Item loot: it CAN be good for the server!

[Pudge]

I think item loot really can work if the focus is on making it FUN and not grief city where ppl just run and bag their gear from naked mages.

Proposing that lootable items include:

1) all expendable clickies (golem wands, pumice, larrikans mask, conflag wands, all player made pots, all store bought pots, etc - anything with a finite number of charges that isn't no-drop. Aon would not be loot able because it has unlimited charges)

2) all stackable items (bone chips, gems, arrows/boulders even if equipped, food/water, etc.)

3) am I missing anything? ....

Letting ppl loot clickies and stackables gives them SOMETHING, and it may even be a pretty cool thing.. but for whoever lost it, it is not grief-inducing, because they would have used it up at some point anyway. Just gets expensive if every time you die you lose your 10-dose cure pots. Or you could go with single or 5-charges to reduce your loss, but at the expense of bag space. Same with stackable items. Maybe a mage spreads out all his malachites among his bags so a whole stack can't be taken.. anyway. You guys have any ideas on what a FUN way to implement item loot would be? And by fun I mean, the killer has the joy of looking for goodies to loot, but the guy who died will only suffer minor annoyance and not depression inducing sadness when his fungi/manastone goes away because he didn't run from the naked mage and bag it quick enough.

(Also, coin loot of course stays in.)

EDIT:
I guess it wasn't clear enough from the above.. lootable items would NOT include equippable gear of any kind, UNLESS it was an EXPENDABLE, DROPPABLE clickie. for example, Larrikan's mask is a shitty mask that you can equipp that has 10 charges of invis. you could loot that off someone's mask slot. that shield with 10-charge of rune is also another wearable item that could be looted, etc. all other items could not be looted.

If you guys think its too griefy to allow even 2 or 3 "good" items to be looted (like that rune-shield) then.. we coudl make it only BAGGED stackable/clickables. (It was not my original intent that any equipped items would be lootable. But what i described dis allow for the occasional snag of worn gear, and I kinda like it. most ppl wouldnt even consider trying to loot equipped gear, b/c 99% of the time, the bags would have the only lootables)

[Agatha]

pudge, the gang is back for simulated patch days, hollar at your boy in game.

[Potus]

Item loot never works, it's inherently terrible because Everquest is a gear-centric game.

So no, that's actually terrible because now instead of people stopping and bagging they'll for sure lose their gear (and thus not play the server).

[Pudge]

They'll for sure lose their... water flasks.. sow pots.. or bone chips, and this will make them quit?

Did you even read my post? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Edit: Hrrm maybe you though I was suggesting ALL these things should be lootable at once? I mean that only 1 item/stack could be looted per kill. You'd have to choose whether you wanted to loot this Evil troll's food, or his water.. can't have both..

[Smedy]

Full item loot imo, even no drops

confirmed would save the server

[Potus]

No I thought you were suggesting we had item loot + these items in bags.

Originally Posted by Smedy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Full item loot imo, even no drops

confirmed would save the server

LOL

[Pudge]

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No I thought you were suggesting we had item loot + these items in bags.



LOL

Sorry I should have been more explicit. I meant these things (stackable items and items with charges) ONLY. No getting to loot equipped items or even other bagged items. And was suggesting this for the new teams server, not the existing R99.

Lots of ppl in here arguing "item loot sucks!" -- yes, I agree traditional item loot would be bad. I created this thread hoping ppl would try and come up with a way item loot could NOT suck. So guys -- any ideas? Or you all going to just have the same old discussions again [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.].

Only got 1 suggestion in here so far, for "head loot" which I think could be fun, but remember with teams there is no ooc so shit talking will be at a minimum. But heads still sound cool. Better than nothing, and maybe they could be turned in for summon pots like on sullon.

[runlvlzero]

I cant stress this enough. On a high pop server item loot gives naked people a reason to fight not naked people.

I pvpd today on a low level (unnamed) vs another low level unnamed. But it was fun. Until I ran out of pumice stones ;p but it would have been great if there were more people like us on both sides of that fight.

Naked. He would snare me and dot me, and I would pumice it off and run after him and he would train mobs cause he was a derp. And I would chase after him looking for where he zoned too. He couldnt do enough dmg to drop me down and it took him a few mins to eventually down me.

With another 2 people on each side the outcomes would have been infinitely more complex and unpredictable.

Gear is a bad thing for pvp servers. Gear that you can lord over and use to greif other players is even worse. FFA and this community encourages twinking to the max. Because people quit high level pvp when being tracked toothed and they get banned for any competitive play whatsoever. So they just farm and twink and pvp low levels. Yeah its fun. I had good battles with geared players in unrest too. But the best was naked mass pvp in zones like gfay, oasis, ec, innothule. SWAAAMP....

[Absynthe2k5]

Originally Posted by runlvlzero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Gear is a bad thing for pvp servers. Gear that you can lord over and use to greif other players is even worse. FFA and this community encourages twinking to the max. Because people quit high level pvp when being tracked toothed and they get banned for any competitive play whatsoever. So they just farm and twink and pvp low levels. Yeah its fun. I had good battles with geared players in unrest too. But the best was naked mass pvp in zones like gfay, oasis, ec, innothule. SWAAAMP....

Very hard to balance any pvp without going the route of wow, they basically give gear out so folks will actually pvp and ya know it does work. Folks that have gladiator gear are rarely seen in BG's so most times fights are even gear wise, but those glad's usually hang out and grief all day long in open world pvp..

There are other ways to implement loot by making it good to fight evens/reds and bad to fight lower players. Enforce a decaying reward for getting killed, then move into negatives to discourage griefing, like negative points and even res like effects. If already geared they wont care about points on an alt but im sure they would hate having rez effects for 24 hours etc.

The things I see folks complain about most now are resists supposedly, game breaking clickies (which I assume they have no access to them due to not getting a decent pk/raid going themselves), and griefing.

Example Kimm keeps killing wizing cause he wasn't smart and waffle faced his keyboard. Kimm gets hit with a random effect after the 2cnd time killing wizing, 24 hour rez effect, or loses xp and pvp points, gets gated apon wizings death to jail or the middle of oot on the bottom of the ocean etc. Make it harsh so folks think twice about screwing with lower lvls. Endgame not so much but then again you wouldn't be able to grief a raid for long without your whole guild getting punished etc. (was thinking more for low lvl grief since raid/zone control is huge strategy for pvp)

[runlvlzero]

Originally Posted by Absynthe2k5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Very hard to balance any pvp without going the route of wow, they basically give gear out so folks will actually pvp and ya know it does work. Folks that have gladiator gear are rarely seen in BG's so most times fights are even gear wise, but those glad's usually hang out and grief all day long in open world pvp..

There are other ways to implement loot by making it good to fight evens/reds and bad to fight lower players. Enforce a decaying reward for getting killed, then move into negatives to discourage griefing, like negative points and even res like effects. If already geared they wont care about points on an alt but im sure they would hate having rez effects for 24 hours etc.

The things I see folks complain about most now are resists supposedly, game breaking clickies (which I assume they have no access to them due to not getting a decent pk/raid going themselves), and griefing.

Example Kimm keeps killing wizing cause he wasn't smart and waffle faced his keyboard. Kimm gets hit with a random effect after the 2cnd time killing wizing, 24 hour rez effect, or loses xp and pvp points, gets gated apon wizings death to jail or the middle of oot on the bottom of the ocean etc. Make it harsh so folks think twice about screwing with lower lvls. Endgame not so much but then again you wouldn't be able to grief a raid for long without your whole guild getting punished etc. (was thinking more for low lvl grief since raid/zone control is huge strategy for pvp)

Yeah, but I don't care about the balance so much as even imbalanced its fun when your not two shotted or the other guy isn't immortal. The gear issue is not an issue of balance between classes. Its an issue of balance between progression. And via twinking EQ is very easy to manipulate this way.

Your example is good, but the system would also need built in PvE detection. Because kimm was not actually killing wizing, the mobs where.

I don't think a player should be penalized for getting kills in pvp. Though they should have diminishing rewards. Beyond the metagame of player agency, zone control, guild affiliation, friends and enemies, war. The game shouldn't actively reward pvp too much. Because it takes the focus away from sandbox and towards arena pvp. If there was an arena in this game yeah. It should be rewarding in the arena. Most people like item loot for riskvsreward. And also because it can and will level the playing field on a healthy server. But as servers age (and they all do) and become more corrupt or top heavy, item loot has diminishing returns and becomes a detriment to fair play.

Your right. But I don't think it makes sense for an EQ PvP perspective to look at balancing the game by "giving people items" or allowing them to use items to overcome any player in any situation. It takes the imbalance of EQ away and makes people one man armies.

Honestly I am not an Arena pvper that much and more an RP pvper. I pvp my enemies and protect my friends. Enemies are defined by players who I don't like, are competition, or are too great of a threat to let live. I don't need any reward other than knowing that who I choose to KOS makes a difference to myself and my friends. I'm one of the least KOS players on the server also. I also like people to have to consider very carefully how they pvp. Not just for shits and giggles it gets old fast. Because the people pvping for shits and giggles are more inclined to abuse cheap game mechanics to get their lulz. And it is not fighting a human player at that point its fighting an overpowered player who behaves in a completely predictable manner - Fungi + Epic + zerg straight at you and they don't even worry about countering what you do to them. Because they have nothing to loose and usually cant loose.

I also hate the requirement of having to have a high level character to pvp on the majority of classes on this server with months invested into farming just the right stuff and tradeskills. People should be able to jump in and be effective pvpers with a pumice stone and 2-3 peices of mr gear and buddies. And some classic weapons, and later on kunark weapons. A good jouster should have a slim chance against an epic wielding character at high level with fair gear, but at low level it just doesnt matter how much skill you have.

If all the above is TLDR. Right now pvp below level 50 is a Zero Sum Game.