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

[mikarddo]

An item with +2 DC to all types of spells with the same stacking the +2 augments have. It is a large tax on caster augment slots to have to slot all those +2 augments for DC along with +6 regular DC.

 

[mikarddo]

Dripping with Magma - the version that works with spells.

 

[Archangeluriel]

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).

I don't like the sun/moon augments and prefer the set bonuses. I hate the grind that I need farm rare augments to fit gear into my gearset, i'd rather have a specific item that already has that as part of a set. I've ransacked MD on 8 toons weekly since its come out trying to farm for the spell crit augment. I dont mind farming for gear because it drops eventually...but the rare augment grind is too much for me. The part that makes this game boring for me is the constant farming of the same quest for specific item or in this case augment. I'm extremely burned out and I cant swap my items around without it. This aspect is very not fun for me. I'd either like to see the drop rates for the augments go up or do not do them moving forward. For someone that plays 10 alts, regearing them and farming specific augments seems next to impossible.

 

[_fully_carroted_]

There are a lot of great ideas in here. I'd like to add this: Useless "flavour" affixes should exist on a lot of gear, and there should be a dedicated affix budget for flavour effects.

Yes, we should be able to farm a complete gearset without ANY rare items (rare items should not have any mechanical value, unless there's a reliable and accessible way to farm them outside of rare drops)

Chase items should not be the only way to get essential stats that many build would need. Spell critical chance and fortification bypass are examples of things that should not be exclusively chase items.

Affixes I dislike seeing on gear:
<lots! But maybe it would be fine to have one of these on an item if it didn't prevent the item from having something useful as well?

[...]
adding more augments for these stats with updates was a good a thing and was disappointed MD didn't continue this. Over time if you continue to add more augments for hard-to-find stats there will be less scrutiny on your gear.

The current game's combat balance is based on weapon crits. Sure, there are lots of non-crit damage sources but a crit is just way too important to allow extended crits anymore. If the weapon math was adjusted to make crits no more valuable than other damage sources, this would definitely be fun though.

I know it's not likely, but it'd be cool to have more weapons with extended crit and/or multiplier. There's a select handful of weapons with them, and they are the main weapons that a lot of people use.

 

[Chacka]

And if you're interested in a more "crazy" idea, I would suggest reworking loot in general to function more like Greensteel and Cannith crafting.

This means that each item, whether named, crafted, or random, should drop with one strong effect. Players would then have the ability to craft additional effects onto any item. It shouldn't matter where the "effect shards" come from—allowing you to craft named effect shards onto raid loot, or apply effect shards from raid loot onto random items, etc.

Additionally, you could introduce a system to combine effect shards, increasing their tier. For example, combining two tier-one effect shards would produce a tier-two shard, and combining two tier-two shards would result in a tier-three shard. Each tier would offer a small, linear power increase.

The idea is to make random loot more useful so that every chest feels worth looting, which is not currently the case. This could be achieved by allowing players to mix named, crafted, and random loot effects.

Furthermore, I would strongly suggest removing minimum level (ML) restrictions from items. All items should be designed to work at any character level, which would better align with DDO's expectation that players restart their characters hundreds of times from level 1.

I'd also like to see augments be changeable for free, allowing quick item adjustments for specific quests and raids, promoting flexibility. For more significant changes—like altering the effect shards on an item—you could still sell tools in the DDO Store.

I’ve tried to present my idea as concisely as possible while hoping it's still clear what I envision.

 

[rabidfox]

Dripping with Magma - the version that works with spells.

It's on one of the new raid weapons (the upgraded warblade). Well, it was bugged last lam, but that's effect on it.

 

[Putti]

Items I think might be missing from Myth Drannor:

A trapping item (Search/DD/Open Lock on one item)
Rough Hide on non-shields

Affixes I love to see on items in general:

Cannith Crafting enabled items like the Gem of Many Facets and Rune-arms
Hardened Exterior
Stone Paws
Bone Paws
Druidic Survival Mastery
Druidic Stoneshape
Blood Thorns
Relentless Fury
Marksmanship
Manslayer
Enhanced Jet Propulsion (or similar)
Fleshmaker (or enhancement bonus to hAMP
Freezing Ice
Freedom of Movement
Nimbleness
Ram's Might
Temperance of Spirit
Things like Thornblade/Flameblade/Frostblade/Shadowblade that changes the damage type of the weapon
Things like Path of the Guarding Stone/Path of the Fire Dragon/Way of the Sun Soul/Soul of the Elements
More nAMP and rAMP items so that they're equivalent to hAMP
DR/-

 

[Dazling]

Not exactly a specific effect, but I'd like to see a full piece set, as in all 10 equipment slots + armor and preferably also a weapon, that is a matching set, and a few different versions for different general archetypes. When I've gotten new players into the game, a frequent concern we hit at higher levels is that the gear tetris is so onerous - there's almost always a point in a build where you have to use some other pieces to fill niches (like putting in one insightful sheltering item) or use augments to make a gearset work- from a new player perspective it's incredibly daunting, and they're pretty much guaranteed to either end up with a gearset where they awkwardly didn't realize they're missing profane + insightful PRR and are down 50 PRR or something of that nature, or even worse on casters with all the various stats.

I thought the "Warblade", "Artblade", etc pieces were going to fill that, but I think there's a great opportunity with solar/lunar augments to go deeper into having these type of "starter" sets. Some examples: A full gearset with flexible robe/light/medium/armor and flexible weapons (this can just be the typical "Fallen Age" / "Ferrocrystal" / "Morninglord" etc. style) meant for martials - if you wear every piece of the gearset, across all of it it gives you str/ins str, dex/ins dex, con/ins con, your choice of stat/ins stat between the caster stats, speed/melee alacrity, doublestrike/ins doublestrike, deadly, deception, accuracy, armor piercing, dodge, seeker, melee power, some AC bonuses, some false life, some saves, parrying, fortification, hamp, multiple sheltering types, action boost charges, all that. Every piece is "Bracers of the Martial Combatant", "Gloves of the Martial Combatant", etc. to make it very simple to explain to a new player. There would be some stats missing from it (quality stats, insightful armor piercing/damage/accuracy, quality doublestrike, etc.) so that it wouldn't be a replacement for well thought out and optimized gear sets, but it would provide a good starting point.

That way when a new player is at high levels, their paladin/monk/fighter/eldritch knight can all just be told "Use the Martial Combatant set to start, you grind it from this area", and they have a gearset that assures they won't have a gaping hole in their setup for endgame. When they get comfortable with it, they can make a stronger gearset by using different sets, specific pieces with more powerful stats on them or that lend themselves to niche builds, using augments to allow stronger combinations, etc - no maximum investment super hero characters would be using the full set, but it provides a great entry point for new players and alts.

 

[QuantumFX]

• General
  • More Cannith craftible items. The Gem of Many Facets, Mysterious Rings and Craftable Rune arms are fun! I do not understand why that fun needs to die off at level 20.
  • More clickies that don't require a bajillion raid runs. Yeah, I'm referring to Legendary Shroud. The Sapphire Studded Buckles are great! The Epic Wooden Prayer Beads are cool too! I miss Fireshield clickies! We affectionately call the Cannith Boots of Propulsion "the Scooty Boots"
• Spellcaster:
  • More, and an actual selection of, hybrid spell power items please. I've heard that you guys don't like making caster quarterstaffs because "You're better off using a scepter and orb". That's because I can get orbs that cover multiple spellpower types. Take one of those orbs and pair it with a scepter and you get three spellpower types. Also, we know you want your artificer and wizard to have all the spellpower, but there are other caster types out there guys!
  • To add to Rabidfox's comments on the Spell Critical chance augment: I can see that particular augment being ultra rare, but we also need lesser augments that are way more common. Examples:
    • Solar Gem of Frozen Storm Lore: Artifact bonus to Cold and Lightning spell crit.
    • Solar Gem of Blighted Lore: Artifact Bonus to Acid and Poison spell crit.
  • More ways to get spell crit multiplier.
• Melee/Ranged:
  • I honestly wouldn't mind seeing some of the hybrid prefixes (Rebel, Crusader, Songblade) become a part of semi-random weapons. (Note: I said "semi-random", not "let's go all Feather of Sun on this loot!" random!)

 

[Kritikal]

more items like Skullduggery kit - with grouped skill bonuses

Wisdom skills - [Exceptional, Potential, etc.] Bonus +[x]
Strength skills - [Exceptional, Potential, etc.] Bonus +[x]
Charisma skills - [Exceptional, Potential, etc.] Bonus +[x]
Dexterity skills - [Exceptional, Potential, etc.] Bonus +[x]
Intelligence skills - [Exceptional, Potential, etc.] Bonus +[x]

 

[Fingaforn]

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.


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

Yeah, need to reinforce what rabidfox said, the grind breaks the fun of the game, that was the reason I stopped to play in 2012 and went back in 2020, never forget that at that time i did Von Raid about 100 times and never dropped a shard of SoS to me

 

[Lotoc]

Here's my obligatory post about insightful Radiant and Void lore really needing representation outside the offhand slot, sharn orbs have kind of trapped that itemization niche too hard and any orbs or staves designed for Light, negative or poison casters suffer redundancy as a result.

 

[Chacka]

What I would also love to see in DDO is an instrument slot for bards. It's great that we have the fiddle, but needing to equip it in the quiver slot is often problematic. Many players use a Quiver of Alacrity, which isn't compatible with playing a fiddle as a bard. Imagine a bard who is also an archer—he can't even use a quiver!

Additionally, I can envision more instruments being added, such as drums and flutes.

Another issue that often bothers me is when playing a "trapper," I have to sacrifice an inventory slot to equip items for Spot, Search, Disable Device, and Open Lock. I would love to see trappers get additional item slots specifically for these skills, so they no longer need to constantly switch items to handle traps and locks.

While we're at it, I also suggest that all classes should have the ability to handle traps and locks. My idea for implementing this would be to give certain skill feats a new purpose. For example, the feat Nimble Fingers could allow non-rogues to invest in Disable Device and Open Lock, and the feat Alertness could grant the Trapfinding ability along with allowing you to skill Search and Spot as if you were a rogue.

This would mean that any class could be a trapper, but it would be more challenging. For me, it would be fun to handle traps with a pure wizard or fighter.

Of course, the current trapper classes would still receive these feats as free class feats.

Additionally, I can imagine that taking the Alertness feat would unlock an extra inventory slot for Search and Spot items, and taking Nimble Fingers would grant a dedicated inventory slot for Disable Device and Open Lock items.

Furthermore, for instance, if you take the Bullheaded feat, you could unlock a slot for special Intimidation items. Basically every Skill Focus Feat could unlock a special item slots wher you could fit in special items who enhance skills only (effects that do not make you kill monsters faster)

 

[RobShow]

Your minions gain +X to all ability scores and +XX Melee Power, Universal Spell Power, PRR and MRR.

Your minions gain +XX to HIT and +XX to DCs.

Your minions gain chance do BURST DAMAGE on ATACK.

Eidolon Summons. Decrease the cooldown to 60 sec.​

Pack Presence: Forms a link between a leader and his or her pack. The caster chooses to reduce or increase his or her minions' hate generation by 75%. The spell affects all of the target's​

Aspect of: X creature (no oozes!)​

 

[rabidfox]

Here's my obligatory post about insightful Radiant and Void lore really needing representation outside the offhand slot, sharn orbs have kind of trapped that itemisation niche too hard.

Or just give it to us as an epic past life toggle already so all caster types are on equal footing (put all the missing the spell types from spell critical toggle either on it or on a fresh toggle).

 

[FaceDancer]

I would really like to see a spell resistance augment. Looking @ the wiki under spell resistance items it looks like Veca may have been the last time something was released with spell resistance (could be wrong)? https://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Spell_Resistance_items

 

[Venatori d' Argonnessen]

Quest loot (specifically bonuses that already exist on non-raid items in some regard) that are rare

Rams might - only exists on 1 item

Shield clicky - theres 1 non armor item that lasts longer than 5 minutes

Nightshield clicky - only exists on armor from quests

Fortification - fairly rare, especially because slotting an item *just* for fortification really sucks, ins and quality are also quite nice with how much fortbypass stuff in MD has, and would be good to find / fit

Insightful Diversion - Specifically melee, insightful diversion only shows up on bracers from toee, and gloves from ravenloft

Artifact to hit / damage, seeker, deception - Ravens set basically. Only available in ravens set and vulkoors might set. Artifact deception has been available elsewhere, but not to hit/dmg or seeker

Exceptional stats - only available from globe of true blood, and dino weapons, and stuff like legendary/perfected jidz tetka

Parrying - more common than others on this list, but still rare. Last non armor with parrying we got was a few items in Dread

Ins shelterings - again, a bit less rare than others on this list, but always good to have

Thank you!

 

[QuantumFX]

One thing I should probably do is make a more general version of this - The name of it makes it impossible to use outside of Eberron content, which is why it didn't appear in Myth Drannor.

Alchemist Combat Infusion?

 

[mikarddo]

It's on one of the new raid weapons (the upgraded warblade). Well, it was bugged last lam, but that's effect on it.

Thanks. The question is for bon raid items though and I would prefer the effect on a non-weapon non-armor.

 

[rabidfox]

Thanks. The question is for bon raid items though and I would prefer the effect on a non-weapon non-armor.

There's never been magma on a non-raid item, so I assume it's not gonna suddenly happen now.

We're talking about Quest Loot specifically here, not Raid Loot