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Trial loot overview (Very bland, suggestions to improve)
Axer
✭✭✭✭
Ok so the trials have been out a while, we have crushed them and discovered all of the loot.. and yea we are very underwhelmed.
I'll go thru each item/set:
Mace of Resilient Yokuda:
This is the only one hander, and part of the tank set, as it goes with a shield and all 4 items posses what one might consider defensive traits, if you looked at the game, but had no real clear idea about whats useful in the endgame:
Base damage: Same as VENDOR WEAPON. This is RAID LOOT from ULTRA CHALLENGING raids. Why is not better?
Enchantment:
Ultra weak frost damage. Same as a crafted enchanted. Other named weapons enchantments will scale up in quality when a weapon is upgraded to legendary. This one does not. It's arguably the worst enchantment in the game.
The sword I actaully use (VR5 Burning Brand) has an enchantment that is roughly 5 times as strong. Why is a VR dungeon sword vastly more powerful then very hard to acquire raidloot?
Trait:
Powered. So it ups how often this weapons ultra weak enchantment works. ... Worthless.
This is the TANK SET. Tanks use the DEFENDING trait. No other choice. That trait is extremely strong and near required to survive some of the raid bosses assaults. Using this so called tank set weapon will result in taking a lot of extra damage and probably death.
Set bonus 4 pieces:
Once every 10 seconds, on successful block, pulse for 115 Magic Damage. This scales to 120 damage if you legendary the weapon.
- Pathetically weak. One of the worst set bonuses in the game, and it's one of the HARDEST to acquire.
Overall:
0/10. One of the worst weapons ever designed in the history of gaming.
(Graphic artists: Great job, it looks really cool, shame the other guys gave it such horrible stats)
Shield of the Resilient Yokuda:
Enchantment:
Vendor bough health enchantment... Do I even have to say anything?
The best shield in the game yet again drops in a VR dungeon. Not the trials. (Shield of the man bull has a very powerful stamina regen enchantment, otherwise not normally possible to have on a shield).
Trait:
Reinforced. Not the worst trait, however Impenetrable is better.
Set bonus:
Ultra weak as I said above.
Overall:
2/10. It's at least a functional purple shield I guess. Same as you'd get from random trash loot.
Other 3 pieces of the set are rings and necklaces. They have horrible enchantments and traits. However the enchantments can be changed, so not really a big deal given jewelry traits don't matter much, and the best enchantments available in the game for jewelry are crafted anyways (Spell damage).
Greatsword of the advancing Yokuda:
Base damage: Same as vendor trash weapon.
Enchantment:
Same as the 1hand mace. One of the worst enchantments in the game.
Trait:
Garbage. Weighted. This items design is clearly intended towards a DPS type weapon.. The ONLY useful dps trait atm is Precise.
Set bonus:
4 items) Every time you hit a target with a weapon attack increase your Critical Strike chance by 2% for 5 seconds. Stacks 5x.
Laugh out loud horrible. You know a set exists with a FLAT STATIC +10% weapon crit stirke chance? And it's only a 3 piece jewl set? And it can be bought for less then 5k gold per item in cyrodil? No. I guess the devs didn't know this when they designed this item.
I mean why would we to use a extremely weak greatsword to accomplish what a simple static bonus can already do, and let us have the freedom to use a powerful crafted greatsword? Makes zero sense.
Not to mention two handers in general are horrible due to broken game balance. So even if the weapon was amazing, it would still be not worth equipping sadly.
Also I have 4 copies of this sword, and not 1 complete set yet due to the poor loot system design.
Destructive Mage:
Destro staff set, has one for each element...:
All have vendor trash stats and bad traits as usual.
Set bonus:
(4 items) When you make a light or heavy attack, you place a bomb on the enemy. This bomb will explode for 150 Daedric Damage to enemies in a small radius when another player (not you) hits it with a heavy attack.
Very weird set bonus. Most likely will result in a DPS decreases versus using a crafted staff due to loss of precise.
0/10. Work hard to get 4 piece set for dps, only to lose dps due to poor trait?
Ok now onto the actually worth equipping stuff, kind of:
Aether Staff of Mending:
(Healing Mage set)
Base dmg/enchant/trait:
Garbage as usual. Vendor stats, bad enchant, very bad trait (Defending is NOT what you do when you heal - you NEED precise to generate ultimate.)
Set bonus:
(4 items) Enemies in your area heals have their Power reduced by 8%.
Pre patch this was power reduced by 100.
Now ok assuming monsters have similar power levels to use, about 100 at endgame, 100 was probably pretty overpowered, sure, making monsters deal 0 damage all the time probably would break the game a bit.
But a NINTY TWO PERCENT Nerf? Really? Thats how you balance the game? I though I read in the games roadmap you planned to to do changes in small steps to try and get the balance right slow and steady? Yet mere days after that post, we see this massive sweeping mindless nerf?
I mean 8% could still kind of be useful.. But the problem is the healer that wear it, has to severely sacrifice there ultimate generation to get that, which is pretty risky in some of the trials, as we plain 100% REQUIRE certain ultimates to generate fast to survive the bosses assaults.
So it's use would really be limited to an off-healer. Maybe a sorcerer or nightblade healer.
Really should of nerfed it to about 15%. 8% was too far. 15% + Precise trait would make this set very balanced, and very sought after. It would give players A REASON to keep playing and stay subscribed to the game. Something endgame players are starting to have many thoughts about not doing atm.
Overall:
4/10. It's still functional for off-healers, but not desirable by the raids main healers which makes little sense for the only healer set available.
Aether Set:
(Wise Mage set bonus light armor set)
General stats:
Trash/vendor level armor and enchants as usual. Enchants aren't locked, so can be upgraded to legendary ones for a small boost.
Traits however were at least done correctly here. They are infused/divines, which in general is what light armors wearers want for DPS purposes. 1 or 2 impenetrable traits are desirable, though as a 5 piece set, that leaves 2 slots to put those on, so its' fine.
Set bonus:
(3 items) Adds 115 Max Magicka
(4 items) Adds 1% Spell Critical
(5 items) Enemies you attack have 10% reduced Armor and Spell Resist. Attacking a different enemy removes this debuff from the previous target.
Decent. A 10% debuff overall means only really 3-5% DPS increase, but that's an increase the entire raid can benefit from, so it's good.
The 4 piece bonus is pretty lame. 1%? Cereal? I get that it's a unique bonus in taht crafted sets don't even get a 4 piece bonuses sure. But it really could of been 5% without any balance issues, to make it more enticing.
Issue with this set:
The only other rare/nice light armor set in the game - the VR dungeon one (Wormcult) it also another set that only 1 person should wear per raid group, as it doesnt stack..
So why do you keep doing this? Only 2 players per raid should want to get raid loot? Why?
It's a lot more fun if everyone could work together... Yet the game constantly pushes us into this anti social design where only 2 players should wear rare armor, while others should all use boring old crafted junk.
Overall score:
7/10.
It's useful. It looks kinda neat. But only 1-3 per raid should use it.
Medium armor set (Ophidian):
Due to SEVERE game balance issues, every single piece of medium armor in the entire game is piece of garbage, moving on.
Heavy armor set (Immortal Warrior):
General stats:
Trash/vendor level armor and enchants as usual. Enchants aren't locked, so can be upgraded to legendary ones for a small boost.
Traits for heavy in general should be focused towards defensive stuff, given the only real purpose of wearing heavy in this game is to tank very difficult bosses/enemies. However they aren't. You put divines on a lot of these too. WHY DO THIS? A few have reinforced, that's good.. The rest divines, which is pretty garbage for a tank. Really should of been a mix of reinforced and impenetrable.
Set bonus:
(3 items) Adds ~170 Max Health
(4 items) Adds 5 healing taken
(5 items) Once every hour, when you die, you instead turn into a statue for 5 seconds. While a statue, you are immune to all negative effects, but can still be healed.
3 piece: Ok same as ebon set. Why it is not stronger then a dungeon set? Makes no sense.
4 piece: -50% WEAKER then ebon set. ??? Why is this very hard to acquire trial set WEAKER then a dungeon set?
(5 items) Once every hour, when you die, you instead turn into a statue for 5 seconds. While a statue, you are immune to all negative effects, but can still be healed.
The ultimate insult.
The trials are extremely hard to tank. They require top geared, top skilled tanks that really need to put in a lot of effort to learn how to tank and survive.
Yet the set bonus they earn only works for tanks that die?
Lol. It's like saying:
Hey dude I bet you died a lot in that trial getting this, so here, this set bonus only works when you die anyways, it will probably be great for you noob.
I mean this could be fun as a joke set to wear in pvp.. Go and die on purpose and let noobs rage out while the wonder why your suddenly still alive.. But other then that, not that great. Ebon is imo better for the benefit of the raid.
Overall:
6/10
It's at least got something unique and funny. Thats the kind of loot that can get people interested in the trials. It's not very powerful by any stretch of the imagination ,but eh, becoming a statue can be fun I guess.
So yea overall the loots pretty bland and not enticing players to run the trials much. We do them anyways because they are pretty fun to run.. But really ZO, the carrot HAS to be there to keep the hardcores invested in the game. If it's not there, then we will leave in drooves. Please work much harder on the next trials loot to make it more interesting and desireable.
Some suggestions:
At the bare minimum, set these items power level a few ranks above there base.
EG: VR12 or say maybe 14 by the time the next trial pops: Base power level should be actaully as a VR16 item, but still only have a VR12 level requirement,. (Actually imo the max level req should be VR10, having it go higher just dilutes the player base and annoys players who take breaks..)
So the base damage, base armor, enchants etc, should just plain be stronger. Not by a lot, but enough to entice us to at least maybe wear them.
Traits:
Until you 100% perfectly balance the traits (possibly never due to game design) you REALLY need to simply put the best trait son each item. Else you can completely break an otherwise great item by putting a bad trait, as the traits system is simply too powerful and too un-balanced atm.
Set bonuses:
At the bare minimum, at least have them be interesting, and better then whats found on crafted/dungeon gear.
Also, this is trial loot. It's very hard to get. Why are we even required to have 3/4/5 pieces to get the unique effects? Set the sets bonuses to 2-3 pieces MAX to allow more customization.
EG:
DPS Weapon sets could have fun stuff like:
2 piece set:
2% chance on any weapon attack to proc a massive fiery explosion for 1200 damage.
3 piece:
Fiery explosion damage increased to 1600
4 piece:
Fiery explosion damage increased to 2400.
This kind of stuff is pretty fun and exciting for players, yet not at all unbalanced as in reality that only works out to a 24-48 damage per attack increase. And low load on the server too, as it doesn't go off often.
Give it a nice flashy graphical effect and people will run the trials and will stay subscribed to the game.
Edited by Axer on 16 June 2014 11:00 I'll go thru each item/set:
Mace of Resilient Yokuda:
This is the only one hander, and part of the tank set, as it goes with a shield and all 4 items posses what one might consider defensive traits, if you looked at the game, but had no real clear idea about whats useful in the endgame:
Base damage: Same as VENDOR WEAPON. This is RAID LOOT from ULTRA CHALLENGING raids. Why is not better?
Enchantment:
Ultra weak frost damage. Same as a crafted enchanted. Other named weapons enchantments will scale up in quality when a weapon is upgraded to legendary. This one does not. It's arguably the worst enchantment in the game.
The sword I actaully use (VR5 Burning Brand) has an enchantment that is roughly 5 times as strong. Why is a VR dungeon sword vastly more powerful then very hard to acquire raidloot?
Trait:
Powered. So it ups how often this weapons ultra weak enchantment works. ... Worthless.
This is the TANK SET. Tanks use the DEFENDING trait. No other choice. That trait is extremely strong and near required to survive some of the raid bosses assaults. Using this so called tank set weapon will result in taking a lot of extra damage and probably death.
Set bonus 4 pieces:
Once every 10 seconds, on successful block, pulse for 115 Magic Damage. This scales to 120 damage if you legendary the weapon.
- Pathetically weak. One of the worst set bonuses in the game, and it's one of the HARDEST to acquire.
Overall:
0/10. One of the worst weapons ever designed in the history of gaming.
(Graphic artists: Great job, it looks really cool, shame the other guys gave it such horrible stats)
Shield of the Resilient Yokuda:
Enchantment:
Vendor bough health enchantment... Do I even have to say anything?
The best shield in the game yet again drops in a VR dungeon. Not the trials. (Shield of the man bull has a very powerful stamina regen enchantment, otherwise not normally possible to have on a shield).
Trait:
Reinforced. Not the worst trait, however Impenetrable is better.
Set bonus:
Ultra weak as I said above.
Overall:
2/10. It's at least a functional purple shield I guess. Same as you'd get from random trash loot.
Other 3 pieces of the set are rings and necklaces. They have horrible enchantments and traits. However the enchantments can be changed, so not really a big deal given jewelry traits don't matter much, and the best enchantments available in the game for jewelry are crafted anyways (Spell damage).
Greatsword of the advancing Yokuda:
Base damage: Same as vendor trash weapon.
Enchantment:
Same as the 1hand mace. One of the worst enchantments in the game.
Trait:
Garbage. Weighted. This items design is clearly intended towards a DPS type weapon.. The ONLY useful dps trait atm is Precise.
Set bonus:
4 items) Every time you hit a target with a weapon attack increase your Critical Strike chance by 2% for 5 seconds. Stacks 5x.
Laugh out loud horrible. You know a set exists with a FLAT STATIC +10% weapon crit stirke chance? And it's only a 3 piece jewl set? And it can be bought for less then 5k gold per item in cyrodil? No. I guess the devs didn't know this when they designed this item.
I mean why would we to use a extremely weak greatsword to accomplish what a simple static bonus can already do, and let us have the freedom to use a powerful crafted greatsword? Makes zero sense.
Not to mention two handers in general are horrible due to broken game balance. So even if the weapon was amazing, it would still be not worth equipping sadly.
Also I have 4 copies of this sword, and not 1 complete set yet due to the poor loot system design.
Destructive Mage:
Destro staff set, has one for each element...:
All have vendor trash stats and bad traits as usual.
Set bonus:
(4 items) When you make a light or heavy attack, you place a bomb on the enemy. This bomb will explode for 150 Daedric Damage to enemies in a small radius when another player (not you) hits it with a heavy attack.
Very weird set bonus. Most likely will result in a DPS decreases versus using a crafted staff due to loss of precise.
0/10. Work hard to get 4 piece set for dps, only to lose dps due to poor trait?
Ok now onto the actually worth equipping stuff, kind of:
Aether Staff of Mending:
(Healing Mage set)
Base dmg/enchant/trait:
Garbage as usual. Vendor stats, bad enchant, very bad trait (Defending is NOT what you do when you heal - you NEED precise to generate ultimate.)
Set bonus:
(4 items) Enemies in your area heals have their Power reduced by 8%.
Pre patch this was power reduced by 100.
Now ok assuming monsters have similar power levels to use, about 100 at endgame, 100 was probably pretty overpowered, sure, making monsters deal 0 damage all the time probably would break the game a bit.
But a NINTY TWO PERCENT Nerf? Really? Thats how you balance the game? I though I read in the games roadmap you planned to to do changes in small steps to try and get the balance right slow and steady? Yet mere days after that post, we see this massive sweeping mindless nerf?
I mean 8% could still kind of be useful.. But the problem is the healer that wear it, has to severely sacrifice there ultimate generation to get that, which is pretty risky in some of the trials, as we plain 100% REQUIRE certain ultimates to generate fast to survive the bosses assaults.
So it's use would really be limited to an off-healer. Maybe a sorcerer or nightblade healer.
Really should of nerfed it to about 15%. 8% was too far. 15% + Precise trait would make this set very balanced, and very sought after. It would give players A REASON to keep playing and stay subscribed to the game. Something endgame players are starting to have many thoughts about not doing atm.
Overall:
4/10. It's still functional for off-healers, but not desirable by the raids main healers which makes little sense for the only healer set available.
Aether Set:
(Wise Mage set bonus light armor set)
General stats:
Trash/vendor level armor and enchants as usual. Enchants aren't locked, so can be upgraded to legendary ones for a small boost.
Traits however were at least done correctly here. They are infused/divines, which in general is what light armors wearers want for DPS purposes. 1 or 2 impenetrable traits are desirable, though as a 5 piece set, that leaves 2 slots to put those on, so its' fine.
Set bonus:
(3 items) Adds 115 Max Magicka
(4 items) Adds 1% Spell Critical
(5 items) Enemies you attack have 10% reduced Armor and Spell Resist. Attacking a different enemy removes this debuff from the previous target.
Decent. A 10% debuff overall means only really 3-5% DPS increase, but that's an increase the entire raid can benefit from, so it's good.
The 4 piece bonus is pretty lame. 1%? Cereal? I get that it's a unique bonus in taht crafted sets don't even get a 4 piece bonuses sure. But it really could of been 5% without any balance issues, to make it more enticing.
Issue with this set:
The only other rare/nice light armor set in the game - the VR dungeon one (Wormcult) it also another set that only 1 person should wear per raid group, as it doesnt stack..
So why do you keep doing this? Only 2 players per raid should want to get raid loot? Why?
It's a lot more fun if everyone could work together... Yet the game constantly pushes us into this anti social design where only 2 players should wear rare armor, while others should all use boring old crafted junk.
Overall score:
7/10.
It's useful. It looks kinda neat. But only 1-3 per raid should use it.
Medium armor set (Ophidian):
Due to SEVERE game balance issues, every single piece of medium armor in the entire game is piece of garbage, moving on.
Heavy armor set (Immortal Warrior):
General stats:
Trash/vendor level armor and enchants as usual. Enchants aren't locked, so can be upgraded to legendary ones for a small boost.
Traits for heavy in general should be focused towards defensive stuff, given the only real purpose of wearing heavy in this game is to tank very difficult bosses/enemies. However they aren't. You put divines on a lot of these too. WHY DO THIS? A few have reinforced, that's good.. The rest divines, which is pretty garbage for a tank. Really should of been a mix of reinforced and impenetrable.
Set bonus:
(3 items) Adds ~170 Max Health
(4 items) Adds 5 healing taken
(5 items) Once every hour, when you die, you instead turn into a statue for 5 seconds. While a statue, you are immune to all negative effects, but can still be healed.
3 piece: Ok same as ebon set. Why it is not stronger then a dungeon set? Makes no sense.
4 piece: -50% WEAKER then ebon set. ??? Why is this very hard to acquire trial set WEAKER then a dungeon set?
(5 items) Once every hour, when you die, you instead turn into a statue for 5 seconds. While a statue, you are immune to all negative effects, but can still be healed.
The ultimate insult.
The trials are extremely hard to tank. They require top geared, top skilled tanks that really need to put in a lot of effort to learn how to tank and survive.
Yet the set bonus they earn only works for tanks that die?
Lol. It's like saying:
Hey dude I bet you died a lot in that trial getting this, so here, this set bonus only works when you die anyways, it will probably be great for you noob.
I mean this could be fun as a joke set to wear in pvp.. Go and die on purpose and let noobs rage out while the wonder why your suddenly still alive.. But other then that, not that great. Ebon is imo better for the benefit of the raid.
Overall:
6/10
It's at least got something unique and funny. Thats the kind of loot that can get people interested in the trials. It's not very powerful by any stretch of the imagination ,but eh, becoming a statue can be fun I guess.
So yea overall the loots pretty bland and not enticing players to run the trials much. We do them anyways because they are pretty fun to run.. But really ZO, the carrot HAS to be there to keep the hardcores invested in the game. If it's not there, then we will leave in drooves. Please work much harder on the next trials loot to make it more interesting and desireable.
Some suggestions:
At the bare minimum, set these items power level a few ranks above there base.
EG: VR12 or say maybe 14 by the time the next trial pops: Base power level should be actaully as a VR16 item, but still only have a VR12 level requirement,. (Actually imo the max level req should be VR10, having it go higher just dilutes the player base and annoys players who take breaks..)
So the base damage, base armor, enchants etc, should just plain be stronger. Not by a lot, but enough to entice us to at least maybe wear them.
Traits:
Until you 100% perfectly balance the traits (possibly never due to game design) you REALLY need to simply put the best trait son each item. Else you can completely break an otherwise great item by putting a bad trait, as the traits system is simply too powerful and too un-balanced atm.
Set bonuses:
At the bare minimum, at least have them be interesting, and better then whats found on crafted/dungeon gear.
Also, this is trial loot. It's very hard to get. Why are we even required to have 3/4/5 pieces to get the unique effects? Set the sets bonuses to 2-3 pieces MAX to allow more customization.
EG:
DPS Weapon sets could have fun stuff like:
2 piece set:
2% chance on any weapon attack to proc a massive fiery explosion for 1200 damage.
3 piece:
Fiery explosion damage increased to 1600
4 piece:
Fiery explosion damage increased to 2400.
This kind of stuff is pretty fun and exciting for players, yet not at all unbalanced as in reality that only works out to a 24-48 damage per attack increase. And low load on the server too, as it doesn't go off often.
Give it a nice flashy graphical effect and people will run the trials and will stay subscribed to the game.
Axer. Main tank and Leader of Crush it! (NA-EP highly skilled trials guild)
4
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Spire✭✭Agree whole heatedly here man.
"Give it a nice flashy graphical effect and people will run the trials and will stay subscribed to the game."
--I still remember the FIRST flame weapon two hander that I got from Dark Age of Camelot (my first real MMO). I was over the top excited that I had this amazing burning 2-hander to go whack stuff with. If they added particle effects to weapons, I'd go GAGA!
"Medium armor set (Ophidian):
Due to SEVERE game balance issues, every single piece of medium armor in the entire game is piece of garbage, moving on."
Yup... hoping that the 1.2.3 patch today changes that. We'll see though. Looks like the reduction in stamina cost will be 14% for a full get up. The enhancements really seemed negligible outside of that; so I'm not holding my breath. Great write up, and I hope we get some feedback from the developers... I remember the days of MMOs where Devs would actually read and reply directly to the forums. What a splendid thing it would be to have that here.
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