let's get real about item loot

[Vexenu]

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

I've listed the reasons above and in other threads, but by removing no drop tags you get rid of the need for players to raid to get no drop items, firstly. The fact is if you're rolling around with droppable gear and your enemy has a guild of 70 players with full droppables, you're absolutely toasted and fucked. Firstly, they will have the advantage in every fight because they have 70 players, but secondly they get the new advantage of not worrying about their gear in fights.

Now if you remove no drop tags, you could simply kill these players and take their loot. Now your guild of 6 has the opportunity to get these items without having to join a 70 person guild to raid them like zombies. It also floods the market with stuff that would normally rot. How many times has a piece of paladin planar rotted in fear on a raid? Every single run? Well now that is bagged and either sold or used as a backup item incase you lose one in PVP. Until you get to VP, the vast majority of items that are best in slot for pvp will actually be droppable items, but what no drop items do is give a decent alternative that is comparable to best in slot for enormous value. You never have to worry about losing them, you can't get better value than that. So what is the first thing everyone is going to do? Join the biggest zerg they can, and get no drop items. It happened on Rallos in 1999, when we as EQ players were the most primitive. It will happen in 2014 when everyone is way more advanced in their understanding of EQ and games in general.

That's how you stop zergs in my opinion.

Ok, so let's assume planar armor is suddenly droppable. How does that reduce zergs? All that does is incentivize the mass farming of Hate and Fear in order to stockpile huge reserves of replacement armor. What type of guild can best accomplish this? Take a wild guess.

What is your 6 man guild going to do when the 40 man zerg guild on the enemy team rolls in and farms Hate or Fear every night? Hope that they sell you, their enemy, the armor you need? And then loot it back off your corpse when they zerg roll you?

Further, by making planar armor droppable, you not only encourage the formation of zerg guilds, but their continued existence indefinitely. Since their gear will never be secure, people will have an incentive to join the guild with the largest reserve of replacement gear. And again, take a wild guess as to which sort of guild that will be. On the other hand, with no drop gear, a player can join a zerg guild to gear up and then leave if he wants. With everything droppable, he's more likely to stick around with the zerg.

Have you ever actually played on a Teams server? All of your ideas and justifications seem to be based on RZ, various emus and Red. This makes your obsession with stopping zergs understandable, but you're sort of attempting to solve a problem that doesn't exist on a Teams server (or which exists, but to a much smaller degree).

[Millburn]

Make raid gear lore, argument solved.

[Vexenu]

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

Make raid gear lore, argument solved.

Perversely, this also incentivizes large zerg guilds, since the best way around this is to simply have more players on the roster to spread the banked gear around. Very easy to keep track of who is holding what with a simple Google spreadsheet.

The bottom line is that regardless of the ruleset, zergs tend to emerge in EQ. It's inevitable in a game where numbers are the number one factor in both PvE and PvP. The best way to weaken zergs is with hardcoded teams, which artificially limit the recruitment pool for any single guild, and ensure strong competition from guilds on rival teams.

Teams with PvP also directly incentivizes stronger guilds to help weaker guilds acquire gear, since they will rely on them as allies in PvP battles. With regular no drop planar gear, this results in smaller guilds piggybacking on large guild raids to pick up gear rots. With droppable planar gear, the dominant guild will hoard almost all of it in reserve. The only way to get some? Join the zerg yourself, and stay there.

[Lowlife]

That was your most compelling post thus far.

[Lowlife]

My only issue with your previous post (181) is the assumption that standard RZ style item loot won't lead to a massive attrition of the player base before droppable planear gear even becomes relevant, as RZ style free looting caters too specifically to pvp veterans rather than a compromise item loot solution.

[Velerin]

I guess in that way it works. It would definitely reduce the cost of items. The one good thing with item loot is things are cheaper and easier to come by for the casuals. The more I think about it with teams pvp it might even work better with item loot (and I was against item loot).
I couldn't stand RZ (always played VZ) because if you wanted to pvp you were a 'pker' and thus it meant you (if you don't become a pker) lost a lot more items than you ever gained. With teams you can pvp more because you're supposed to.

[Vexenu]

TDC? Darkenbane? What was your Ranger's name? Curious if we ever crossed paths. I was Spinfusor, Iksar Monk.

Anyway, kind of tired of debating your proposal at this point. Honestly, I find it the most interesting of all the item loot proposals, I just think it would scare too many casuals away from the server. If item loot is 100% decided on (I'm hoping it's not) I think it would be worth eliminating no drops just to see how things actually played out. It would be a very bold and interesting experiment at the very least. I'm just afraid we'd consequentially never get a population anywhere near the server's potential due to Blue players recoiling in horror at the combination of item loot and no no-drops.

[nilbog]

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

a very bold and interesting experiment at the very least.

We do have beta phases for experimentation.

[Lowlife]

It isn't about the quality of the gear, its about the perceived impact of the loss, perception of inconvenience, etc.

Sensation of loss is universally experienced more severely than gratification of gain.

I killed looted the first Jade Mace acquired by a monk on RZ. He quit over that.

[Lowlife]

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

I just think it would scare too many casuals away from the server.

Actually I think FV style no NO DROPS could lure many blue players, at the very least serve to offset the horror of item loot.