How hard has the diminishing loot hammer come down?

EdonilTebaun

.... or Where did all the loot go?

First, I'm not a regular farmer, I'm just a player who would sit on a boss for a few kills until whatever blue weapon would drop from a public boss appeared. Then, like a decent soul, I'd check it out and usually say "Okay, that's neat, I'll have to remember this place for "x" alt." After that, I'd move on, leaving anyone else to do their thing.

That leads me to my current confusion. While running around in Bangkorai (sp?) I stumbled onto a couple of public dungeons and figured I'd go check them out. I suppose the first odd thing I noticed was that there wasn't anyone else running past me as I worked my way through the dungeon. So when I finally located the "Boss" I was actually there alone. Literally alone, nobody else to be seen, mobs still in place heading toward the exit. It was absolutely confounding that this had happened.

Launch into the boss, dance around a bit since I'm playing a NB, and the Boss falls over with a nice yellow-white glow around him. I think to myself "Cool, should be fairly well guaranteed to get something since I killed this one solo". So I loot the corpse and am the proud recipient of 1 Nickel, 1 Greater Soul Gem, and 5 coins. Wait, what? Surely that's a mistake, right. Nope, check my inventory and there's no interesting goodies to make me go "Hmm, that's nice, I'll have to remember that" before going on my merry way.

Knowing I didn't want to wait on the diminishing returns thing, I leave and pretty soon run across another public dungeon. So, nobody's there and I'm alone, so I go into rinse and repeat mode. Kill this boss and nothing again, not even the soul gem for my trouble.

Now I understand the problems with the bots and the farmers, blah, blah, blah. Yes, something had to be done. And I'm trying very hard not to sound like I'm whining overmuch, but this experience just left me ... disappointed.

So ultimately, has anyone else found themselves having similar situations, or did I just draw really bad luck from the RNG (which has been a grand joke between myself and my friends since EQ)?

If this has become the norm, other than just poking your head into these places to see what it's called and maybe get the ping for discovery, what's the point of having public dungeons anymore?

GossiTheDog

They now don't always drop fat loot, basically. As a result, the bots have mostly abandoned dungeons, and moved on to farming jute (jute respawns instantly currently... they're due to fix that).

Tuerai

They have now changed it so that:
- You only get loot every 4 -5 kills (avg) of the boss
- I have not seen a blue item drop from a boss since the changes, even during a solid hour killing the same boss

So in summation, public dungeons are now only ever good for killing the boss once for the marker to turn white, and then immediately leaving, and there went one of the features I had liked.

I literally get better drops killing mudcrabs than dungeon bosses now, as mudcrabs still drop blues occasionally.

Cacus

I used to enjoy dungeon's but since they nerfed it instead of thinking on the best way to fix it e.g. make them bound. I find myself burning through them get the shard, kill boss get out (oh look some nice trash from boss, Joy) just turning into a xp grind quest rather than a joyous run around while questing as the loot system fails

GossiTheDog

Cacus wrote: »

I used to enjoy dungeon's but since they nerfed it instead of thinking on the best way to fix it e.g. make them bound.

Items are only bound on equip, right? So you just still sell them by not equiping.

Cacus

GossiTheDog wrote: »

Cacus wrote: »

I used to enjoy dungeon's but since they nerfed it instead of thinking on the best way to fix it e.g. make them bound.

Items are only bound on equip, right? So you just still sell them by not equiping.

there are unique weapon from world bosses that are bound on pick up, it would be hard to implament it into the dungeons ones

GossiTheDog

Cacus wrote: »

GossiTheDog wrote: »

Cacus wrote: »

I used to enjoy dungeon's but since they nerfed it instead of thinking on the best way to fix it e.g. make them bound.

Items are only bound on equip, right? So you just still sell them by not equiping.

there are unique weapon from world bosses that are bound on pick up, it would be hard to implament it into the dungeons ones

Okay, bound on pickup I can agree on.

To be honest, in my case I like the dungeons but I also like that they're so empty now. I think part of it may be down to subscription numbers, too.

Tuerai

GossiTheDog wrote: »

Okay, bound on pickup I can agree on.

Honestly, that wouldn't change what I used to do in dungeons, I only used the items for gold and deconstructing for crafting mats.

Shanna

EdonilTebaun wrote: »

... or did I just draw really bad luck from the RNG (which has been a grand joke between myself and my friends since EQ)?

aha, THAT'S my problem. I run around with my son and he gets blues and purples, while I get diddly.

EdonilTebaun

GossiTheDog wrote: »

Cacus wrote: »

I used to enjoy dungeon's but since they nerfed it instead of thinking on the best way to fix it e.g. make them bound.

Items are only bound on equip, right? So you just still sell them by not equiping.

Cacus wrote: »

GossiTheDog wrote: »

Cacus wrote: »

I used to enjoy dungeon's but since they nerfed it instead of thinking on the best way to fix it e.g. make them bound.

Items are only bound on equip, right? So you just still sell them by not equiping.

there are unique weapon from world bosses that are bound on pick up, it would be hard to implament it into the dungeons ones

World boss drops are bound to account and have a vendor sell price of 0. Meaning you can trade them between characters on your account, but not to other players (this was a somewhat double edged surprise). I have no complaints about that mechanic, and I would think that might have been a better mechanic to implement on the public dungeon bosses. All it would require was copy/pasting the code for the world bosses onto the dungeon bosses. Simple, no?

Perhaps what Zenimax needs to do is rework their diminishing returns and loot table for those dungeon bosses to something like this:

Eliminate the boss and it activates an account wide one (1) hour loot lockout for that specific boss, however, you also receive whatever special item that boss had the potential for dropping.

Seems everyone might be happier that way. Players get their blues and achievements, and move on.

Botting the dungeon would still happen, but with the 1 hour account lockout that's a lot more accounts the bots would have to have, instead of just shifting characters. If no loot drops for an hour, it becomes financially prohibitive to sit bots there constantly.

Yea, my thought isn't perfect, but it might be better than what we've got now.

Taram

Have to agree... the loot change to get rid of bots went WAY too far. I don't expect fat loot every single time but it's REALLY annoying when you kill a surface boss (Pirate skull or Dolmen) and then go into a dungeon and, because you recently killed a boss, you don't even get a soul gem... and bosses rarely drop nice gear now.... It's to the point where doing the dungeons is now pointless other than to tick off the dungeon on the map.... and, frankly, that's just not fun.

wrlifeboil

The main problem is that the timing is off. If this had been in place at launch, there would have been less incentive for the bot groups to bot bosses. If they had wanted to increase drop rates, the devs could have adjusted rates with some fine tuning instead of shock treatment.

PVT_Parts

Alright, here are the statistics now. The loot timer is 8 minutes. You will get 5 gold each kill and only 5 gold till that counts down. Also, IDK why, but they thought this was a good idea as well, they lowered the drop rate of the blue items. Since the update I killed a boss for 3 hours and got 2 blues, we would run around the circle in the dung in southwest Coldharbor killing the normal mobs while the 8m ticked down. At one point we had a group of 9 doing it, great XP and got more blues that way. But anyways, since I left that dung, I've killed at least 7 bosses and only received 1 blue, and those kills are at different dungeons around. I expected them to at least increase the blue drop with the loot times, but they didn't.

gardenia.ren67ub17_ESO

Shanna wrote: »

EdonilTebaun wrote: »

... or did I just draw really bad luck from the RNG (which has been a grand joke between myself and my friends since EQ)?

aha, THAT'S my problem. I run around with my son and he gets blues and purples, while I get diddly.

You and me both! I used to be awesome at doing random 1-1000 on loot in EQ and rolling a 2 or 3. It's supposed to be lowest roll, amirite?

My daughter also gets all the good loot, LOL.

EdonilTebaun

PVT_Parts wrote: »

Alright, here are the statistics now. The loot timer is 8 minutes.

If that's the case then I'm thinking something else might be wrong, because I don't believe I had killed anything that was flagged as a "boss" unless quest mobs are counting (which they really shouldn't be) before my first public dungeon run. And I know I didn't kill anything flagged as a boss before my second one.

And it definitely takes longer than 8 minutes to work your way solo through one of those dungeons when all the mobs are up.

I wonder if some accounts got perma-flagged for killing bosses in the change?

EdonilTebaun

gardenia.ren67ub17_ESO wrote: »

Shanna wrote: »

EdonilTebaun wrote: »

... or did I just draw really bad luck from the RNG (which has been a grand joke between myself and my friends since EQ)?

aha, THAT'S my problem. I run around with my son and he gets blues and purples, while I get diddly.

You and me both! I used to be awesome at doing random 1-1000 on loot in EQ and rolling a 2 or 3. It's supposed to be lowest roll, amirite?

My daughter also gets all the good loot, LOL.

The bad (and hilarious) part of it is that my battle with the RNG jumps games as well. During my WoW days (Classic) my luck was so bad with /random that my guild decided to go the route of another guild on the server (Rotten Luck) and say that we're using Rotten Rules (lowest roll wins). At that point I'd always roll somewhere between an 85 and 100.

PVT_Parts

EdonilTebaun wrote: »

PVT_Parts wrote: »

Alright, here are the statistics now. The loot timer is 8 minutes.

If that's the case then I'm thinking something else might be wrong, because I don't believe I had killed anything that was flagged as a "boss" unless quest mobs are counting (which they really shouldn't be) before my first public dungeon run. And I know I didn't kill anything flagged as a boss before my second one.

And it definitely takes longer than 8 minutes to work your way solo through one of those dungeons when all the mobs are up.

I wonder if some accounts got perma-flagged for killing bosses in the change?

you got the soul gem, that counts as the drop. Soul gem is a 100% drop if the timer is reset at 0. If the timer isn't reset, then you will only get 5g. So your first kill, you did get the drop, an unlucky drop, but still a drop.

Cherryblossom

I'm not impressed by Zenimax's reactionary destruction of public dungeons, like many here I used to enjoy being in a group killing the boss on the chance of a shiney ( I don't get any, anywhere else (only had one purple drop in 30 days!))

I now get a white if I'm lucky. Totally pissed off with Zenimax's disregard for how some like to play....

l-wilson-1986b16_ESO

The public dungeons which contain multiple bosses are now ruined as you only get loot for the first one you kill (the rest either drop gold or nothing).

I know they changed it with good intentions but you really can't swing the nerf hammer in a way that it destroys all the fine china in addition to squashing the cockroach.

Too many games do the above, in their aims to cater to the community outcry, and I honestly am glad they are listening, but surely someone in their talented team could have forseen that this would destroy public instances with more than one boss, and suggested that the timer was boss specific rather than on all bosses globally?

EdonilTebaun

Wow, so after looking at the comments, it seems to me that we're all left with a rather smelly pile of skeever cheese.

Eight ( 8 ) minute global timers, attached to every elite you might encounter, with drop rates lowered into the negative percentages.

I guess the only thing we can do is hope that once the last 5 days of access are up, something changes for the better ....