The worse loot system in MMO history

Grao

Hi there, here to share a little personal tale of my adventures in ESO today!

I am wondering how many here have similar tales to tell, something tells me quite a few of us share similar experience. I've been running DSA and Vet DSA for at least 3 months now. I run it almost every day, sometimes two or three times a day! Why, you might ask? I am after one of the fabled Master weapons, of course!

Right now I have all of them! Well, correction, I have all the ones I DON'T NEED! And so I am forced to say, ESO has the worse loot system ever released for an MMO. Completely reliant on RNG, does not reward the players effort as doing content time and time again doesn't you will get the gear you need! NO, most times it means you will get some useless green crap and watch as your friend (running the content for the first time ever) gets the gear you;ve been farming for months!

It is super fair! And it is not happening only in DSA! NO! We also have the Undaunted sets to farm! And those are just as bad if not worse than the Master Weapons because even when you manage to get the Helmet or Shoulder piece to drop, you have 66% chance of it not being in Armor Weight you need and the chance gets even worse if you take into account you can get a useless well-fitted, exploration or sturdy piece! (and before you say ZoS removed Sturdy from the loot table, they only did so for shoulders. Helmets can still drop sturdy, even though ZOS already admitted the trait is pure crap!)

So, raise your hands those of you that share a similar tale to mine! Raise your hands if you agree this game has the worse ever released reward system in MMO history! Right now we have 2 of the 3 trials out there that don't drop a singular useful piece! We have quests giving gear so bad that using it should be a ban-worthy offense! We have DSA that can reward you completely useless greens and soul gems for completion! (YES, it can happen! I completed DSA yesterday with a few friends, two of them got the Master I desperately need, I got to *** greens and a soul gem!!!! It was super fun!)

Locke_ESO

Sadly RNG loot grinding is pretty much a staple of MMOs. ESO is not the worst or last game to use it.

Valymer

Don't forget the ultimate troll:

Grao

Locke_ESO wrote: »

Sadly RNG loot grinding is pretty much a staple of MMOs. ESO is not the worst or last game to use it.

No it is not. Most MMOS actually have token systems right now to compensate players having bad luck with their RNG! But not ESO, than again, we don't even have a functioning grouping tool >.>

Psychobunni

I 100% agree. My husband and I were discussing this very thing among others as to why so many people have simply quit the game yesterday. The rewards aren't worth the time invested/pots & gold used to get them.

I don't have any of the "best" drops and never will under this system lol

Grao

Valymer wrote: »

Don't forget the ultimate troll:

LOL Button for you. I mean, come on... You just completed every freaking quest in the game and they give you a crappy blue necklace you have 0 chance of using!

Grao

Psychobunni wrote: »

I 100% agree. My husband and I were discussing this very thing among others as to why so many people have simply quit the game yesterday. The rewards aren't worth the time invested/pots & gold used to get them.

I don't have any of the "best" drops and never will under this system lol

It is seriously horrible! The worse is feeling is when you are farming the content for a damn piece, your friend gets it and say "damn, again this? I already destroyed 4 of them!". It gets to the point you are just not having fun because you feel there is no reward at all.

Why aren't we allowed to trade pieces within the group that completed the dungeon or trial, or DSA together? Why aren't we rewarded some token every time we complete hard content, so even if we don't get something we need, eventually we can build up to buy what we need??

Acrolas

I do think future end game content needs to look at the Prismatic Weapon for inspiration. Getting a choice between 3-4 different reward items each time would definitely help both with collecting sets and just making a player feel empowered.

Otherwise it starts to feel like a lottery, and statistically the solution to losing a lottery is not to play it more often.

Frenkthevile

Valymer wrote: »

Don't forget the ultimate troll:

Tamriel Hero is a cool title btw.

milkbox

This:

Grao wrote: »

Why aren't we allowed to trade pieces within the group that completed the dungeon or trial, or DSA together? Why aren't we rewarded some token every time we complete hard content, so even if we don't get something we need, eventually we can build up to buy what we need??

or this:

Acrolas wrote: »

I do think future end game content needs to look at the Prismatic Weapon for inspiration. Getting a choice between 3-4 different reward items each time would definitely help both with collecting sets and just making a player feel empowered.

Otherwise it starts to feel like a lottery, and statistically the solution to losing a lottery is not to play it more often.

I'm not chasing any particular loot (yet...), but have guildies doing gear grinds over 25 times in a weekend with no luck, and I'm just waiting for them to quit the game entirely.

It's so painful to watch. If I lose the people I play with, my incentive to stay is also reduced.

Fix this, please!!

Teiji

Item diversity, gear chase.

For example - Artifact Gear in another MMORPG.

There will be various classes such as;

• Bard
• Beastmaster
• Black Mage
• Blue Mage
• Corsair
• Dancer
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Geomancer
• Monk
• Ninja
• Paladin
• Puppetmaster
• Ranger
• Red Mage
• Rune Fencer
• Samurai
• Scholar
• Summoner
• Thief
• Warrior
• White Mage
  
  What do all these have in common?
  
  Every-single class has their own artifact gear.
  
  What is artifact gear?
  
  It is gear unique to each class.
  
  But TESO:TU doesn't have class gear!
  
  Obviously.
  
  So then what?
  
  Role gear, as it stands TESO:TU artifact gear has the following;
  
  
  
  
  
  One not for each role - but for each armor type. There is gear rewarded for trials, of course - but that should be acknowledged as "raid gear", we're referring to "artifact gear" or something close for comparison.
  
  There are no class quests that reward unique gear either. So, upon hitting level cap, you're not given a quest to get your first piece of unique gear for a specific role.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Grao wrote: »

Why aren't we allowed to trade pieces within the group that completed the dungeon or trial, or DSA together? Why aren't we rewarded some token every time we complete hard content, so even if we don't get something we need, eventually we can build up to buy what we need??

Because far too many game developers think that "deliberate, unrewarding grind" = "replayability".

It doesn't; but most of them are afraid to think outside the box.

I don't do "end game grinds", when a game starts to feel too grindy I go find something else to play.

For a while LotRO had a token system, you'd be guaranteed a token for every dungeon run etc, then you could trade x tokens in for a piece of gear, if you did it on hard-mode you got a special token that allowed you to trade a bit of gear in, and the token, and get an improved bit of gear (I'm sure you are familiar with what I mean) - it had the effect of every single run feeling like you were achieving something, rather than wasting time for your number to come up on the RNG lottery.

I really am at a loss as to why new (alleged) AAA titles still need to go through this learning curve of seeing players fall away, before they fix the loot reward system. Why not just do it right first time.

All The Best

Grao

Acrolas wrote: »

I do think future end game content needs to look at the Prismatic Weapon for inspiration. Getting a choice between 3-4 different reward items each time would definitely help both with collecting sets and just making a player feel empowered.

Otherwise it starts to feel like a lottery, and statistically the solution to losing a lottery is not to play it more often.

This would definitely be great for future gear, but for what content we have right now, how hard would it be to make Trials and DSA drop tokens that can be used (in large amounts) to pay for gear pieces we actually want, but are not lucky enough to get?

If we can get through the content multiple times, isn't it fair that we get the reward for completing said content, @ZOS?

Grao

Teiji wrote: »

Item diversity, gear chase.

For example - Artifact Gear in another MMORPG.

There will be various classes such as;

• Bard
• Beastmaster
• Black Mage
• Blue Mage
• Corsair
• Dancer
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Geomancer
• Monk
• Ninja
• Paladin
• Puppetmaster
• Ranger
• Red Mage
• Rune Fencer
• Samurai
• Scholar
• Summoner
• Thief
• Warrior
• White Mage
  
  What do all these have in common?
  
  Every-single class has their own artifact gear.
  
  What is artifact gear?
  
  It is gear unique to each class.
  
  But TESO:TU doesn't have class gear!
  
  Obviously.
  
  So then what?
  
  Role gear, as it stands TESO:TU artifact gear has the following;
  
  
  
  
  
  One not for each role - but for each armor type. There is gear rewarded for trials, of course - but that should be acknowledged as "raid gear", we're referring to "artifact gear" or something close for comparison.
  
  There are no class quests that reward unique gear either. So, upon hitting level cap, you're not given a quest to get your first piece of unique gear for a specific role.

Those sets you mentioned are the perfect example of wasted opportunity. The only trully good one there is Worm Cult and only for the healer, never to the DPS. Hircines Veneer is an amazing looking set, but the stats on it are just so disappointing... Healing taken? Really? And Ebon for tanking? Pure health and no resistances? Ok...

Moonshadow66

As a single PvE player such as myself, you get nothing at all. It ends at green VR10 jewelry (only if you're very lucky!) and the standard crafted armor/weapon sets. 8 characters, always the same, over and over again.

Grao

Moonshadow66 wrote: »

As a single PvE player such as myself, you get nothing at all. It ends at green VR10 jewelry (only if you're very lucky!) and the standard crafted armor/weapon sets. 8 characters, always the same, over and over again.

Yup, horrible quest rewards that are only good for vending and deconstructing. And jewelry... Well, clearly ZoS hates jewelry as there are only about 5 end game sets that are actually viable and we still can't craft or even upgrade jewelry.

idk

I think he is more upset that his friend got his weapon on his first clear. After all, a dsa clear guarantees a set bonus or master weapon. Most MMO don't guarantee you will get a thing. Usually only 1/4 the party gets anything. Here we all win.

Grao

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

I think he is more upset that his friend got his weapon on his first clear. After all, a dsa clear guarantees a set bonus or master weapon. Most MMO don't guarantee you will get a thing. Usually only 1/4 the party gets anything. Here we all win.

I am pissed I've been completing DSA almost every day for the past three months and am just as close to getting the weapon I actually need as was the first time I cleared that content. I am sorry I expect the game to be at least a little bit fair? I mean, surely you don't think loot drop should be defined only by luck, do you? There should be some sort of chance increase if you completed the same content over 60 times, or am I wrong here?

And here we don't all win at all? You are not guaranteed a Master weapon upon completing DSA. On the run my friends got the weapon I need, I got two useless greens and a soul gem. It felt super rewarding.

KhajitFurTrader

Late RoR "raid" loot system was worse, hands down. Even after hundreds of runs, the fabled gold quality items did not drop for some, while others had several only after a dozen runs or so.

But such are the whims of the PRNG, which makes for a poor loot officer everywhere.

psicorpb16_ESO

Just don't make it like the 'Hasla' grind in Archeage....

*shudder*

Sorry I know it's not likely but the word 'token' just makes me have nightmares ...

f047ys3v3n

Two days ago I received infallible aether shoes in my Sanctum coffer. I have more than 50 SO completes and this was the first pair of shoes I have received. Coincidentally, on the same day my AA drop was an Aether sash. Ditto on the completes, ditto on the first. Of course, an Aether sash is completely worthless these days so I actually laughed when it happened (I was looking for a healing mage ring of course as healing mage is the only set of raid gear in AA/Hel-ra that is still useful). I feel embarrassed for ZOS that loot is done in this fashion with RNG so bad that players who have some of the highest completion numbers in the game do not have the loot that they seek until after it doesn't even have value any more because we have switched to a PVP gear rules the roost vs. raid gear rubric.

Fear not though guys, the way I see things the only 12man raid gear that is actually desirable, by which I mean best in slot, from AA is healing mage (this has always had a much lower drop rate than the other sets. I expect it has always been bugged) and from Sanctum is Infallible. While I think both are best in slot or, in the case of healer one of the best in slot, neither is really a substantial improvement over common gear. All medium armor trial gear has been vastly superseded by PVP gear which really is a substantial boon in the way infallible used to be, and the heavy raid gear was never much good. Ditto on the story with the undaunted monster sets. Sure the tank one is still good and the healer one OK but none of the DPS sets are worth anything. Stop chasing Valken and Mephala people! I have them and they are a DPS loss with the 5 sec cooldowns that have been added. I don't use them anymore in my raid setup. Just horde your keys in hopes of better future sets.

Some master weapons are still great (great-sword, sword, resto staff, and bow spring to mind) but I feel your pain on the difficulty of acquiring the right weapon in the right trait. Given the time commitment of VDSA it is depressing as hell to have done it 30 or 50 times with no luck only to have a friend hit the jackpot run one. With the exception perhaps of the resto staff and sword these weapons, while good, are still not worth using if the trait is not sharpened or precise making the right weapon in the wrong trait a crying affair. I feel all your pain on this as not a single peice of my infallible lower body armor (coffer peices) after all those 50+ runs is either divines or infused. They are all crap traits and so are all my applicable monster pieces from undaunted. I have been lucky enough to do better on master weapons with an infused resto and sharpened bow. Ironically, I have only 20 or so VDSA completes. This Supports the case that when you make RNG low enough it really does start to look like total random chance who gets what.

I also agree with the previous poster than the necklace from completing cadwells gold really was the ultimate troll. I really couldn't believe that one. I mean quest rewards had always been crap the whole game but a blue necklace of nothingness from the final quest was defiantly surprisingly bad. At least make the thing gold guys. It would still be worthless but it would be a reasonable trophy at least. I mean it's called cadwell's gold for crying over spilled loot. Better yet make the reward a Cadwell hat costume. That would be fun. See, fun, try it.

Grao

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Late RoR "raid" loot system was worse, hands down. Even after hundreds of runs, the fabled gold quality items did not drop for some, while others had several only after a dozen runs or so.

But such are the whims of the PRNG, which makes for a poor loot officer everywhere.

That sounds exactly like it is in ESO, so that system wasn't worse, it was just the same crap.

Julianos

Grao wrote: »

Hi there, here to share a little personal tale of my adventures in ESO today!

I am wondering how many here have similar tales to tell, something tells me quite a few of us share similar experience. I've been running DSA and Vet DSA for at least 3 months now. I run it almost every day, sometimes two or three times a day! Why, you might ask? I am after one of the fabled Master weapons, of course!

Right now I have all of them! Well, correction, I have all the ones I DON'T NEED! And so I am forced to say, ESO has the worse loot system ever released for an MMO. Completely reliant on RNG, does not reward the players effort as doing content time and time again doesn't you will get the gear you need! NO, most times it means you will get some useless green crap and watch as your friend (running the content for the first time ever) gets the gear you;ve been farming for months!

It is super fair! And it is not happening only in DSA! NO! We also have the Undaunted sets to farm! And those are just as bad if not worse than the Master Weapons because even when you manage to get the Helmet or Shoulder piece to drop, you have 66% chance of it not being in Armor Weight you need and the chance gets even worse if you take into account you can get a useless well-fitted, exploration or sturdy piece! (and before you say ZoS removed Sturdy from the loot table, they only did so for shoulders. Helmets can still drop sturdy, even though ZOS already admitted the trait is pure crap!)

So, raise your hands those of you that share a similar tale to mine! Raise your hands if you agree this game has the worse ever released reward system in MMO history! Right now we have 2 of the 3 trials out there that don't drop a singular useful piece! We have quests giving gear so bad that using it should be a ban-worthy offense! We have DSA that can reward you completely useless greens and soul gems for completion! (YES, it can happen! I completed DSA yesterday with a few friends, two of them got the Master I desperately need, I got to *** greens and a soul gem!!!! It was super fun!)

totally agreed.

Grao

psicorpb16_ESO wrote: »

Just don't make it like the 'Hasla' grind in Archeage....

*shudder*

Sorry I know it's not likely but the word 'token' just makes me have nightmares ...

Tokens are an alternative to RNG. You woud still have the same chance of getting the gear as you have right now, but at the same time you'd accumulate tokens to buy pieces of gear you were lucky to get. It is not an ideal system, but it sure beats relying purely on luck, as it is right now, completing content doesn't get me closer to getting the gear piece I am hunting fo, which is stupid.

Psychobunni

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Why aren't we allowed to trade pieces within the group that completed the dungeon or trial, or DSA together? Why aren't we rewarded some token every time we complete hard content, so even if we don't get something we need, eventually we can build up to buy what we need??

Because far too many game developers think that "deliberate, unrewarding grind" = "replayability".

It doesn't; but most of them are afraid to think outside the box.

I don't do "end game grinds", when a game starts to feel too grindy I go find something else to play.

For a while LotRO had a token system, you'd be guaranteed a token for every dungeon run etc, then you could trade x tokens in for a piece of gear, if you did it on hard-mode you got a special token that allowed you to trade a bit of gear in, and the token, and get an improved bit of gear (I'm sure you are familiar with what I mean) - it had the effect of every single run feeling like you were achieving something, rather than wasting time for your number to come up on the RNG lottery.

I really am at a loss as to why new (alleged) AAA titles still need to go through this learning curve of seeing players fall away, before they fix the loot reward system. Why not just do it right first time.

All The Best

Yes! LOTRO at this point is still my fav MMO. The argument against tokens is that people won't replay the content once having received the necessary tokens....well hello! this RNG system has people simply quitting, not even bothering at all, and still those that have what they wanted not repeating the 50x they had to do it to get it. So how is is RNG better?

Molsondry

20 vetCoA run so far no Helm drop...

Grao

Psychobunni wrote: »

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Why aren't we allowed to trade pieces within the group that completed the dungeon or trial, or DSA together? Why aren't we rewarded some token every time we complete hard content, so even if we don't get something we need, eventually we can build up to buy what we need??

Because far too many game developers think that "deliberate, unrewarding grind" = "replayability".

It doesn't; but most of them are afraid to think outside the box.

I don't do "end game grinds", when a game starts to feel too grindy I go find something else to play.

For a while LotRO had a token system, you'd be guaranteed a token for every dungeon run etc, then you could trade x tokens in for a piece of gear, if you did it on hard-mode you got a special token that allowed you to trade a bit of gear in, and the token, and get an improved bit of gear (I'm sure you are familiar with what I mean) - it had the effect of every single run feeling like you were achieving something, rather than wasting time for your number to come up on the RNG lottery.

I really am at a loss as to why new (alleged) AAA titles still need to go through this learning curve of seeing players fall away, before they fix the loot reward system. Why not just do it right first time.

All The Best

Yes! LOTRO at this point is still my fav MMO. The argument against tokens is that people won't replay the content once having received the necessary tokens....well hello! this RNG system has people simply quitting, not even bothering at all, and still those that have what they wanted not repeating the 50x they had to do it to get it. So how is is RNG better?

That is the thing, I think you should replay content because the content is enjoyable, not because the drop rate of loot is horrifying.

Currently I am very close to giving up this stupid grind and even the game because every time I go through DSA I end up angry, I don't have fun at all. And why? Because completing the stupid content doesn't put me closer to my objective at all; actually every time I complete DSA and don't get what I need from it, I get more frustrated and feel further from being rewarded.

If I was able to get tokens and bought the damn gear, I'd still do the content, because I actually think VDSA is fun I would do it to help other players through it... The problem is the frustration gets in the way of actually having fun.

Pallmor

Grao wrote: »

Right now I have all of them! Well, correction, I have all the ones I DON'T NEED! And so I am forced to say, ESO has the worse loot system ever released for an MMO. Completely reliant on RNG, does not reward the players effort as doing content time and time again doesn't you will get the gear you need! NO, most times it means you will get some useless green crap and watch as your friend (running the content for the first time ever) gets the gear you;ve been farming for months!

If you think this system is bad, try playing a game like Destiny where you can't even trade gear.

Grao

Molsondry wrote: »

20 vetCoA run so far no Helm drop...

Good Luck. I only ever got two helmets from VCoA, one that I had to use for months was light and sturdy...

Finally got a good one after running that dungeon enough times I have every achievement in it... Only took about 60 runs...

Grao

Pallmor wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Right now I have all of them! Well, correction, I have all the ones I DON'T NEED! And so I am forced to say, ESO has the worse loot system ever released for an MMO. Completely reliant on RNG, does not reward the players effort as doing content time and time again doesn't you will get the gear you need! NO, most times it means you will get some useless green crap and watch as your friend (running the content for the first time ever) gets the gear you;ve been farming for months!

If you think this system is bad, try playing a game like Destiny where you can't even trade gear.

Several of the best in slot pieces of this game are also BoP, just as in Destiny... Same crap, different game.

dafox187

this isnt a mmo its a elder scrolls game with friends