A Slight Tweak to the Generated Loot System

Bugs & Suggestions board archives from Act V forums.
Toroic
Posts: 18
Character: Elric Faust

Re: A Slight Tweak to the Generated Loot System

Post by Toroic » April 2nd, 2019, 8:48 am

Prometheus, I’ve seen that post and it is irrelevant to the matter at hand.

I’m fully aware that there’s plans for story but that has nothing to do with drop tables being full of mage gear.

Asking why the last two updates were full of spell tweaks and buffs was rhetorical. I know mage mechanics are Rex’s baby, I just don’t appreciate being told mechanics aren’t a focus when they clearly are, just specific to mages.

To be clear, I support Rex working on mechanics, any mechanics. But it’s simply not true that mechanics aren’t a focus now and it’s not true that story events make mechanics not matter.

We as players prefer if drop tables have the potential for something of value to incentivize taking on difficult content in the hopes of a reward. The only reasons to hunt other than skill gain is silver, recipes, and spell words. One thing I’ve ever seen drop was remotely useful except potentially to a mage, and it was an axe.

Prometheus
Posts: 11
Character: IaintGotOne

Re: A Slight Tweak to the Generated Loot System

Post by Prometheus » April 2nd, 2019, 8:54 am

The point I'm making, is that you're making a lot of claims at the moment, based on experience with but a small aspect, and only the mechanical aspect of it. A lot of game design decisions (spells, abilities, etc) are all weighed and look at through the settings world lore and metaphysics.

Regardless, the loot tables are, as they are, as it is intended.

Toroic
Posts: 18
Character: Elric Faust

Re: A Slight Tweak to the Generated Loot System

Post by Toroic » April 2nd, 2019, 10:56 am

Prometheus wrote: April 2nd, 2019, 8:54 amA lot of game design decisions (spells, abilities, etc) are all weighed and look at through the settings world lore and metaphysics.

Regardless, the loot tables are, as they are, as it is intended.
Taking a moment to lol at “metaphysics” as a factor in balancing, balancing based on world lore isn’t balancing at all.

If you’re making balance decisions based on lore you are making mistakes that have already been tested and solved in dozens of game systems before. The case study for why you don’t “balance” based on lore is dnd 3.5e which had very similar issues and given the age and the lessons learned in 4e and then 5e (which learned from 4e trying to make everything too much the same) I’m frankly disappointed to see staff has such a primitive perspective.

This conversation has been instructive though in why balance is atrocious and many melee abilities are buggy or worthless or both. (Because staff “balance” philosophy is nonsense and Rex likes mages and is the only one bugfixing)

Of course, the nice thing about a nonsense basis for decisions is it can be contradictory. For example, we are frequently lied to when told that spells that are the equivalent of skill abilities are deliberately weakened. And yet, jump was removed and I seriously doubt it ever had the range that teleport has. Similarly, while potions can heal you (sometimes) no potion provides a 30 point group heal.

Of course staff will make bad decisions if you’re basing them on an assumption that lore is relevant to mechanical balance. Lore should inform the selection of abilities available (inform not determine) but their magnitude should be informed by a solid foundation of mechanical balance.

What frustrates me despite knowing this and knowing Requiem staffing has been riddled with issues historically, is these are *solved problems*. We have literal decades of data and analysis of a similar system telling us this is *not* the way to approach balance.

The funny part about this is a lot of the staff decisions that make balance here worse is undoing design decisions made by UO whose purpose whomever Requiems design voice is didn’t understand.

Problems have been created UO didn’t have, 3.5e dnd did, and 5e largely avoided.

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