Chill of Ravenloft Loot Overview

[danzig138]

sharn wasn't bad either

Lol Sharn crafting is garbage and you know it.

 

[DBZ]

Hopefully the saga list will have forbidden cards or another abandoned system

 

[Hobgoblin]

danzig moment

 

[danzig138]

Greetings!

We have been reading your feedback

Greetings,

You've been reading, but I question if you've been comprehending. Your post indicates that you have not been doing so.

I've been playing this game since launch. MD is the first expansion I didn't purchase. There are three reasons for this:
1. The loot system. After reading what, a million words on the loot system, words in which people described the terrible drop rates and absolutely zero posts about there being interesting loot - not good bonuses - interesting and cool items - I was soured on the pack.

2. I didn't see any talk about the quests themselves being cool, neat, engaging or interesting.

3. The price wasn't worth it considering numbers 1 and 2.

So far, what has been said about this pack is putting it in the same place as MD for me. Obfuscation concerning drop rates and the like, yet another boring crafting system (and unlike everyone else here, I think the IoD system is also garbage - the game DOES. NOT. NEED. this many crafting systems), more talk of nothing but bonuses and bonuses and sets and augments and augment set bonuses. Which is boring because I am not an accountant.

Through the old forums and these forums, I have been asking - nay, begging you do to do two basic things regarding loot:
1. Stop binding everything to character or account. Just stop it.

2. Please, please, for the love of Boccob, go through the half a century plus of the game and add magic items from the pen-and-paper game. There are hundreds of nifty items, some low impact, some high, that you could add to the game without worrying about set bonuses and augments and blah blah blah.

But instead of adding actual magic items, you double, triple, quadruple and etc down on adding poorly designed and executed grindy systems with low drop rates and WITHOUT providing any real behind the DM screen information on the process.

Unless something about your approach changes, I just don't see myself purchasing this or future expansions. And there's a good chance I'll also drop VIP since you can't even make interesting rewards for that.

 

[Drachmor]

could we get transparency on what the rare percentage is? I mean if it's .0001 percent and it's now .01 percent it's improved but not meaningful

I mean, 100 times more likely would be pretty meaningful

Still tho, yes, learning the percent would be cool. Also lowkey aren’t there laws about like loot crate / gacha / etc percentages? Wonder if this applies

 

[Oliphant]

"100 times more" is not necessarily meaningful if the base amount is tiny. Using proportional language is a classic rhetorical trick in these situations.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I mean, 100 times more likely would be pretty meaningful

Still tho, yes, learning the percent would be cool. Also lowkey aren’t there laws about like loot crate / gacha / etc percentages? Wonder if this applies

no its really not.


you still cant pull the items even with something so proportionally increased

 

[Drachmor]

no its really not.


you still cant pull the items even with something so proportionally increased

I guess, if you’re using these hyperbolic numbers?

But if MD rare loot were 100 times more likely to drop, there wouldn’t be a problem.

 

[Drachmor]

"100 times more" is not necessarily meaningful if the base amount is tiny. Using proportional language is a classic rhetorical trick in these situations.

Rhetorical trick? Man, did you miss the part where I agreed we needed transparency?

But if you’re gonna say increasing drop rates by 100 times isn’t meaningful… you’re wrong

 

[Oliphant]

I'm not saying you being tricky, just saying proportional wording can sound meaningful even if it's not really that meaningful. In general numbers don't have any meaning anyways until tethered to something meaningful. In most situations 100x is extremely meaningful, which is why is has rhetorical power. Transforming 0.0001 percent to 0.01 percent would not mean jack***t to me.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I guess, if you’re using these hyperbolic numbers?

But if MD rare loot were 100 times more likely to drop, there wouldn’t be a problem.

yes those numbers were hyperbolic.

but if they are that low, and we do not know what the numbers are, we cant say if the increase makes a difference.

Am I speaking more clearly? This is not an attack on you or ssg just saying the statement has little validity with objective evidence.

And yes in the case i spoke of, even a huge increase like that winds up meaning jack and bleep.

 

[Ilvati]

I rarely post on the forums and it is only something that is a significant impact to my gameplay experience that motivates me to say something (e.g., the last issue for me was tumble). The rarity of loot in MD was unfun. It was part of what motivated me to take a break from playing and switch my gaming to DDO's competitors.

I suspect like many DDO players I enjoy long vertical progression games and the theorycrafting and analytical work they promote; the reincarination and reaper systems in DDO do a fanastic job of this. However, DDO has made a design choice to shift from determinstic progression systems to RNG systems (Cards of Fortune / rare loot). What we are really impacted by is the median time to acquire something and the standard deviation related thereto. I abhor RNG systems with signficant standard deviation. I think most players would agree that the standard deviation on the time to acquire "normal" named loot is not material in terms of total DDO gameplay and expected in video gaming. Both the time to acquire and standard deviation on time to acquire for rare loot are too large and dimish my playing experience. In addition, lack of any deterministic mechanisms on cards is unfun for me.

Math ahead:
As an example a rare loot drop of 5% on a named list that you have a 33% chance of rolling with 4 items on the named rare list gives you a 33% * 5% / 4 or ~0.41% chance for a particular drop. This gives you 169 pulls (whether rerolls, groups whatever) to a median time to acquire but 1 sdev is 43 pulls to 447 pulls. 2 sdevs is 631 pulls and 3 is 1290 pulls. Compare this to "normal" named loot which has a median time (same facts as above but not on the rare list) of 9 runs with 1 sdev being 3 to 22 pulls. Take the median examples 169 - 9 = 160 runs. Assume someone rerolls to acquire at 15 shards a roll = 2400 shards. Using normal prices for points and shards (assuming large purchase sizes) this is about $120 increased cost per item with a median result. That's a lot and honestly even as someone who has spent a bunch on this game its at the edge of my tolerance; assuming a determinstic outcome. But what gets me is the sdev. Assume you are in the normal distribution and you are at the top of the 1 sdev distribution 447 - 22 = 425 or ~ 2.6x for an expected cost of $315. This isn't even unlucky just a normal distribution.
Math over

I like what I heard from Tolero in terms of crafting (i.e., determinstic systems) but without numbers (drop percentages) its impossible to say whether or not these will result in a material reduction in standard devivation of time to acquire desired items. I have no issue with a drop requiring signficant effort (think about the time we spend on past lives) but we know that for 10-20 hours we are getting something and loot should work the same way. This is not the case with the MD system and hope CoR changes this.

I think the playbase understands DDO is small market and owned by PE thus is a premium product. I have no issue with this; its a fact of life and I like the product. I further understand that the player count continues to decrease (thanks DDO audit) thus revenue per active player has to increase to stay in business; again no problem this is part of enjoying a niche product. That said, for me if you take away deteminism and create signficant variability in costs (time and/or money) as a way to grow revenue its no longer enjoyable and I'll probably play another game. Do I mind in concept monetizing loot? No. Many games do it and DDO already does. But again its the "gambling" (high sdev) that deters me from even engaging with the MD system in terms of rerolls for rares.

TLDR: Determinstic systems = good. Random systems with large standard deviation = bad. For me the magic of DDO is long vertical progression; random dimishes this.

 

[Svirfneblin]

Based on how Myth Dranor went and the lack of clarity and transparency with the loot tables, rarity, time to acquire, etc… I am not going to pre-purchase this Lamordia expansion pack I’m going to wait for others to buy it and try it out and get their feedback especially on loot rarity, Rare wilderness encounters, items not working etc. etc.

Curious what their data mining will come up with.

I have friends in game who don’t make a lotta money and they were re rolling all the MD chests for themselves and party members. We farmed one quest and those purple wilderness caves for like 3 months every day they did all Re rolls looking for a rare. I did not like seeing that because I know money was tight for them and I don’t wanna go through that again. I rerolled only a few MD chest then after hearing and seeing how rare some loot was I stopped. It’s too bad because I really liked a lot of those quests and I really like the mythology and history of the MD area, I got into the storyline and narration and feel, I was super excited to play it but after a while it made me sick. I only do the raid now.

I don’t think I really need this expansion pack and probably could skip it when going to level 40 for legendary reincarnations when that becomes a thing.

 

[Oliphant]

I think most of us understand DDO has to shear a certain amount of fleece to operate and we have a small flock and we're quite generous about supporting DDO and accepting some fleecing. So I think when folks rise up about certain practices being abusive, unfun and over line, you should take it seriously. Sure you could write this off like, wut forums are totally negative, who you foolin?!? But really, there isn't a big revolt about exploitive stuff that often.

 

[Sylvado]

I'm not saying you being tricky, just saying proportional wording can sound meaningful even if it's not really that meaningful. In general numbers don't have any meaning anyways until tethered to something meaningful. In most situations 100x is extremely meaningful, which is why is has rhetorical power. Transforming 0.0001 percent to 0.01 percent would not mean jack***t to me.

1:100 is not in the least bit rare.

 

[Oliphant]

1:100 is not in the least bit rare.

0.01% is 1 in 10,000

 

[Sylvado]

I rarely post on the forums and it is only something that is a significant impact to my gameplay experience that motivates me to say something (e.g., the last issue for me was tumble). The rarity of loot in MD was unfun. It was part of what motivated me to take a break from playing and switch my gaming to DDO's competitors.

I suspect like many DDO players I enjoy long vertical progression games and the theorycrafting and analytical work they promote; the reincarination and reaper systems in DDO do a fanastic job of this. However, DDO has made a design choice to shift from determinstic progression systems to RNG systems (Cards of Fortune / rare loot). What we are really impacted by is the median time to acquire something and the standard deviation related thereto. I abhor RNG systems with signficant standard deviation. I think most players would agree that the standard deviation on the time to acquire "normal" named loot is not material in terms of total DDO gameplay and expected in video gaming. Both the time to acquire and standard deviation on time to acquire for rare loot are too large and dimish my playing experience. In addition, lack of any deterministic mechanisms on cards is unfun for me.

Math ahead:
As an example a rare loot drop of 5% on a named list that you have a 33% chance of rolling with 4 items on the named rare list gives you a 33% * 5% / 4 or ~0.41% chance for a particular drop. This gives you 169 pulls (whether rerolls, groups whatever) to a median time to acquire but 1 sdev is 43 pulls to 447 pulls. 2 sdevs is 631 pulls and 3 is 1290 pulls. Compare this to "normal" named loot which has a median time (same facts as above but not on the rare list) of 9 runs with 1 sdev being 3 to 22 pulls. Take the median examples 169 - 9 = 160 runs. Assume someone rerolls to acquire at 15 shards a roll = 2400 shards. Using normal prices for points and shards (assuming large purchase sizes) this is about $120 increased cost per item with a median result. That's a lot and honestly even as someone who has spent a bunch on this game its at the edge of my tolerance; assuming a determinstic outcome. But what gets me is the sdev. Assume you are in the normal distribution and you are at the top of the 1 sdev distribution 447 - 22 = 425 or ~ 2.6x for an expected cost of $315. This isn't even unlucky just a normal distribution.
Math over

I like what I heard from Tolero in terms of crafting (i.e., determinstic systems) but without numbers (drop percentages) its impossible to say whether or not these will result in a material reduction in standard devivation of time to acquire desired items. I have no issue with a drop requiring signficant effort (think about the time we spend on past lives) but we know that for 10-20 hours we are getting something and loot should work the same way. This is not the case with the MD system and hope CoR changes this.

I think the playbase understands DDO is small market and owned by PE thus is a premium product. I have no issue with this; its a fact of life and I like the product. I further understand that the player count continues to decrease (thanks DDO audit) thus revenue per active player has to increase to stay in business; again no problem this is part of enjoying a niche product. That said, for me if you take away deteminism and create signficant variability in costs (time and/or money) as a way to grow revenue its no longer enjoyable and I'll probably play another game. Do I mind in concept monetizing loot? No. Many games do it and DDO already does. But again its the "gambling" (high sdev) that deters me from even engaging with the MD system in terms of rerolls for rares.

TLDR: Determinstic systems = good. Random systems with large standard deviation = bad. For me the magic of DDO is long vertical progression; random dimishes this.

You explain why crafting has so little use. It doesn't compare with named loot and with the desire of many here to have rare items so common that everyone gets then crafting never will have value.

 

[Zvdegor]

Will the Lamordia crafting system be the exact same like IoD crafting system just with higher values?
(Same weapon augments like freezing, salt, vulnerability, defuffing, etc)
Will there be anything new which have never been seen before?
Will there be any new interesting augment which will shake up the game?

Will there also be sun/moon aug system included?

 

[Eoin-1]

Will the Lamordia crafting system be the exact same like IoD crafting system just with higher values?
(Same weapon augments like freezing, salt, vulnerability, defuffing, etc)
Will there be anything new which have never been seen before?
Will there be any new interesting augment which will shake up the game?

Will there also be sun/moon aug system included?

Since we can't get drop rates, how about examples that might answer some of your questions (right now mostly looking like copy and paste with a rename, hopefully numbers are getting bumped):

Spoiler

Melancholic Flames
Slotted Effect: Adds Adamantine material type. On hit: 15d6 Fire Damage.

Dolorous: Positive Spell Crit Damage
Slotted Effect: +10% Insight bonus to Positive Spell Crit Damage.

Miserable Arcana: Fire
Slotted Effect: +149 Equipment bonus to Fire Spellpower.

Melancholic: Dexterity
Slotted Effect: +14 Enhancement bonus to Dexterity. If slotted into a Minor Artifact, this bonus is instead +15.

Miserable: Acid Spell Crit Damage
Slotted Effect: +5% Quality bonus to Acid Spell Crit Damage.

Melancholic: Cold Spell Crit Damage
Slotted Effect: +20% Enhancement bonus to Cold Spell Crit Damage.

Melancholic Device
Slotted Effect: You have Deathblock and are Ghostly.

Dolorous: Healing Amplification
Slotted Effect: +56 Competence bonus to Positive Healing Amplification.

Woeful: Sacred DCs
Slotted Effect: You have a +2 Sacred bonus to Spell DCs.

Melancholic Booster
Slotted Effect: +5% Exceptional bonus to Universal Spell Lore

Miserable: Sunder
Slotted Effect: +15 Enhancement bonus to Sunder DCs.

Melancholic Shadows
+10% Enhancement bonus to Spell Cost Reduction. If this is slotted in a Quarterstaff, also grants a +2 Exceptional bonus to Spell DCs and makes your weapon an Implement.

Dolorous Invigorator
Slotted Effect: +2 Profane bonus to Spell DCs, Tactical DCs, and Assassinate.

Dreadful Sparks
Slotted Effect: Adds Lawful alignment bypass. Your attacks and spells have a small chance to deal a massive amount of Electric damage.

Woeful Dimlight
Slotted Effect: Your attacks and offensive spells have a chance to grant you 1,000 Temporary HP.

Woeful Chill
Slotted Effect: Your attacks and offensive spells have a chance to freeze your target in a block of ice.

Woeful: Relentless Fury
Slotted Effect: Relentless Fury. While this item is equipped, any killing blows you strike against enemies may drive you into a furious rage, providing a 5% Enhancement damage bonus to your melee, ranged, and unarmed attacks for 30 seconds. Slaying weaker opponents has a reduced chance of producing this effect.

Dolorous: Deception
Slotted Effect: +11 Enhancement bonus to Sneak Attacks, +17 Enhancement bonus to Sneak Attack Damage.

Dolorous: Accuracy
Slotted Effect: +21 Competence bonus to Attack.

Woeful: Enhanced Ghostly
Slotted Effect: Enhanced Ghostly. Equipping this item causes you to become partially incorporeal. Your melee and missile attacks do not roll a miss chance for Incorporeal targets. Enemy attacks have a 15% chance to miss you due to your incorporeality. You receive a +5 enhancement bonus to your Hide and Move Silently skills.

Woeful Shadows
Your attacks and offensive spells have a chance to reduce enemy Physical and Magical Resistance Rating.

Wintery Wrappings
Lamordia: Dolorous Slot
Lamordia: Melancholic Slot
Lamordia: Miserable Slot

Baron Aubrecker's Family Amulet
The power this amulet confers appears to be of a much higher quality than the amulet itself.
Lamordia: Dolorous Slot
Lamordia: Melancholic Slot

Calamitous Morningstar
Place a Lamordia: Woeful (Weapon) Augment here!
Lamordia: Dolorous Slot (Weapon)
Lamordia: Melancholic Slot (Weapon)
Lamordia: Woeful Slot (Weapon)
Lamordia: Miserable Slot (Weapon)

Legendary Cataclysmic Light Hammer
Place a Lamordia: Woeful (Weapon) Augment here!
Lamordia: Dolorous Slot (Weapon)
Lamordia: Melancholic Slot (Weapon)
Lamordia: Woeful Slot (Weapon)
Lamordia: Miserable Slot (Weapon)

 

[rabidfox]

Just to note, I believe (Legendary & Heroic) Helm of the Warblade is still bugged where the crown of summer on it doesn't work. Getting a rare item and finding out it doesn't work is extra disappointing.