What are the LOTRO loot developer(s) doing?

[RockX]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

[kidnova78]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

Rock, you've got at least one player who appreciates multiple options for obtaining high-end gear. (That would be me if I wasn't clear)

[Thorwyn99]

Rock, you've got at least one player who appreciates multiple options for obtaining high-end gear. (That would be me if I wasn't clear)

Make that at least two.

[Eartholloth]

the best items should only be gotten through raiding

It's people like you who give a bad name towards the decent raiders. I disagree with your statement.

[Eartholloth]

Rock, you've got at least one player who appreciates multiple options for obtaining high-end gear. (That would be me if I wasn't clear)

Make that two It's nice having options for end game gear for all play styles.

[Nickysmom]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

And will this update include restoring the loot drops to all those Hytbold instances from which it has been romoved?

[jakeprecision123]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

Thanks for replying. I hope you understand where I'm coming from, and why I feel frustrated. It is very depressing to grind for things over and over when said things are top end gear that should be gotten through raiding.

[SpankyDom]

And will this update include restoring the loot drops to all those Hytbold instances from which it has been romoved?

All Hytbold dailies should have loot removed

[jakeprecision123]

It's people like you who give a bad name towards the decent raiders. I disagree with your statement.

Would decent raiders prefer to kill level 85 mobs over and over, or put effort into raids to get top end gear?

[jakeprecision123]

The way I see it:
you can compare the scrolls which drop from lvl 85 mobs a bit to a lottery. Every time you kill a lvl 85 mob you have a tiny chance to hit the jackpot and gain an item worthy of raiding loot.

Raids require more work, but also give a much better chance on good loot. These items are comparable to the stuff you can win at the lottery described above.

If you are obsessed with winning the lottery by all means keep buying tickets (read; kill mobs), but you really are not required to do so in order to get good items. If you enjoy raiding just do that and get rewards just as good as the landscape scrolls.


oh, and lotro has nothing to do with DKP, suicide kings and such looting rules. in fact, the only reason those looting rules were used is because previously the game lacked a good looting system. If turbine can make such third party systems obsolete it means they are doing a good job improving the game.

I agree with you. However, there is no alternative at the moment for the good loot. There is only "buying lottery tickets".

[kidnova78]

I agree with you. However, there is no alternative at the moment for the good loot. There is only "buying lottery tickets".

That's not the argument you are making. You are stating that these items should ONLY drop from raids. I disagree with that position. I do however agree that they should drop from instances as well as landscape if in fact they don't already. Some on this thread claim that they are already available there as well which would make your point moot.

[GithlithMonaghan]

I'm no big fan of recent loot-changes - mainly because they feel like loot-nerfs for end-content - but I do not at all agree with the idea that best gear should be raid only. I find it pretty clever to add scrolls for crafters mainly after making rare loot tradeable. Since Gwannin etc. crafters had to get over the fact that they were pretty much useless by now - as long as you had some money (which was easy to generate by running Durchest T1 over and over again). So now we got something back in the game that can let crafters shine and raiders are complaining that there's like 2-3 slots on which best gear comes from rare drops throughout the lands that any crafter can actually get without raiding. I find those reactions quite unfair indeed.

But something sweet would be to improve droprates in instance-chests so raiders would have to ask jeweller's out there to fix them a shiny item for money. So that wouldn't be too wrong either.

But seriously: I find it much more disturbing that the easiest way to get symbols is in skraids yet again. I find it more disturbing that after 900+ runs people still haven't seen the items they're looking for. That's the loot-problems we should be talking about.

[spelunker]

Now, the point I'm trying to get across is the best items should only be gotten through raiding, and not through mindless killing and grinding of level 85 mobs, with no end in sight.

Its quite clear that the Devs want a good deal of the best gear to be available through solo content, I think we are past the point of convincing them not to do that, whether its right or wrong.

While this may well be jumping to conclusions, I think the majority of people dislike the current system for obtaining these items because it both actively discourages running group content and spoils the quality of solo content. As has been shown about 1 million times in games, most players will choose the most efficient way to achieve their goal. The current best way to obtain the best loot in the game is to repeatedly kill mobs that pose no challenge to players thousands and thousands of times. As this is the most efficient way, and has very little 'fun' factor for the majority of players, they are very likely to set up macros and form a raid in a solo instance and just go afk. Whether this is an exploit or not I'll leave to the Devs, but I can't imagine any of them think that type of play is good for the long-term health of this game.

There is no problem with having these available as random world drops but as mentioned above, making this the absolute best way to get the items is not good. Its been mentioned before, but bears repeating: adjust drop rates through increased chances to drop from group instance mobs, or increased drop rates from chests so that this becomes the most time effective way to earn the recipes and these problems with solo instance raids, afk-macroing, and people being summoned into instances they aren't supposed to be in become an almost non-existent problem. It would also be a good addition to make these recipes available at barter vendors (I'd suggest hytbolt/ridder tokens over skirm marks/meds/seals given the astronomical volumes of skirm currency many people have) for hundreds of hytbolt/ridder tokens. Don't make it easy to barter for the recipes, but there is an active gating mechanism on these currencies already (daily quest cooldowns) so charging several hundred tokens for them would keep people from amassing these recipes too easily.

PS RockX: You're building some very high expectations for the loot in the new instance cluster/raid-skirm re-dos, don't let us down :P

[Gandolf_TheOld]

That the best gear should be from raiding and not sheer attrition of killing high level mobs.

I agree despite being a newbie to the game. It's a concept which is the fundamentals of any MMPORG but only applys when your max level really. It may sound elitist but those who do the hardest content should have the best items and titles.

People who sit killing millions of inferior mobs should not get rewarded the same as those who kill fewer high level raiding mobs. The 2 are just worlds apart in difficulty.

Just because you pay (or maybe not as the case is) to play something doesn't mean your ENTITLED to the best of what the game offers anymore than people who pay to enter sports tournaments deserve to win.

What is to say that little Johnny Landscape Killer did not run across and defeat a mob on his way to ROLF stomp your raid? It just so happened that this baddy had that elitist item on him....

[Flagge69]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

stop trolling plz, develop something ...

[WiltenRose]

In Rockx's defense, he's been one of the most active devs on the forums in recent history and has produced a wide variety of really enticing loot, including the innovation of gold items with legacy buffs built in. And while I agree with the problems being brought up in this thread, I think the explanation has more to do with the move to the non-communal chest system than anything else. I bet that if we were still doing master-looter, that the balance of the chests would be a non-issue. That was a fairly simple system to deal with, but trying to offer separate rolls for every player, based on class, is something very different. There may be limitations to the tech we are unaware of that prevent setting global variables like "at least one person in the raid gets something." If that is the case, perhaps the argument could be made to go back to the master-looter system until the tech is further developed to have certain contingent guarantees. Here's what I'm thinking:

Teal+ = Teal jewelry, gold item, relic removal, stat scroll, crystal, symbol
All other drops (purple jewelry, ixp, relics) could remain at current or pre-9.1 levels

T1 Chest is opened
- Initial rolls for each player, then the chest checks the log...
- IF Teal+ < 1 ; THEN Randomly select 1-3 players and award each an appropriate Teal+

T2 Chest is opened
- Initial rolls for each player, then the chest checks the log...
- IF Teal+ < 3 ; THEN Randomly select 3-6 players and award each an appropriate Teal+

T2 CM Chest is opened
- Initial rolls for each player, then the chest checks the log...
- IF Teal+ < 6 ; THEN Randomly select 6-9 players and award each an appropriate Teal+

So, in the initial roll, it would be technically possible for all 12 players to win something, but the drop rates would generally be too low for this to realistically occur. The second check then would act as a safety net in the event that RNG is mean and under-rewards the group based on the difficulty level of the encounter.

CLARIFICATION: The number of players selected in the THEN step would be the total number including those that had won something on the initial roll, so for example, on a T2 chest, when the chest checked the log and saw 2 players won something, that would adjust the second roll for selecting additional players to award from 3-6 to 1-4, etc., so the total number of Teal+ winners when all is said and done would be 3-6.

If you happen to read this, Rockx, I would be interested to hear your response to such an idea. Would it be feasible?

[Aohh]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

I'll applaud that work only once the RNG won't be as determinant for acquiring the best items, as it is currently.
And why do I have the horrible feeling that you are very alone for balancing the loot. Don't you have an army of minions at your disposal?

[Telab]

That the best gear should be from raiding and not sheer attrition of killing high level mobs.

I agree despite being a newbie to the game. It's a concept which is the fundamentals of any MMPORG but only applys when your max level really. It may sound elitist but those who do the hardest content should have the best items and titles.

People who sit killing millions of inferior mobs should not get rewarded the same as those who kill fewer high level raiding mobs. The 2 are just worlds apart in difficulty.

Just because you pay (or maybe not as the case is) to play something doesn't mean your ENTITLED to the best of what the game offers anymore than people who pay to enter sports tournaments deserve to win.

So because you RAID you are ENTITLED to the best gear? You could put someone on follow and finish a raid by doing nothing at all and get gear. Why does that make you better than the solo player? One could argue it takes more time and work to farm all those mobs solo.

Nobody said a thing about entitlement other than yourself... And you apologized for sounding elite to boot. If anyone is coming off as entitled, it's yourself.

[CroKat]

Because these are the items that make or break the top players on the server, the item that gives a player the max possible potential for their selected class. The rebuttal to this would be "I never have the time to raid all day" etc.

May come as surprise to somebody like you who seems to only be concerned about "making" and "breaking" "top players" in some video game, but some of us actually dont have time not to raid all day but to raid at all.

I work from 9 AM to 9 PM on a very tiring job (talk about hard work, an expression I would never ever use for playing any game) and when I come home all I am good for is some food and my bed. Weekends I have a house work and a family obligations. I am sure my husband would be delighted if I didnt cook the dinner because I spent all the time "making" my character in LotRO. That would probably "break" my domestic peace, but you dont sound like someone who knows a lot about such things.
I still play, not much, but I am aware that the game is my hobby, something I do in my free time, once I am done with serious daily tasks.

All I can think of when I read how some poor soul did 900 instance runs/raids in 4 months and never get their loot is...... who the hell is paying that guys bills in real life?

[LadyDena]

the best items should only be gotten through raiding

Would you please disclose the source materials to support a statement that you are implying as de facto truth? Because anybody can do this :

The best items should only be gotten through rp'ing.
The best items should only be gotten through /music.
The best items should only be gotten through number of mobs defeated.
The best items should only be gotten through length of time spent in game.
The best items should only be gotten through ample forum posting.
The best items should only be gotten through trolling.
etc. etc.

How about simply make it : the best items should only be gotten through PLAYING the game? You know, the reason people bought this game, to *play* it?

[87_Suited]

I believe the underlying word here is incentive.

Incentive: something that incites or has a tendency to incite to determination or action

Throughout the history of this game (up to ROR), I'm guessing about 90% of the best-for-class loot has dropped or been gated through conquering the most challenging content such as T2CM raiding.

Now a days, everyone (solo/casual/endgame raiding caliber) is on an equal playing field for being able to obtain the best loot for their class. We all have Hytbold PVE gear, chance drops from either T1 or T2CM instances, skirm raid item drops, etc.) I will not address the fact that some classes PVP gear is better for PVE group/raid content than the existing PVE gear because that is another major issue we are faced with in this game.

Barad Guldur T2CM is somewhat of a joke when it comes to challenge. Most of the high caliber raiders were able to accomplish the BG65 version of CM back when radiance was on the playing field and before the major nerf took place when radiance was taken off the table. Even then with todays BG, the loot tables are the same, although the drop chance is supposed to be different.

Result: The DG instance cluster and the new 3-mans have turned into nothing but farm zones. Dungeons for example: Run the instance on T2 and farm 10-min runs where nobody is completing the instance as intended but just killing the boss and trolls. BG for example before the latest update. Durchest symbol/crystal farm zone on T1. Repeated non-sense of just mindlessly zerging thru the 1st boss in 10-min runs.

Back to incentive: What separates the raiding caliber community from the casuals. Nothing. Now to get the beautiful new jewelery, you must sit in the norcrofts instance for hours on end killing random spawning mobs. Devs, what is the fun in this; who really wants to do this?; Right now we have to in order to be competitive, yet it requires hours of mindless action on our part with zero challenge.

Remember back in SoA when you could list the exact names of those on your server that had a gold rated loot item e.g. Wigfeld. That was truly real incentive back then. This principle is long gone in today's lotro.

[cdq1958]

I'll applaud that work only once the RNG won't be as determinant for acquiring the best items, as it is currently.<BR>And why do I have the horrible feeling that you are very alone for balancing the loot. Don't you have an army of minions at your disposal?

Ok, but the RNG will always be the determinant. If an event is rare, then by definition the 'drop rate' is low (long odds). Where this determination is made and the appearance of control are key, I think.<BR><BR>Yeah, I think we need to give RockX some cookies, because he is the loot god, er designer, and the coders must emit the C++ needed to implement it.

[Lestache]

I agree with you. However, there is no alternative at the moment for the good loot. There is only "buying lottery tickets".

There is an alternative - don't do it. Don't sit in the Cliving mounted instance and macro-farm for hours hoping to get a drop*. All Turbine will see is a huge increase in the number of level 85 mobs that died since 9.1 launched and think, "hey, people must like the current system because look at all the mobs they're killing trying to get the recipes!"

*(To be fair, I don't know that you and the 5-6 kinmates you were with were in there for hours; perhaps you were only there for the 2-3 minutes I was in there, but your OP and the reports by others make that seem unlikely).

The same thing goes for your friend who has run 900+ instances trying to get a gold drop. Turbine has no reason to change the way we obtain the gold items because people like your friend are stupid enough to run hundreds of instances, which shows the devs that the instances and loot drops must be set properly, because look how often people are running them!

Just check out, man. Don't macro-farm (or, in the rare case of people like Rocoman, actively farm) for hours upon end. Don't keep running instances hoping to get that ultra-rare drop while accumulating pointless bounties and IXP runes. I'm obviously not a developer at Turbine, but I certainly wouldn't bother listening to people who say, "the way you're offering the loot is broken," who simultaneously do nothing but engage in the content by which the loot is obtained.

[wasteland]

Just check out, man. Don't macro-farm (or, in the rare case of people like Rocoman, actively farm) for hours upon end. Don't keep running instances hoping to get that ultra-rare drop while accumulating pointless bounties and IXP runes. I'm obviously not a developer at Turbine, but I certainly wouldn't bother listening to people who say, "the way you're offering the loot is broken," who simultaneously do nothing but engage in the content by which the loot is obtained.

Kriptic tried that method. It didn't work.

I show LOTRO the amount of respect it deserves. While usually it is high, currently that is not the case. In fact it is very low. I am not pleased with how they have allowed the game to decay into its current state.

[bastiat1]

To answer the thread title, the LOTRO loot developers are working on loot for the new Update.

I hope that includes fixing loot from 9.0 and 9.1.

I'm actually fine with people getting drops off of 85 mobs. If someone wants to grind eight hours per drop then so be it. The problem is that should be the slowest way to get the loot since it is the easiest way to get the loot. Right now it is the fastest way to get the loot and that makes no sense whatsoever.