Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: ** Dev Response Regarding Uber Loot Items **
I got a response from some of the developers regarding these 'Uber Loot' items.. and I am waiting on further response to see if I can post his comments directly (which probably wont be a problem)...
But the jist of it is, that he confirmed uber loot does exist (of course), and they can drop higher than the range of craftable items... these legandary/exceptional items, have a VERY high drop range, and he estimated the one from the screenshot was probably a 1 in 50,000 chance (and only on high level creatures).
So in my opinion, I dont really think this is going to impact the economy (or crafters business) in any way, and allows for some nice additions to the loot tables (if you are lucky)...
Now, If someone is getting MULTIPLE of these and fairly consistent... let me know and I will get this information back to the dev's and make sure their randomization code is working as designed...
Hope this helps.
Did he explain how he thought that exceptional loot items would improve the game? I mean, they don't take money out of the game, they don't help correct problems in the supposedly player based economy. They do increase the likelyhood of camping, create loot based strife among the player base, they promote max/minning to figure out who to hunt and where to hunt them to get the best chance of the exceptional items.
I thought the Dev's were trying to create money sinks? Now, not only do combat classes pay no maintinance for harvestors or factories, they don't have to pay insurance costs when going to dangerous combat and now they don't even have to purchase weapons and possiblyarmor in the future. Even if that Tusken Rifle listed in these forums is an exceptional or legendaryitem, how much less fantastic are average items and how do they stack up to ours?
This needs a lot more clearing up because to me these Dev's have repeatedly shown they do not really care about the player based economy AT ALL.
Well I definitely understand where you are coming from, but I can assure you the have the player economy in mind (probably painfully so)...
- [Problem] They realize that combat has no sting right now (money sinks, time lost,etc).
- [Mitigation] - They are working on ways to make someone think twice about throwing themselves into any battle (decay rates (insurance), other money sinks, etc)
I think MORE people are complaining about 'need content' then they are about the economic implications of something like this.... from my experience any playing EVERY MMORPG to date (I know, im a loser), if they implement this right , it wont be a problem, and they are taking the right steps.
The important things are to:
- Ensure that these (uber loot) items are rare enough to not impact the economy, but attainable (to make hunting for them fun, and a challenge)... Yes, this is a fine line, but doable.
- Ensure that these items can be attained from ALL types of creatures to prevent camping/griefing. Yes...this is attainable to.
- Ensure that both A, B above do not superseed the need for the player crafting community.
I see peoples points, but in my opinion, this still is not something we need to worry about as much as a few people have been. If they modify the system where these start looking like the Holocron system, then Yes, THEN we can panic 
But for now, it seems they have a good balance in place.
FalloutSBM wrote:
Did he explain how he thought that exceptional loot items would improve the game?
It improves the game because it's fun to think you might get that one fantastic weapon that nobody else has. As long as the chances of getting it are exceptionally high, I see no problem with it. Having said that, my preference is to have uber components/enhancementsthat drop instead with some fairly obscene drop odds.
Thanks for checking, DarkCipher.
DarkCipher...
Could you make a suggestion to the devs about limiting the durability on these items? I think it would be nice if they were limited to 300-500 durability, and that would help balance them out.
Cipher, think maybe you could zing a developer with why the uber loot weapons are so OVERWHELMINGLY superior to crafted ones, in every possible way?
I mean, if the weapon merely approximated master-crafted quality, and had a poison or skill mod on it, it would still be highly desirable. But a weapon which breaks all known boundaries for damage and speed and ham, simultanesously!??!
In other words, can you find out what the dev was smoking, and why he won't share?
The uber loot is still wrong. As a Master Weaponsmith I should be able to know more about making good weapons than and uber 1337 dude. Make the uber loot be a crafting schematic, limited to say, 10 items with exactly specified resources. Whoever loots it would then have to seek out a weaponsmith and they would have to find the correct resources to make only 10 uber items... or something along those lines. What I am saying is, if you are making uber weapons appear, don't keep us Weaponsmiths completely out of the loop on it.
In general, I am opposed to any uber loot of the caliber shown in these forums, because it just helps people who exploit duping and camping. Why couldn't you just increase the number of component enhancing loot like krayt tissue and the nym guards thing? You know, make that a little more varied instead of only two loot items really being worth anything. We werre all fine with those items, because they kept us Weaponsmiths in the loop.
im sure there some non weaponsmiths out there that think we are crying over lost revenue. I thought about that on the way home tonite. Im posting this follow-up to explain the biggest reason, in my opinion, why this uber loot is going to screw everything up.
Theres probably not a day that goes buy where some uninformed person feels he needs to tell me my weapon is inferior to their current weapon. It always turns out that their current weapon sliced is only marginally better than my unsliced weapon and that if they were to get a 30% damage slice on one of my weapons they would have a significantly better stats than his current one. Theres also not a day that goes by where I have to craft passing up group outings w/ the PA or have to answer tells where someone thinks I can just pull a 4 identical part gun or lance out of my butt at the bank and they dont understand why they need to place an order and pick it up later today or tomorrow. Afterall I only have some 92 different resources, thats easy to just carry around with you.
But the ONE thing that makes it worth it.... the ONE thing that makes being a weaponsmith the BEST profession in this game, is when someone buys my gun and 20 minutes later sends me a tell how awesome this new gun is and how much they are a fan of my work.
This is what is in jeapardy gentlemen. Once these stats become common knowlege and 1 new uber loot a day drops off an NPC (more than 50,000 npc die a day) then I am just some guy they have to deal with because they cant have the uber weapon. No matter how hard I work at making the most perfect weapon I can possibly make it will always be thought of as something to 'get buy on'. Those amazing praises will stop, the one thing that made the profession not only bearable but absolutely wonderful will come to an end. And nothing can ever repair that, even if they delete every legendary weapon off the server the bar has been raised and our inability to achieve it will reflect on how we are treated. Im not in it for the money, Im in it for the recognition of my hard work. Its a profession where half-assed doesnt pay off and complete dedication has immense personal rewards. This is why I am against this on every front.
Skydogchaser wrote:
The uber loot is still wrong. As a Master Weaponsmith I should be able to know more about making good weapons than and uber 1337 dude. Make the uber loot be a crafting schematic, limited to say, 10 items with exactly specified resources. Whoever loots it would then have to seek out a weaponsmith and they would have to find the correct resources to make only 10 uber items... or something along those lines. What I am saying is, if you are making uber weapons appear, don't keep us Weaponsmiths completely out of the loop on it.
Do you haveany idea what this would mean? You would have a combatant coming to you demanding you make him 10 of these uber weapons, along with immediate advice as to finding these resources and/or demanding your supply, for a meager fee of whatever the combatant feels is "fair". 90% of the time, I'd wager the schematic would be looted by a completely clueless Bounty Hunter who destroyed it because he doesn't understand what a schematic is.
And then those who actually take it to a Weaponsmith to get something made -- Do you think with how every Weaponsmith is seemingly morally opposed to having "legendary guns" in the first place, that they'd willingly make a gun for this person that is above-and-beyond the norm of whatever they can make? It has your name on it, but you can't make any more of them. The only difference between that and looted legendary guns, is that with the latter, I don't have to stand around listening to Novice_Bounty_Hunter_00 harass me for two hours about giving him my resources so he can get his uber gun made. You don't put crafter items in the hands of those who don't know a thing about crafting, it just doesn't work.
Uber schematic quests don't work either. Quests are going to involve some form of camping, be it wide-scale Holocron-esque "kill 509423 of these mobs until it drops this item", or simply "stand for 24 hours in a spot until X mob spawns that drops X item", because game developers cannot find another way to keep a quest from being too easy unless they throw in camping. So this means griefing, kill-stealing, warring camp hell, which means 50000 Joe Schmoe Without A PA threads on these boards complaining that this was a bad idea because Uber Jack and his PA of Rebels stole his kill.
Frankly, I think legendary loot items do not hurt the crafting economy in the slightest, other than denting the egos of a few ultra-paranoid Weaponsmiths. A 1 in 50,000 drop is not going to hurt your business. A 1 in 50,000 drop is going to make Johnny Marksman happy enough to pay $15 for another three months because he actually feels there's something more behind mindless whacking at Nightsisters in Dathomir.
Face it, crafters aren't always going to be handed every single content-based benefit. Occasionally, a bone has to be thrown to combatants and as long as that bone does not carry any ill will towards our professions, we should not worry.
IT IS NOT THE ISSUE HERE
I've met very few crafters who are worried about their pockets, and even fewer who hold money as their reason for playing the game.
Sony promissed us they would never make loot items better than crafted items, It was the big drawcard for the crafter player base. It was thing that got us here and one of the main things that keeps us here.
The new loot flatout, in our face, blows this all to hell.
Twice already I have had players come to me and say "I want me the best XXXXX in the game", what can I tell them now? "Sorry the best equipment can only be found by god-made loot drops, I'm only good for everyday stuff. Please disregard that Master title above my head, there are gods amongst us now."
This is all about, and only about why we even play the game in the first place. I really feel my beloved proffesion WS is not worth it now. I know I can never create the finest weapons in the galaxy.
Darkcipher, why are you telling us it is ok because they are really rare and it wont effect the economy that much? Don't you know that is not why we are here?
Please, please go back to the Devs and explain this too them. There are other ways to fix the loot problems.