SteelStar Asks: (U69.3) What Effects Are Hard To Find On Quest Loot?

SteelStar

Senior Systems Designer
Hey, everyone!

We've had a couple of really good feedback threads on loot in the past few months, a lot of you have brought strong ideas to the table that influenced both the direction of loot and the individual items.

With Myth Drannor having been out for a while and the followup Raid dropping very shortly, it's time to look toward what loot comes next. While we're not ready to talk about specifics, I did want to bring up a topic for discussion that will help us know what you want to see:

As of U69.3, what effects are you looking for that are hard to find in Quest Loot?

A few guidelines for discussion:
  • We're talking about Quest Loot specifically here, not Raid Loot
  • Some effects are intentionally uncommon on Quest Loot, as they're considered Raid-tier effects.
  • We're giving some preference to effects that didn't appear in Myth Drannor and would synergize well with those items.
  • Sun and Moon Augment Slots are likely going to continue to exist on new items!
  • As a result, in the near term we're not likely to do new Set Bonuses, as Sun and Moon Augments fill that role on those items.
  • We still do not intend to make combined Sun+Moon Augment Slots, or add Sun or Moon slots to item slots that didn't get that slot in Myth Drannor (no Moon Slots on Helms, Sun Slots on Boots, etc).
 

rabidfox

The People's Champion
  • Sun and Moon Augment Slots are likely going to continue to exist on new items!
  • As a result, in the near term we're not likely to do new Set Bonuses, as Sun and Moon Augments fill that role on those items
As long as rare solar augments exist (and cover what already exists on other sets stat-wise), all new items will be tainted by that for me. The grind for solar spell crit augment broke my fun; to the point where some days I just log in, roll my dice, and log off (my of most time spent in game lately has been on lam & Cormyr). Any items I get will mean I need to hit RNG lottery to replace any existing set based gear I have and that's going to influence my fun with any upcoming gear. For the sun/moon system to be something I want to engage with, all the current rare augments would need to be put on regular loot tables; and if you want rare augements they should be something like 'rare augement gets non-rare value( plus 1)'; where it's just slightly better than the easily obtainable version. This issue effects both heroic & legenedary gear desirablity to me. Who's going grind heroic MD (or future packs) for a less than 1% chance for a rare solar augment vs just using existing fey/dread/ravenloft/sharn/etc. gear for leveling?

The augement system itself is cool on paper and could be great as a universal system going forward. But the lack of availability and grind has me checked out of the game entirely now.

Intercession Ward is very rare.
A heroic intercession ward item that's not a weapon would be hot; right now we've only got attonement in heroics for that.
 

rabidfox

The People's Champion
For the love of Christmas, make the solar and moon augments unbound if you want to keep their rarity. Then you bump up the shard exchange which lets you continue to garner your usurious 30% tax.
They are unbound. But odds are so slim to get the rares that even the ones on the shard exchange cost crazy amounts. I'm not spending hundreds of dollars in shards on a sidegrade.
 

Vish

Founder and Winner of DDO
the argument for this expansion,
was that the loot was weak
meaning useful effects were often 1 of 4, or at best 2 of 4
the sun moon augment system is great. players love that flexibility

but overall, and i have come to see this as perhaps your design,
is to have weak items now, and increase them as level cap increases
ie from1/2 to 3/4. because items like pansophic circlet and deepsnow boots are winner items

the other argument was the rare cases of loot. which has improved with your add to chance.
the melee sets in this expansion look fairly doable, but the caster sets were not as well ordered
perhaps the year of the dragon and dragon lord

what i want to see is not mass production scaled items,
but items that a thoughtful wizard would craft to max out his awesome sauce
or his friend the cleric or tank or insert class here.
what we have is a patchwork tetris.
if you could have some range in values that were over under and not just up. power creep then reset again huh.
the level of power is now what it was when you scaled at u50 and 51. or greater.
guess we cant wait for those 64 bit servers. lol

and since theres so much evil in the game,
we need an INFERNAL dc bonus. opposite of sacred. mutally exclusive.
 

axel15810

Well-known member
Insightful/quality augments for regular aug slots (I don't mean sun/moon)

For any and all effects and stats to help with gear flexibility.

Accuracy/tactics/damage would be especially nice so that using a trance isn't so mandatory on melee builds.

I would love a new effect that increases the power of cleric abilities - so extra heals/prr/dodge/etc. on turn undead abilities on use, or extra bonuses to the 20 second domain buffs

True Seeing/Freedom of Movement Augments - these are mandatory effects on melee builds that need to be slottable on augments IMO.
 
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Nimvind

Dirgesinger Bard of Sarlona
Can we do augment suggestions? I'd love to see a Freedom of Movement augment.
But personally I love playing melee tactical DC bards, so more fun ways to push melee tactical DCs would be major pog!
 

saekee

long live ROGUE
One of the things I missed most when you changed cannith crafting was my lowly vampiric bodyfeeder weapons. The vampirism did not have an internal cooldown and the bodyfeeder procced enough to keep my gimpy toons comfortably alive. I would like to see forms of temp hp like this that are not massive and with big cooldowns of ones like Legendary Affirmation and have them in the form of an augment. You would slot this in a weapon. It would need to be a reasonable scaling; make the bodyfeeder augment ML 1, no internal cooldown, and make it scale with the weapon's ML multiplied by something relevant (like doubled for epics, maybe triple for legendary). You have a vampirism augment already and feeding, but feeding is too weak and procs only on the annoying vorpal.

In general, the struggle for me is getting quality/insightful stuff together. When they combine on an item, that makes it a bit easier, such as the deepsnow boots out of Feywild, or the insightful/quality assassinate items like the Masterwork guantlets. Base ability stats are now easily covered wtih augments or a dinobone crafted scale; we now have ways of getting basic assassinate stats etc so it all comes down to those other stacking elements.

The moon/sun, or set bonuses, are further stacking artifact/profane but you got that systematized.

If I am playing an assassin, and am now just in 'beating up a red named' mode, I do not need assassinate any more. So I can swap out the assassinate gear for better dps. That is why it is handy having it all on one item; dump when not needed.

For my caster-ish toon, my challenge has been buffing spell power and spell lores. There have been great additions like the soul forge recipes and I think it would be great to keep adding new ones. For example, the Pomura's memento has been helpful for one of my toons. Soulforge is not as grindy as set augments and so funner to strive to make.

Please bring back Obscenity and A Thousand Suns on random loot and make all those cool affixes appear at lower levels so people use them. Here, for example, is a usable lootgens that an inquisitor can consider if Ratkiller is not in their inventory, or the Barovian weapons feel too boring:
vzAtj91.jpeg
 
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h46av8r

Well-known member
I would love to have a way to slot spell power (and insightful spell power) on something other than weapons/scepters/orbs/shields. For example on rings. Super limiting currently and makes you sacrifice DPS on, say, an EK by giving up that 9d6 ruby that also can only go in your weapon slots.
 

Ivor

Member
I'd love to see a new shield clicky around middle heroic levels with greater than 5 minute duration. There's a few 5 min duration ones at low level and then a 20 minute duration one at min level 21 (Epic Sapphire Studded Buckles) but nothing in between. Obviously I don't know what level you'll be making gear for next but if it's mid-ish heroic levels, can we get a 10-15 minute shield clicky on something? Relying on a 5 minute duration all the way to heroic cap is a bit of a pita.
 
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