it's a pretty quick, fun run and seems to have a decent drop rate for the gold items. When Warg Pens/Dungeons/Sword Halls/SG are obnoxiously difficult on T2 due to the damage bug one-shotting people/NPC's left and right and therefore generally taking way longer to complete, it's incredibly discouraging to even try to run that stuff for a slightly better chance at the same loot. That leaves facerolling through T1 or T2 non-challenge for Dungeons with a very poor loot showing. Guaranteed IXP pills/relics for everyone would be a step in the right direction, but from the sounds of it increasing the drop rate of gear (especially teals) is in order.

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Originally Posted by Gylve

The Isengard instance cluster had some desirable teals outside of the raid (Agi necklalce from Foundry, Huranc, Sarchol and Haul-Tagur from Pits, the Tac Mastery/Tac Mit necklace from Dargnakh, the warden shield from Fangorn's Edge, etc.). Sure, some runs you'd get exactly the stuff you weren't after, but at least you got *something* every time, and with the relatively small loot tables, chances were pretty good that if you did the instance about ten times you'd probably wind up with the item you were after.

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Sic! The new individual loot distribution has a high potential for frustration for a considerable number of people. In a few words, the reason is the following:

The random mechanism behind loot distribution leads to a skewed and rather heavy-tailed distribution which does not correspond to common intuition about randomness. Therefore, arguments that the effects of chance (some people get a lot, others nothing except for bounties) are balancing out after a few runs are not true - at least not for a non-neglible proportion of the population. The effects of luck are averaging out only after (too) MANY runs.

Under the old system, the loot was selected randomly for the whole group. Sometimes, you had to wait rather long for a particular item drop, but if you were patient enough you had a very high chance to get it if you were willing to run an instance for e.g. 30-50 times.

Now, we have random selections for each individual player. To avoid swamping the community with loot, the chances for particular item drops have to be smaller. Now, the number of runs which you have to make to get a desired item with some degree of certainty increases a lot to several hundreds of runs - too much for most people.

Let’s look at some hard numbers for a piece of jewelry, say an agi ring, which you want desperately and which drops from T2CM in a 3-men instance.

Old system: The CM chest contains a teal item which is selected randomly from a list of, say, 10 different ones. Every time you run the instance there is a chance of 1/10 that it shows up. Given the class distribution in a group of 3 and the needs of the classes, you’ll very likely be the only one who wants that particular ring.

New system: For every member, the loot is determined individually. From the current available information (own experience and hearsay from forum and other people), I guess that the chance for particular teal drops from the CM chest is pretty small, say 1/50, presumably to avoid swamping the system with too much loot (except for BG).

How long do you have to wait to get the desired item?

Old system:
25% of the people will have it after 2 runs,
50% after 6 runs
75% after 13 runs
90% after 21 runs
99% after 43 runs
43 runs are for many reasonable if they are hunting for some rare item, and except for 1% of very unlucky people, they will get it.

New system:
25% of the people will have it after 14 runs,
50% after 34 runs
75% after 68 runs
90% after 113 runs
99% after 227 runs
One out of four people who are in for a serious grind of 68 times the same instance won’t reach their goal - and certainly will be very frustrated.

For the golden class items, the chance seems to be at most 1/100. Here, the numbers are:
25% of the people will have it after 28 runs,
50% after 68 runs
75% after 137 runs
90% after 229 runs
99% after 458 runs.
Such grind is practically impossible for most of us. You just have to rely on pure luck (25% will succeed in a decent amount of time), but you cannot expect that you’ll get it if only you are patient enough - except if you are willing to go to an instance like Iorbar’s Peak more than 400 times.

I personally like the old system more. The new system has advantages for PUGs, and as long as it is restricted to scaled instances and skraids, I could live with it, but I fear that this is not the plan as the system is already implemented in the new 3-men instances.

As a combination of the old master loot system and the new one is not possible at the moment, as RockX has stated above, I would recommend to add the following feature (which essentially we already have seen in RoF and ToO):

Let the individual loot selection stand as it is (perhaps tweaking the chances a bit - the 3-men seem to be too stingy whereas BG T1 is a give-away). Add a barter item (like the eggs in RoF or the fragments in ToO) as a 100% drop to the loot table, such that every member of a successful T2CM run gets one. Introduce a barterer where one can exchange an appropriately large number of barter items for the teals or even the golden items. So, for the not so lucky, but tenacious people, they at least see some progress towards their final goal. And the casuals who cannot run instances by the dozens still have a decent chance in PUGs to get what they want.

The system has some tuning possibilities allowing for the desired loot behaviour:
- access to barterers may require kindred status with some or all Rohan factions (which would be an additional boon for Hytbold builders),
- items from barterer may be BoA to avoid excessive distribution via the AH,
- barter items are identical for all on level-instances or different for Erebor and Mirkwood instances …

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Originally Posted by RockX

I do agree that completing T2 CM of BG should be more rewarding than just T1 Durchest farming. I'm looking at the drop rates as a whole of everything, and adjusting where I feel is needed. And before anyone comes in and says "you don't really care about our feedback," I'm directly using feedback from this thread in my adjustments :)

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Are the changes in drop rates live now? Coming live soon? Or is it something that won't change until Update 10?

@Moonwalk

Ok, so a guy says in a 2-liner that there's "no incentive to run anything other than t1 durchest over and over." I reply with 2 words something that Durchest does not have: "Instance-unique loot." His kinleader expands upon an argument the first guy didn't make. You reply to my reply.

What are you even trying to counter? I say there's incentive, you say there's very little incentive and no shinies for you anyway. But then you were running T1 dungeons the long way 5x for the nice shiny ring, so that don't make much sense (again, by the way you might like T2 non challenge, it's faster though I dunno how the lowest chest on T2 stacks up to the best chest on T1).
Anyway sure, incentive for many folks may be diminished by the too-low drop rate, I concede; yeah RockX, like I said earlier, up that drop rate please and thank you sir. All I'm saying--originally in reply to someone who said "there's no incentive"--is that incentive exists to run stuff other than T1 Durchest. Folks including you so you say Mr. Moonwalk are trying to get dat gear. I mean, damn, if someone were to run Durchest over and over to get star-lits and symbols and tomes and relic removal scrolls (crystals and relic scrolls I'm full up on from running T2C instances and T2 Dungeons), but still needed Will Ring X or Agi Earring Y, what good is a diet of Durchest only? And I'm still flush on crystals and relic removal scrolls due to spending most of my play time in U9 instances.

You say your point is "mindlessly farming a single instance gave more loot than the dedicated farming of any other instance, killing the instance cluster.", (my emphasis) but Durchest doesn't necessarily give the right loot.

At least with U9 there is teal loot worth running an instance over and over for. And this time Turbine threw us a bone by making the teals BoE so you can at least watch for them on AH or have a kindly friend pass it on to you. Otherwise from Turbine's PoV the system is working - it makes you run the instance over and over again. The fact that you want to punch walls at the end of your 8 hour session doesn't get recorded in Turbine's metrics. All they know is that you spent 8 hours in there. Why would they give you the Pocket faster, so you will run the instance less?

So then let me ask you, how many times do I have to run an instance for a TEAL, not a gold item? 10 times? 100 times? 1000 times? How many times does someone have to run the same instance. Do not tell me to run it till it drops either. How many runs is enough? You tell me, give me a number.

The new loot system is pretty nice in concept, but will need a few more rounds of balancing. There have been many suggestions already so I won't add another one, but in the end basically make sure the system satisfies these conditions:
1) everyone in the group gets something usable from an instance run / boss fight (e.g. purple gear, relics or ixp runes, see below for bounties)
2) part of the group (20-50%) get something good (e.g. teal item) from an instance run
3) there is a good chance (>= 50%) for at least one in the group to get something very good (e.g. clasp, fa symbol, gold item) on t2 runs
4) challenge mode gives a substantial benefit to drop chance/quality in some way

The current system is just too spikey with some t1 runs yielding teal gear/symbols/crystals for almost everyone in the group and some t2c runs where the whole group gets like 2 IXP runes total. So the rolls need to factor in some group-wide modifiers to be more balanced (if rolls are processed in random sequence should be easy, more tricky if they run in parallel/fixed order).

And finally: Please remove bounty items from the game completely. If you don't want to give people real loot give them gold directly, not these stupid placeholders.

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Originally Posted by MOJO28

So then let me ask you, how many times do I have to run an instance for a TEAL, not a gold item? 10 times? 100 times? 1000 times? How many times does someone have to run the same instance. Do not tell me to run it till it drops either. How many runs is enough? You tell me, give me a number.

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There are two ways to answer this.

Firstly, a number set by yourself which you consider to be an acceptable investment of your game time. That will vary from person to person. For me, that number for Dungeons is one - I would go back once for a 100% guaranteed drop and that's it: I hate the place. For you the number is clearly much higher than one, but less than the number you have run. I'd say that if you reach the point when you are angry enough to come and post complaints on multiple loot-related forum threads, you've already gone past the point where it's no longer worth it.

The second answer is the one which would arise from the system suggested by a poster above, whereby you'd get a fragment of a barter item each run. This could be a unique barter item like in Roots of Fangorn, or regular seal/medallion/mark barter currency. Just like with armour, this would mean each item has a fixed number of runs required to get the necessary barter currency.

There is no way to set this fixed number of runs in a way which will satisfy everyone. Some people consider more than a handful of runs to be an unacceptable grind. Others are happy to put in Stakhanovite efforts. From Turbine's perspective fixed barter costs mean a cap on the number of times an instance gets run, whereas with random drops some players will run it more often. Taking an average is meaningless since a few people will run something hundreds of times and lots of people hardly at all.

In the past Turbine has struck this balance reasonably well. Rare random drops encourage repeated running of an instance, but other rewards (gold/housing items/relics/IXP etc etc) make it worth the time even if your teal fails to drop. The absence of this compensation in U9 exposes the teal item hunt in all its raw, painful, naked reality. I imagine you'd be less grouchy about your teal not dropping if your 8 hour session had yielded several tens of gold, millions of IXP, a hoard of T8 relics and so on. You'd still be frustrated, but probably not to the point of punching walls.

I do know that personally I don't consider it worth my time to run the new and rescaled U9 instances other than (i) to get my deeds done, (ii) to run T2C BG with my kin and (iii) to farm Durchest. Others will set their own limits. I would humbly suggest that you have gone past the point where running Dungeons for the pocket is worth your time. If it's not fun and it makes you angry, it's not a game anymore.

Very nive post FinrodMacBeorn and i dont think your numbers are a millions miles away from what I am experiencing.

Just to give some actual run figure, over the weekend me and two guilding ran SH T2CH 60+ times. So we opened 120 chests and had 360 "loots" if you will, one for each player per chest.

Over all these runs this is what we saw as far as the rarer items go;
8 teal items (armour/jewellery)
4 stat tomes
4 riddermark star-lit crystals
1 legendary item

Now my maths isnt that good (so please correct me if i get this wrong) but that seems to be a 0.28% chance of getting a legendary from farming SH T2CH.

While the new loot system in its entirety is better than the old one, it still fundamentally lacks the ability to award players for completing harder challenges; meaning, that people can run Iorbar's Peak T2c once and luckily grasp that Minstrel golden shield, whilst other classes' jewellery and items only drop from the harder challenges which take a more significant amount of time to complete.

It is almost like the mechanic with the 'Sack of Presents'. On our server we had two low level players complaining about getting a Tarnished Symbol of Celebrimbor because they could do nothing with it - what logic was behind the decision to do that? To reward low level players with end-game items they will be unable to use or sell? It just doesn't make sense.
It seems that the less effort you put into the new instances, the more chance you have of getting the legendary equipment.

That is the only problem I see with the new looting system; (tl;dr) in its current state, it is all down to luck. When loot is rewarded for effort and contribution instead of luck it would make more sense, so make the challenges harder but give at least a 50% chance for better loot.


Edit Proposal: One way to fix this would be to add a fourth currency (Dropping only in the scaled/new instances and future ones to come), specifically designed to barter for all of this legendary equipment, so that over time, the people that are farming these instances day and night can finally barter for the item they were searching for. Makes sense, doesn't it?

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

Sounds to me like you just don't like hunting shinies if rarity deters you, even while the drop rate is lower than maybe it oughta be.

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This seems like a pretty logical disposition. The rule rather than the exception, I'm sure.

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

I do think teal drop rate oughta be tweaked. I wouldn't ever argue that the loot chance in U9 isn't in a rough state. Like I said earlier in this thread, the teal-to-purple ratio in the check that occurs after it's been determined that loot was won oughta be shifted more in teal's favor.

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The basic problem is that one can only do content so many times, receive little more than silver for doing so, and remain interested. This is even worse for the older guard who were used to running SG and seeing a usuable (often desirable) item always drop from each of the last 2 chests. This is not to even mention at least a 25% chance for a Symbol drop as well. Every time.

I have probably run new SG about 8 times now and haven't seen a single teal, nor a purple item anyone would ever bother equipping. That's no better than a 2% teal drop rate. I think I saw one Star-lit crystal.

It's just not worth it. Yes, says me - but so says a lot of people. If the hope is that this will increase the longevity or participation in any given instance, I can only say that is far from reality. And even so - say you get your teal - then what? Why would you run that specific instance ever again?

I can't even approximate how many times I ran SG at level 65. Something kept bringing me back... At level 85? Not so much. Serious implementation failure here, despite the intention(s).

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Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

Despite too-low drops rates, the fellow who said that only Durchest is worth running thanks to Turbine was apparently ignoring that other content offers potential rewards that Durchest simply does not yield. And if someone wants those other rewards enough, they'll grind the content to get them. Which was the entire point of what you quoted.

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It's all about time v. reward. Even when I no longer need Symbols or Star-lits, it would probably still be in my best interest to run T1 Durchest to finance my future opportunities of just buying my teals outright on the AH. But I play on a small server, check the AH daily, and have seen exactly one teal posted to date (that I wouldn't want anyway), so that's probably not even realistic.

The desirability of gear only goes so far - especially when most of the items are sidegrades or sacrificial "upgrades" in the first place.


And RockX, I still think looting isn't working as you intend it to/say it is. In my experiences in a raid environment, I still see a high disproportion of big winners and big losers. A person who gets a Symbol, Star-lit or C.o.R. also seems to get something other than a bounty much of the time while lots and lots of folks get only bounties. Actually, I see this in 3 and 6-mans as well (even though I mostly just see bounties in those).

The times I have personally gotten either a teal, gold or other LI-related desirable I have gotten another of the same ilk at least half the time. I know I'm not that lucky...

I blasted well lost my reply to you. hit CtrlA, didnt hit CtrlC right after. So I'll be more terse.

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Originally Posted by Southpa

The basic problem is that one can only do content so many times, receive little more than silver for doing so, and remain interested. This is even worse for the older guard who were used to running SG and seeing a usuable (often desirable) item always drop from each of the last 2 chests. This is not to even mention at least a 25% chance for a Symbol drop as well. Every time.

I have probably run new SG about 8 times now and haven't seen a single teal, nor a purple item anyone would ever bother equipping. That's no better than a 2% teal drop rate. I think I saw one Star-lit crystal.

It's just not worth it. Yes, says me - but so says a lot of people. If the hope is that this will increase the longevity or participation in any given instance, I can only say that is far from reality. And even so - say you get your teal - then what? Why would you run that specific instance ever again?

I can't even approximate how many times I ran SG at level 65. Something kept bringing me back... At level 85? Not so much. Serious implementation failure here, despite the intention(s).

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Trying to reconstruct what I said. I made an aside that most of this Mirk stuff is new to me and hasn't worn off yet, admitting difference of viewpoints.

On the subject of peripheral, commodity loot in instances: It my be that I've been luckier in seeing loot like star-lits, remembrances, relic removal scrolls, etc drop. Or perhaps I have a higher tolerance for unlucky streaks. But I haven't personally felt much lack for that kind of thing--at least from final boss chests. I have however noticed no symbols dropping, fair point from you there. We as players are generally used to symbols dropping from instances in RoI, no? (though I remember you expressing surprise that symbols dropped from Foundry upthread). Only seems right that they should have a chance at dropping in U9 3mans and 6mans too.

Shifting from subjective to objective on the same subject: If loot, say a star-lit crystal, had an X% chance to drop from each chest from an instance in recent LotRO history like Foundry, then new SG and Bells of Dale at the same tier oughta have an X% chance from each chest for 1 of the 6 people to get a star-lit crystal. That would be fair. And that metric can be applied to other loot including teals. I dunno if that's the case though. I don't have the spreadsheet in front of me, but I know that's not how it's working right now because of the "from each chest" thing. We could get starlits from 1st and middle bosses of Foundry, but mere bounties and relics from like Fire and Lightning SG armors or Athgrat. Granted, tomes and relic removals are more prevalent now and I dont know how those factor in.

I'll say after yours and Moonwalk's replies I'm more convinced that something aint right with U9 rewards overall.

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Originally Posted by Southpa

It's all about time v. reward. Even when I no longer need Symbols or Star-lits, it would probably still be in my best interest to run T1 Durchest to finance my future opportunities of just buying my teals outright on the AH. But I play on a small server, check the AH daily, and have seen exactly one teal posted to date (that I wouldn't want anyway), so that's probably not even realistic.

The desirability of gear only goes so far - especially when most of the items are sidegrades or sacrificial "upgrades" in the first place.

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That's a direct challenge to my point that Durchest lacks rewards other instances have. Thank you! On BW, you probably could throw Durchest-funded gold around and get what you want. In fact one guy was offering huge 600-800G bounties on stuff like the GG neck, the LT will earring, the IP bangle, and I do believe he got his. Stuff from Iobars, Warg Pens, SG, etc are on the AH. Not so much Dungeons & SH; and that aforementioned big spender wasn't hunting say a Confiscated Journal.

I suspect that the reason the teals were on the BW AH is that the sellers had already gotten their teals and were making money. If they'd caught their teal carrots, I figure they were likely chasing golden carrots on really long sticks. That's my answer to your question of what then after acquiring desired teals. What then if they catch those gold carrots and don't want run anymore? If it were me, I'd run for kinmates and alts (and occasionally for lolz like I did Foundry) and otherwise stick to raiding night and playing Dorf Fortress or Payday: the Heist or whatever I fancied.

So my kin has rolled 2 epic-quality drops in exactly 384 Tier 2 Challenge player-chest rolls. Statistics will tell you that there is a 99% chance that the drop rate is between 0.027% and 2.392%.

1. Does anyone else have similar unbiased and definitive data to increase the sample size?

2. Is this drop rate, which is probably 1%, the right drop rate for epic-quality loot from a Challenge chest?

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Originally Posted by bastiat1

So my kin has rolled 2 epic-quality drops in exactly 384 Tier 2 Challenge player-chest rolls. Statistics will tell you that there is a 99% chance that the drop rate is between 0.027% and 2.392%.

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I wonder, why couldn't we use tokens instead of always unfair, always frustrating probabilities ?
That is, if you have 1% chance to get a legendary-quality object in a chest, then you get one token instead, and with 100 of them some NPC somewhere will reward you with the object of your dreams. And if on some other chest (say T2+challenge) you have a much higher probability, say e.g. 5%, then instead you get more tokens, say e.g. 5 tokens.

Using tokens is not new in this game, and in the times of Moria, Dol Guldur, etc... it was used for getting armours, even the highest-quality pieces of equipment. Therefore, why did we move to a loot system with full randomness ? I think that many comments here shows how frustrating this is. Instead, with a loot system based on tokens that you get for *sure* and later exchange at some NPC, you always perfectly know how far you are from getting the object you want, and how many times you need to do this or that to get it.

And the overall amount of items dropped by players is just the same.

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Originally Posted by floreane

I wonder, why couldn't we use tokens instead of always unfair, always frustrating probabilities ?
That is, if you have 1% chance to get a legendary-quality object in a chest, then you get one token instead, and with 100 of them some NPC somewhere will reward you with the object of your dreams. And if on some other chest (say T2+challenge) you have a much higher probability, say e.g. 5%, then instead you get more tokens, say e.g. 5 tokens.

Using tokens is not new in this game, and in the times of Moria, Dol Guldur, etc... it was used for getting armours, even the highest-quality pieces of equipment. Therefore, why did we move to a loot system with full randomness ? I think that many comments here shows how frustrating this is. Instead, with a loot system based on tokens that you get for *sure* and later exchange at some NPC, you always perfectly know how far you are from getting the object you want, and how many times you need to do this or that to get it.

And the overall amount of items dropped by players is just the same.

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Maybe I can help a bit with a different perspective. For me, a fully random system is always fair. You put in X amount of time, you have Y chance of reward. Every time, though you will not necessarily get it at any one time. All players putting in said X time have the same opportunity, but not the same result. Under the token system, if I put in X time, I know that I can't ever get the item. I have to put in X*Y time. Some people will be able to put in X*Y time and others won't, particularly if it must be done by putting in more game time than one has available, on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Both systems are equally fair, in their own ways. Both systems are frustrating, too, in their own ways.

Cant believe theres no guard or warden shield in the new loot when yer dishing out capt's gold ones , also the new loot system has just made folk run instances less and look to buy items off others which can never be good for an mmo!

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Originally Posted by cdq1958

Maybe I can help a bit with a different perspective. For me, a fully random system is always fair. You put in X amount of time, you have Y chance of reward.

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I agree it's completely "fair" the question I have is whether the drop chance is appropriate to encourage gameplay. In other words, is the time worth the reward? With a 1% drop rate you would have to open 458 chests to be 99% confident that you would win the piece. You would have to open 69 chests to just have a 50/50 chance of winning. Is a 35 hour investment worth a 50/50 chance at an upgrade?

Chests Required = ln(1 - Confidence) / ln(1 - Drop Rate)

To me, realizing the drop chance is 1% was demotivating, and I suspect it will discourage gameplay for others as well. People on these forums attacked the content really aggressively to get the epics and even some incomparables, but they did so not knowing the drop rate. As data has come in and the drop chance become transparent I suspect the very low rate will discourage rather than encourage play.

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Originally Posted by bastiat1

I agree it's completely "fair" the question I have is whether the drop chance is appropriate to encourage gameplay. In other words, is the time worth the reward? With a 1% drop rate you would have to open 458 chests to be 99% confident that you would win the piece. You would have to open 69 chests to just have a 50/50 chance of winning. Is a 35 hour investment worth a 50/50 chance at an upgrade?

Chests Required = ln(1 - Confidence) / ln(1 - Drop Rate)

To me, realizing the drop chance is 1% was demotivating, and I suspect it will discourage gameplay for others as well. People on these forums attacked the content really aggressively to get the epics and even some incomparables, but they did so not knowing the drop rate. As data has come in and the drop chance become transparent I suspect the very low rate will discourage rather than encourage play.

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Yes, agreed. I came up with some rough order of magnitude estimate of the drop rate of any one legendary book page. It is somewhere in the order of 2%, so that last page can take a very long time to get, and be frustrating to kill all of those mobs to get it. It could, though, be as bad as 0.5% or even 0.1% for some of the really rare items. That said, RockX is trying to get things smoothed out. How successful the effort will be remains to be seen.

I'd like to know whether people would mind the 35 hrs for a fully equal opportunity, though random, drop system or would they mind the 35 hours just to get a piece via barter tokens.

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Originally Posted by cdq1958

Yes, agreed. I came up with some rough order of magnitude estimate of the drop rate of any one legendary book page. It is somewhere in the order of 2%, so that last page can take a very long time to get, and be frustrating to kill all of those mobs to get it. It could, though, be as bad as 0.5% or even 0.1% for some of the really rare items. That said, RockX is trying to get things smoothed out. How successful the effort will be remains to be seen.

I'd like to know whether people would mind the 35 hrs for a fully equal opportunity, though random, drop system or would they mind the 35 hours just to get a piece via barter tokens.

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I also agree with this and bastiat's answer.

Maybe the word 'unfair' was incorrect for a loot system based on randomness, because technically even with a drop rate of 0.00001%, probabilities would still be fair. However, in the reality of the game now, I still think this in clearly unfair, or at least much more unfair than a loot system based on tokens. Why ? because with drop rates so low, you will always have a large number of peoples who get nothing, even when farming some instance, and that's terribly *unfair* for them. I agree that with tokens, over 100 casuals you won't have 1% of them getting an object. But with randomness, that's a lot more peoples who do play the instances a lot who get *nothing*...

So, tokens would still be very beneficial I think. There is currently 'Chinese farming of Durchest', as peoples say, i.e. pick-up groups who will loop on Durchest 10 times in the evening, so even with tokens a casual player can still get a legendary item. And for just everybody, knowing that each time you do an instance you get a 'piece' of the final reward for *sure* would lift part of the current frustration. Simply because you see the path, even if it's long.

I'm also starting to think that tokens would be more beneficial for casual or semi-casual than others. Because non-casual peoples who kill Durchest 350 times (for each character maybe) anyway will get their rewards whatever the loot system is, because the number of times you open the chest is huge. However, casual or semi-casual peoples for who killing Durchest 100 times with one character is already a big effort would be very happy to *know* that after doing this effort they would *all* get their legendary reward for sure. Also, when thinking about the 1% of casual peoples who currently can be lucky to loot a legendary item rapidly, we must not forget about the 99% of others who will therefore have to kill Durchest *more* than 100 times in average !

Well, and also naturally the drop rate (or number of tokens you get) should be lifted a bit, because 1% that's really too low.

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Originally Posted by floreane

I also agree with this and bastiat's answer.

Maybe the word 'unfair' was incorrect for a loot system based on randomness, because technically even with a drop rate of 0.00001%, probabilities would still be fair. However, in the reality of the game now, I still think this in clearly unfair, or at least much more unfair than a loot system based on tokens. Why ? because with drop rates so low, you will always have a large number of peoples who get nothing, even when farming some instance, and that's terribly *unfair* for them. I agree that with tokens, over 100 casuals you won't have 1% of them getting an object. But with randomness, that's a lot more peoples who do play the instances a lot who get *nothing*...

So, tokens would still be very beneficial I think. There is currently 'Chinese farming of Durchest', as peoples say, i.e. pick-up groups who will loop on Durchest 10 times in the evening, so even with tokens a casual player can still get a legendary item. And for just everybody, knowing that each time you do an instance you get a 'piece' of the final reward for *sure* would lift part of the current frustration. Simply because you see the path, even if it's long.

I'm also starting to think that tokens would be more beneficial for casual or semi-casual than others. Because non-casual peoples who kill Durchest 350 times (for each character maybe) anyway will get their rewards whatever the loot system is, because the number of times you open the chest is huge. However, casual or semi-casual peoples for who killing Durchest 100 times with one character is already a big effort would be very happy to *know* that after doing this effort they would *all* get their legendary reward for sure. Also, when thinking about the 1% of casual peoples who currently can be lucky to loot a legendary item rapidly, we must not forget about the 99% of others who will therefore have to kill Durchest *more* than 100 times in average !

Well, and also naturally the drop rate (or number of tokens you get) should be lifted a bit, because 1% that's really too low.

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Interesting. One thing is certain, Durchest farming will end. This kind of thing can't last long. We've seen the Hytbold public instance dailies get abused. I have been here long enough to see the token pendulum swing both ways. Finding that sweet spot with respect to loot and rarity isn't easy. The token system, in and of itself, does not help casual players. The token system will require dedicating a significant block of time. Rarity by definition means 'low drop rate', for otherwise the item can't be rare. Oh well.

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Originally Posted by cdq1958

Interesting. One thing is certain, Durchest farming will end. This kind of thing can't last long. We've seen the Hytbold public instance dailies get abused. I have been here long enough to see the token pendulum swing both ways. Finding that sweet spot with respect to loot and rarity isn't easy. The token system, in and of itself, does not help casual players. The token system will require dedicating a significant block of time. Rarity by definition means 'low drop rate', for otherwise the item can't be rare. Oh well.

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It would be very good if Durchest farming ends, but, it seems that this farming was the goal of Turbine when they have chosen not to lock the instance and rely on very very low drop rates for the best items. Also, as you says the token pendulum has swung both ways since Angmar. This situations certainly shows that *both* loots systems are asked by players, i.e. not just tokens, but also not just randomness. And I think we can easily conciliate both at low cost ! What if, at the *same time* :

a) Chests may drop all best items randomly as it is right now (but please not too low probability)
b) But if you do the effort to *finish* an instance, then you certainly validate some quest. Therefore, as a reward the quest itself should offer you either to chose directly *one* reward within the complete list of the best items you may have randomly looted on chests if you were lucky; or simply give you some tokens that you stack to get one of these at some NPC. T2 and T2+challenge may offer more tokens, and legendary-quality items may ask for much more than others (rarity).

Wouldn't it be great to have both at the same time ? This would motivate groups to finish instances, it would give a fixed, non-random, way of gaining the best items, while still preserving the opportunity for casuals to randomly loot something great anywhere.

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Originally Posted by floreane

It would be very good if Durchest farming ends, but, it seems that this farming was the goal of Turbine when they have chosen not to lock the instance and rely on very very low drop rates for the best items. Also, as you says the token pendulum has swung both ways since Angmar. This situations certainly shows that *both* loots systems are asked by players, i.e. not just tokens, but also not just randomness. And I think we can easily conciliate both at low cost ! What if, at the *same time* :

a) Chests may drop all best items randomly as it is right now (but please not too low probability)
b) But if you do the effort to *finish* an instance, then you certainly validate some quest. Therefore, as a reward the quest itself should offer you either to chose directly *one* reward within the complete list of the best items you may have randomly looted on chests if you were lucky; or simply give you some tokens that you stack to get one of these at some NPC. T2 and T2+challenge may offer more tokens, and legendary-quality items may ask for much more than others (rarity).

Wouldn't it be great to have both at the same time ? This would motivate groups to finish instances, it would give a fixed, non-random, way of gaining the best items, while still preserving the opportunity for casuals to randomly loot something great anywhere.

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Yes, this would be nice. Whether something like this is doable and gets implemented is something else. The only thing I know is that 'Change, it's a comin' :)'.

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Originally Posted by floreane

It would be very good if Durchest farming ends, but, it seems that this farming was the goal of Turbine when they have chosen not to lock the instance and rely on very very low drop rates for the best items. Also, as you says the token pendulum has swung both ways since Angmar. This situations certainly shows that *both* loots systems are asked by players, i.e. not just tokens, but also not just randomness. And I think we can easily conciliate both at low cost ! What if, at the *same time* :

a) Chests may drop all best items randomly as it is right now (but please not too low probability)
b) But if you do the effort to *finish* an instance, then you certainly validate some quest. Therefore, as a reward the quest itself should offer you either to chose directly *one* reward within the complete list of the best items you may have randomly looted on chests if you were lucky; or simply give you some tokens that you stack to get one of these at some NPC. T2 and T2+challenge may offer more tokens, and legendary-quality items may ask for much more than others (rarity).

Wouldn't it be great to have both at the same time ? This would motivate groups to finish instances, it would give a fixed, non-random, way of gaining the best items, while still preserving the opportunity for casuals to randomly loot something great anywhere.

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Great idea, an alternative progress-based way (e.g. tokens) to obtain those items would be great.
I would like to mention two FACTS that might be not obvious to some people unfamiliar with probability theory:

1.
No matter how large the chance of getting a random item is, there will be always a large group of people NEVER* getting an item.
(* By doing infinite (!) runs you would obtain this eventually, but here lets assume you can't do more than, say, 10 000 runs.)
Example:
Even if the chance of not getting an item after 10 000 runs is 0,1%, there will be 0,1% * lotro_population people never getting it.
The fact that x (e.g. 1000) people did not get they golden items after doing y (e.g. 10000) runs might be negligible, but this IS going to happen to some of us (only the numbers might be off).

2.
All the runs that did not award you anything DO NOT COUNT towards your chances.

It is true that doing a large number of runs improves your chances, but only at the start (you might get it after 1 or 2 runs, too). In other words, all the runs that did not award you anything are a total waste of time. They do not improve your chances of getting gold/teal loot.

A common misconception is that the more you try, the more you get.
Question: what is your chance of getting a head on a coin after getting only a tail 1000 times?
Answer: still 50%



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To sum up, in my personal experience, PROGRESSING is what makes this game great, not playing a lottery.
The two times I was most excited at the prospect of getting loot was:
- getting enough seals for ToO armour (took several weeks)
- getting enough reputation through dailies to get LG set
The anticipation of getting good loot was making me much more happy than winning any lottery in this game.

I certainly would like to see a system in which each run gives you some "insurance" in case you won't win a golden item.
Let's say we need 100 tokens (1/run) and 10 000 medallions for a golden item, I'd still be happy to have that option.

Good explanation about the randomness, I perfectly agree. Unfortunately, the new update 9.1 corrected some probabilities but did not change this fundamental problem at all.

Personally, the more time passes, and the more upset I get about the current, fully random, way to equip characters in Lotro. An alternative way, totally non-random, is really a need I think, so that all those who plays many instances but had poor luck can spend their tokens to balance that fact.

It could be new tokens if Turbine do not wants us to use the ones we already have. But, since the tokens we have represents the time spent in instances, it would also be fair to spend them to buy at least *any* of the blue 85 objects that can drop randomly in chests. Or it could be new tokens at first, to preserve rarity for the moment, and later change these for normal tokens as we did previously for older tokens. Btw skirmish camps still have an NPC for changing tokens for others. Or it could be simply quite expensive for the moment, and cheaper later. But any way an alternative way to randomness is a need right now.

Since the last posts here are more a suggestion for Turbine, I made a copy of them in the Suggestion threads :
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ff-a-character.

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Originally Posted by phillbvi2

I guess you didn't notice that each mob drops about 100 silver... So one durchest run will get you about 2 gold and that is not even looking at the vendor trash you'll get.

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You are right about the mobs that drop the added silver and after all that hell, you end up with 2 gold 221 silver, ha ha ha.

To be honest, I just want a way to save adventure points, tokens, whatever you want to call them and buy the item I agreed to go into the raid/skirm for in the first place, sure it may take several runs, but eventually you will certainly get it. The roll for a minimal chance, to me is simply not worth the effort.

When I look at the time and trashing you take in a raid and get nothing for your effort but chuncks of chump change and trash loot; which can easily and with much less time be overwhelmed by simply doing warbands, and other activities, with out the harrassment and risk of the actual raid failing and really getting nothing.

Unmentioned is that if the raid/skirm does get successfully completed, you do get nice qunatities of marks, medallions and seals for it. Of course warband hunting is also pretty good for gaining such goodies too, but you can only do them once a day.

I feel the fairest way is to give players a choice of how loot impacts them, they can go for the roll as is now, or chose to get credits towards what they want; these way either preference is satisfied without the expense of another player.


Sue