This loot system is terribad and has been for over a year

Lionxoft

Not just terrible... It's terribad.

I'm sure it's been beaten like a dead horse but there's no change yet. Doing a dungeon and not receiving ANY rewards that are worth even picking up from the dead body is such bad design. I mean, it's MMO 101. Give the player good rewards for completing content. I'd much rather see a token system than this randomly generated garbage system. Players/customers that are satisfied and not annoyed does wonders for business. Ever think the crappy loot system was a reason that drove players away? Guess what. It is and we've been telling you that since pre-launch.

Here's a solution to fix your insanely player unfriendly system:

• Make a token system that allows us to pick a gear piece and trait from a dropdown. Redeem the appropriate amount of tokens for that piece and voila. Players stop banging their heads against their desks. After each boss give loot like per usual and also after completion of the dungeon award a nice set piece gear with a chance for a rarer trait item such as Nirnhoned or of the likes.

The days of leaving a dungeon without getting a decent reward or one that is even worthy of picking up need to end. I have enough purple materials. I don't need anymore FFS.

xaraan

Not interested in a token system myself.

Some of the drop rates might need adjustments, but more than that I'd rather see the ability to trade bind on pickup items within the group before you leave a dungeon.

SoulScream

I don't like the loot system much either. Though recently I do like the undaunted helm set drops. I would have liked to see main story line items scale or be traded in for character level. I would have liked these small things and others like capes, costumes, gm events, etc to be in subscription updates instead of going b2p. A lot of small things could have made the game really great.

Sacadon

Agreed in that this area needs much attention... and relative to other popular forum topics has not been beaten like a dead horse.

Seraphyel

ESO loot system is horrible. Don't know why they came up with something like this.

I rather prefer competition in looting than having this.

NotSo

Please no token system. The game is fine with it's two forms of currency, gold and alliance points. I'd rather not have alliance points at all but it is an easy means to award pvp participants (and it would be havoc on the economy to have gold as a pvp reward). I'd rather gold pay for all siege equipment and pvp gear sets, just adjust the rate for all those items and the "end of campaign" rewards.

About the Drop Rates.
Personally, I'd like to see all drop rates be restricted to the following:
- any boss will always drop at least 1 valuable gear piece
- chances for each gear piece to show up will be a pie slice out of 100% depending on how many gear pieces that boss has available to drop, i.e. 4 pieces available means each piece has a 25% chance of dropping with at least 1 random piece guaranteed to drop (bullet #1).
- no daily/weekly/whatever restriction to boss gear drops

This way, the gear game won't suck.
Players won't be spending months looking for 1 particular piece that seems to never show up due to bad RNG rates.
Players will be able to turn their time onto other activities instead of looking for that one elusive gear piece.
Players won't burn themselves out and leave the game for weeks at a time.
Players will be more happy to oblige in helping other players go after specific gear because "Why not? It was easy the first time :P".

eliisra

Like many others, I really hate spending over half a year farming for 1 piece of gear that never drops due to rng. So being able to trade BoP items within a group or raid, would be a great solution. Could be a timer, like 60 minutes where you could trade the item with those that completed the instance. After that it becomes fully BoP. Works in other games.

Of course, that doesn't solve problems with Undaunted chests or leaderboard rewards. Those would still be a cruel joke 90% of the time. Than again, everything you get from a leaderboard is actually farm-friendly(including Masters Weapon's) and the Undaunted drop-rate is going up.

Hutuldur

I like the current system. Plenty of people doing vet dungeons as you got motivation to do them more than once and rewards are good enough.

Ixtyr

NO. NO NO NO NO NO. NO. Please no token systems. Don't add any currencies. PLEASE. They complicate the game unnecessarily and cause confusion for new players. They also become difficult to balance as new content comes out, so more tiers would have to be added, which would take up more precious space in bags and banks, and then old currencies would become worthless over time. And that's AWFUL design. Why do you think games like WoW, the absolute titan and juggernaut of the MMO space, have gone away from those systems entirely? It's no different than their removal of 40-man raids, as WildStar discovered - people hate it, it's not used, it's bad design that causes far too much confusion, and it eventually causes people to play LESS content, gets them bored, ruins the game for them and they leave. Don't add extra currencies.

What ZOS should do is adjust drop rates, and possibly change higher-end content so that you're guaranteed to get some kind of class/role-specific Epic to drop from tougher content. Why? It keeps people running that content so you can't run the dungeon 5x, get your tokens, get your best-in-slot gear, and never go back.

ZOS is already doing that with Undaunted Pledges, and it's a good system. The loot system as it stands is okay - you get plenty of loot from every dungeon, you break it down or sell it when you leave, and your pledges get you keys that give you much better set-gear. It's fine how it is, if anything, all they'll ever need to do are minor tweaks. And that's a good thing.

EDIT: Grammar.

DDuke

Ixtyr wrote: »

NO. NO NO NO NO NO. NO. Please no token systems. Don't add any currencies. PLEASE. They complicate the game unnecessarily and cause confusion for new players.

Every time a developer heeds this kind of advise from people, a dumbed down game is born. Fact.

This is how it should work:
New people play the game, new people learn the systems in the game. New people are no longer new people & have learned to understand basic MMO concepts. Former new people now feel smart & accomplished.

Ixtyr wrote: »

They also become difficult to balance as new content comes out, so more tiers would have to be added, which would take up more precious space in bags and banks, and then old currencies would become worthless over time

Are you propagating against making more content? Because every time more content is created, new gear is released. Yes, it'll take up your bag & bank space, why shouldn't it?
Life is full of choices. Which set to keep, which to deconstruct? (Hint: keep the better one)

Off Topic: of course it'd be cool to be able to somehow store those old item sets as well. In past Elder Scrolls titles, I used to collect every armour set/weapon in my house & put them on display. Perhaps something to consider, ZOS?

Ixtyr wrote: »

Why do you think games like WoW, the absolute titan and juggernaut of the MMO space, have gone away from those systems entirely?

WoW still has a token system (as well as Reputations, which I love), so your point is moot.

Ixtyr wrote: »

It's no different than their removal of 40-man raids, as WildStar discovered - people hate it

The only reason WildStar had those was because there is a huge audience of players who enjoyed the 40-man raids, namely the ones who left WoW because it started dumbing down. The reason for no more 40-man raids were casual guilds that couldn't coordinate big raids or didn't have enough skilled players to clear everything in two weeks (which seems the norm these days).

You're implying WildStar "failed" because people didn't enjoy 40-man raids, which I doubt is the reason.

I'll ask you, why do you think WoW was such a huge success in the first place?

Ixtyr wrote: »

What ZOS should do is adjust drop rates, and possibly change higher-end content so that you're guaranteed to get some kind of class/role-specific Epic to drop from tougher content. Why? It keeps people running that content so you can't run the dungeon 5x, get your tokens, get your best-in-slot gear, and never go back.

Well, isn't that what people do? Run content X times until BiS gear drops, and never go back.

Except with the system in place, some people get that BiS gear in two weeks, while others have to keep their fingers crossed for months, or in the worst (unlucky) case, never get that gear at all.

The worst however, is seeing that gear drop to your group member who didn't need it (and then promptly deconstructs it for a Elegant Lining or what not).


Solution:
Loot drops stay as they are (perhaps some tweaking), but a Need/Greed system is implemented for set pieces.

Undaunted Tokens get implemented, and can be used for purchasing the shoulders (if you are unlucky enough to get them from the Chest). This would require a lot of Tokens obviously, in order not to trivialize the random loot chest.

DeLindsay

Sadly ZoS just doesn't care, they've made no effort whatsoever to adjust the loot system in ESO and I don't see it happening any time in the near future.

Majic

Lionxoft wrote: »

Not just terrible... It's terribad.

ZOS made it terribad to match the inventory system, which is also terribad.

On the bright side, they are at least taking steps to make the inventory system a little less terribad in 1.6, so there's hope.

Lionxoft

Ixtyr wrote: »

ZOS is already doing that with Undaunted Pledges, and it's a good system. The loot system as it stands is okay - you get plenty of loot from every dungeon, you break it down or sell it when you leave, and your pledges get you keys that give you much better set-gear. It's fine how it is, if anything, all they'll ever need to do are minor tweaks. And that's a good thing.

EDIT: Grammar.

To put it like you did

NO. NO NO NO NO NO. NO.

The pledge system is part of this terrible RNG loot piece of junk and it is far from being a "Good" system. I'm so tired of getting garbage items from a gold key chest. I'd rather have a token system so that I at least get some form of currency from my dungeon run to put towards a properly traited piece of gear that I really want and it's not dropping.

They also become difficult to balance as new content comes out, so more tiers would have to be added, which would take up more precious space in bags and banks, and then old currencies would become worthless over time.

Also, I'd like to point out your disgust for the token system and the "problems" it could create with feasible solutions to those "problems".

• Bag/bank space taken up? No need to have it take space. Not sure why it would but aren't you glad your gold keys take up bag space?!
• New tiers of gear? No problem. Introduce a currency that ties in with the lore of the DLC Pack.
• Old Tokens? They get converted into a base currency that can obtain previous "Seasonal gear" for achievements or whatnot and those achievements could reward xp which in ESO translates to champion points.

I think it's important to also note that DC Universe Online does this very well and they have a healthy console community which as we all know is ZOS' target. In that game, you beat a boss you get tokens/marks and a gear piece that is on par with the level of content you are completing. If you don't get the piece dropped that you want you can take your tokens collected from many runs and buy it from a vendor for that in-game currency. Sure, that game has some ultra rare legendary quality gear pieces that can't be bought with tokens/marks which encourage people to run them often however it always at least gives decent USEABLE rewards whether it's tokens/marks or dropped pieces.

The system mentioned is not hard to understand at all. On my characters in that game I have a currency for each season Fall, Summer, Spring, Winter from the fun little valentine's events etc for fun little styles and house items. I also get tokens with icon distinctions from the latest 2 DLC Packs and previous DLC pack tokens automatically get converted to a basic token which can be used for all sorts of things in-game. Styles, House upkeep, Guild hall upkeep etc.


When you find yourself thinking the current ESO loot system is "Good" please just ask yourself this one question.

Who the hell wants a piece of endgame gear with exploration/well fitted trait on it?