Druid Events and the new loot lock - we need to talk this one out!

[mrwarp]

OK so now that most of us have experienced a druid event under the new group and loot rules, what do you think?

Personally, I hate it. I felt there was no value or real incentive to even show up. I can live with not making xp for a while. I'll show up make a couple hits, sit at the drop and collect my blessings because I'm not going to get anything else out of it. I think an exception to the loot rule needs to be made here. Either revert to the old loot rules specifically for the event or come up with a "tag it and you can loot" type of rule. The tag option will at least keep people engaged. I see a loot lock icon and 3 droaches heading towards me and think "why should I bother?". I hope a better solution can be found and implemented.

I will say this much so that I'm clear: This isn't something that would make me rage quit or anything like that, although it would make me think twice about messing with the druid skill if I were contemplating taking it.

And yes...I know...we're testing. That's why I'm posting this. (This was for all those who were about to play the "calm down it's an alpha test" card) :cool:

[drivendawn]

I think for this we need a percentage you need to reach to be able to loot. Something like between 10 to 15% or so sounds right to me . I like the loot rules in dungeons though and think that 6 man groups should remain the same as well.

[Crissa]

Certainly there needs to be some loot rules that work for the open-world events which don't work for dungeons and vice versa.

I don't think I'd be playing this game if it weren't for the open-world loot rules in the lower levels.

[rastaah]

I agree the open world loot rules at lower levels are great. I would hate to see that go away when I level up and have everything be strictly for groups or due to groups.

I solo a lot ! And enjoy that.

[Lendari]

Something is definitely wrong, it really brought out the worst in people during the Eltibule event today. This needs some more work.

[ANT3RA]

I was surveying in Eltibule at the time of this event. While I was sorting out my maps i was watching the event unfold.

I saw a number of people tag mobs and then run to the next mob to tag etc, then running off not killing the tagged mobs. I can think of a number of reasons for doing this, but that would be speculation at this stage.

If they were expecting high lvl players to kill the mobs, this wasn't working as players were leaving tagged mobs alone to roam around tagged until killed by someone else. If they were doing it to grief, that is another issue.

What caught my eye though is that players were not assisting each other, but rather killing mobs solo, if they were high enough lvl, or sticking to their groups and going from mob to mob etc. Solo or group, no one entity helped another.

Then what i saw was a large number of players at the Serbule port just standing there because they could not do anything due to the tagged mobs outnumbering untagged mobs.

Global chat was interesting.

[srand]

Please keep in mind that we have a fairly major bug with loot permissions affecting people right now. In particular, closing a corpse can make it unlootable by anyone else - whether that's another group member trying to open an elite corpse that someone else in the group has already opened, or a solo player opening corpses to leave the loot for other lower level solo'ers in the area. And that's definitely not intended behavior!

We should have fixes for these bugs hotfixed soon - possibly this evening.

[Crissa]

And tagging might be inconsequential - while running survey maps I often whack mobs to trigger knockbacks or stuns so I can get away. I'd hate to think I'd be screwing someone over by doing that.

[Lendari]

Please keep in mind that we have a fairly major bug with loot permissions affecting people right now.

Yeah, that was my thought when it just took over global chat the other day. That people were just confused about what was a bug and what the intended behavior was. However, the outdoor druid world events in particular draw so many people that they might be a special edge case even when the bug is fixed.

That said, the bug is super duper annoying!

[cratoh]

Just get rid of loot on druid events. They were ridiculous anyway for gearflation. Provide another source of kraken tendrils.

[cratoh]

And make the world events like in some other games where you automatically get added to the event group once you get into a certain area

[mrwarp]

I'll wait and see how it feels once the bugs are handled, but I'm thinking it is not going to change much. If loot is no longer a real thing with the event and all there is to get is blessings, I think removing the druid xp penalty needs to be considered. If people need blessings they will attend and do the work. If people do not need the blessings they can sit out or help out...it can be their choice. Being forced to do an event whether you need its benefits or not will get really old and stale in the long run.

As far as the loot lock rule goes in general, I'm feeling like that rule should be restricted to inside dungeons only and the open world be left as it was prior.

[Yaksnot]

I'll wait and see how it feels once the bugs are handled, but I'm thinking it is not going to change much. If loot is no longer a real thing with the event and all there is to get is blessings, I think removing the druid xp penalty needs to be considered. If people need blessings they will attend and do the work. If people do not need the blessings they can sit out or help out...it can be their choice. Being forced to do an event whether you need its benefits or not will get really old and stale in the long run.

As far as the loot lock rule goes in general, I'm feeling like that rule should be restricted to inside dungeons only and the open world be left as it was prior.

pretty much this, yes there is an obvious bug, but no i dont feel it will change anything. Really of the opinion that dungeons starting at like Yeti or KT or something can have that loot/ party rule but lower lvl dungeons and open world need to have a different more open / loot friendly rule to it.

This goes beyond the druid event, it hampers open world interactions. And god have mercy on any new people coming into PG at this point, on top of everything else now they also have to deal with loot/ party rules in places like crypt? no ty.

Yak

[BuddyLove]

I agree the Druid events are starting to get silly. Twice now since the new loot rules came into force, I have attended an event ( 1x south serb and 1 x etibule ) where I have not managed to get tagged on a mob before the end of the ecvent :( = no blessing for me.
South serb you had an asshat in the middle of the water AOEing mobs, not causing any damage but locking all the mobs. Then the even tin etible, I arrived about 10 mins in and couldn't find anything to tag / kill.

So many people just tagging 1 mob then just standing round waiting for others to kill it.

Also witht he new loot rule and less loot , it has reduced the amount of non druids helping with the event, as they now get just about nothing in return :(
Just another example of how the community spirt is being killed of :(

[Neferent]

I think I should add my two cents.

I was at the one of the very first druid event in Kur Mountains shortly after the loot changes went live. Frankly it was a little discouraging. I didn't see people running around mass tagging like others experienced in the later events, but what I did see was multiple druids running around soloing almost every single elemental, while other people just stood around waiting for others to die so that they could get the tag. I tried to get into a group, but sadly did not get invited. In the end after 90 elementals were dead I was able to loot ZERO corpses. I got my blessings and that was OK, but I wanted some loot too!

I have a few suggestions on how to remedy this.

I do not think that open world should return to the previous loot system, I like it how it is. However...


I think that each druid that attends should get ONE piece of level appropriate gear in addition to the blessings for participating in the event.
-or-
Participants should get ~10-20% more blessings for completion, and there should be more equipment purchasable with blessings.
-or-
There should be a punishment for not participating. example.. if you are online during the entire event you receive a 30 minute -50% exp buff because you are sad you didn't help Dreva or whatever.


As a mid-level player any of those 3 changes would make me want to participate in druid events again.


.. I also wanted to add that I really like the loot changes especially in dungeons

[Khaylara]

I stated before I hate the current druid events, they were nothing but loot pinatas for everyone not just druids. At the time they were implemented we made some suggestions that would be more involving for druids and with dreva blessings only as reward, sorta similar to the lycan quests. Citan's reasoning (which is understandable) is that druid is not a curse therefor it shouldn't be "punished". Having 1x lycanthropy and 2x druid I can say that druid feels more "punished". Weerewolf basically lock me out of the game for 3 days a month, i just plan for it and that's that. Since I got all the bird forms I stopped attending druid events. Yes, I heard we should be punished for not participating. Why? I've been druid for about 2 years and a half, played as one, attended druid events from day one. I put up with no exp daily, without the loot pinatas it really feels like a punishment.

I'm not going to repeat the suggestions again, for those interested search the old forums, there were few interesting ideas there. As general suggestions please consider removing the current mechanic for druid events and implement individual quests given by the druid altar. Druids are not lycans, they don't need a "pack" so they can work towards their goals in a peaceful way like growing plants etc. Imho the current south serbule druid quest is the best, the part where we have to work together to desecrate chests. Please consider removing the elite spawning and lootfest, it really doesn't help anyone.

It removes the incentive for people to run level appropriate dungeons (i.e. getting nice gear from the krakens=one doesn't need to run goblin dungeon for gear). It's creating inflation. Players who got used to the loot pinatas are complaining now cause they get locked out. It doesn't have any druid specific feel to it.

Imo the current type should be replaced with quests like "offer 20 veggies to the altar", "kill 20 pest-like mobs" "grow 20 flowers" which would be branched by levels so everyone could get blessings based on their contribution (for example you's get 6 blessings for growing bluebell and 16 for desert roses but at least lower levels can participate in an involving way and not by leeching). Remove the exp penalty, the players who don't want to be involved simply won't get blessings and that would be their penalty.

The tagging thing is kinda off topic, someone made a suggestion to remove that mechanic from lower level places like crypt or outdoors mobs. Tbh I don't know how simple/complex that is but I had a negative experience, lower level players bringing a train of tagged mobs on me and waiting till i killed them. It only happened once to me but it is a very exploitable feature, exploitable either for loot or for griefing. I don't know what the right thing to do is, maybe limit the mechanic to elites and bosses only and see how that goes.

Just adding this so it doesn't turn into a debate, I don't really care either way, I don't participate in the current druid events anymore, it's a bit of a nuisance having to wait till I can get exp but it's a minor inconvenience for me. The suggestions I made are based on trying to make being a druid more fun/involving for everyone. At the moment it's weighing what's more inconvenient - not having flight or putting up with double daily interruptions.

[Dragone]

It's not a bother when the event happens or that I don't earn any xp, I just don't attend anymore because this events don't really make sense to me as a druid I shouldnot be called to fight lobsters or frost men, what is a druid nemesis how about we stay in caracter and give proper danger to the druid nation, I'm sure there is more important things for the devs amt to work on but I do hope this druid thing does get addressed in a future time.

[Crissa]

And make the world events like in some other games where you automatically get added to the event group once you get into a certain areaThat's a pretty good idea, but groups over vast distance is kinda broken. It gives loot rights to group members who aren't there. So there's more that would be needed to be done.

[mrwarp]

Just for point of reference, I'm posting this to mark that the hotfix has been applied. We'll see how the next events go.

[mrwarp]

So just did the Kur druid event. Nothing really changed. Got a couple pieces of loot this time, but was really annoyed that now it's a "tag and drag" fest all over the place. Here I'll tag these 3 elementals and drag them to the main group and let them do the work for me. But this time it was even groups dragging onto groups. I can only see this getting worse when unleashed on a larger scale.

Also, a couple passing thoughts on the "loot piñata" argument: Why exactly is that such a horrible thing? It's a bunch of foraging stuff and a set level of gear drops. For example the droaches drop level 50 gear. Why would that matter so much to a character with level 60/70/etc skills? The gear for them is mostly useless...sure it may help gear some in the 50 skill area but it's not gonna solve anything else beyond that gear-wise. The stuff made great fodder for augmentation practice, favor and allowed some people to put a few councils in their wallet by vendoring it....not everyone in this game is stinkin' rich.

[Celler]

I found the Kur event Farcical to be honest only way I managed to get first hit on 2 Elementals was to run into suicidal battles, I did arrive half way into it though.
I guess some poor sod had to finish them off and got nothing for it.
I asked in global for a group none was forth coming, not a massive problem for me I can solo them if I could of got them alone that is.
I did get the blessing reward at least but frankly found the whole thing A disappointment.

Not keen on loot system as a whole to be honest, I feel now the larger guilds of which I'm a member of one DOM will tend to find groups of 6 within there own players to the detriment of the more casual or lone player.
I Just don't see why Elites and especially bosses in dungeons are group loot only, it works now when there is one or 2 groups within a dungeon but if game grows with no instances 6 groups running around in one dungeon is going to end in a riot. I'd rather an environment where the group I'm not in near me is a help not a threat.

I can see that all the loot from mants and druid events was a problem, especially in the sense that low lvls can do both by tagging along contributing little.
To be honest though that loot is junk to most and just turns into cash which is wasted on the endless skill trainers etc. I'm sure there are some players with lots of money but those that play around with most the skillsets I'd imagine are pretty damn poor half the time.
In the years I've played I don't think I've ever had more than 150k.

[rastaah]

What made this needing changing in the first place?

[alleryn]

What made this needing changing in the first place?
Here's a quote from Citan (in a different thread) that explains the reasoning.

I guess the bottom line is that the current system is obviously not going to cut it in the long term because the loot system heavily rewards mega-groups. Mega-groups are actually really boring, even if the rewards are good. It's not healthy for the long-term of the game. The best system I've seen is EQ2s. If you have other systems to propose, that's cool and I'm all ears! But we can't stay with the exact system we have now forever.

[sudostahp]

Here's a quote from Citan (in a different thread) that explains the reasoning.

It's a change for the worst, and I think that's nearly universally agreed upon at this point. I don't think it's necessarily because the change itself is bad, it's just poorly implemented.

The assumption is that mega-groups (the zerg) are really boring. In some cases that's probably true, but it's only true because current design limitations only allow content to be balanced for solo and group play. If content is balanced for 6, then a smaller group will be frustrated and a larger group will find little challenge in it. From a design standpoint, it's much easier to force everyone into a predictable group size and adjust content to that size. That works fine for some things, like dungeons with simple objectives, but it's a poor design for open world content.

Rift was one of the early pioneers in creating adaptive content. Events were dynamic, grouping was automatic, and everyone could contribute and earn rewards. Guild Wars 2 followed with a similar system that also worked quite well.

As a player, I'm less concerned with the innovative coding that allows for dynamic content. It's neat, sure. I like loot, I like playing with others, but I really want a sense of community. That's what keeps players engaged for the long haul, and my real fear is that this change is directly harming the community. Peak numbers are down at least 30-40% from two weeks ago. Mants/Pask is no longer a chance to catch up with familiar faces. Guild runs have become only about maximizing a chance at success, and players with lesser gear are stuck watching from the sidelines. I used to run lower level dungeons for folks, but I haven't since the change. I'm not going to tell a player that they can't come along, or even worse, they can watch while only a few others loot -- and I won't have a part in it. Tonight, I won't even be logging on.

Community keeps games alive. A better change would have been to create an incentive for cooperative play. Have you seen the amount of cooperation that goes into killing those silly Scape Goats? There's no loot, it's low tech, but it's fun. It wouldn't be hard to simply scale global events (currently limited to druid events) based on progression. Kill the easy green ones, advance to the gold ones. Kill them, advance to the red ones. Kill the red ones, final blue boss. If loot inflation is an issue with the event, then award "participation points" like Dreva's blessings that can be redeemed for keys. Problem solved.

I have no idea why forcing group size is a good idea in dungeons. If players want a challenge, then they can create a group that it's balanced for, but players and guilds should have the option to have fun in whatever way floats their collective boat. That's the whole idea of a sandbox, right? Players ought to be able to create their own experience.

[Khaylara]

So just did the Kur druid event. Nothing really changed. Got a couple pieces of loot this time, but was really annoyed that now it's a "tag and drag" fest all over the place. Here I'll tag these 3 elementals and drag them to the main group and let them do the work for me. But this time it was even groups dragging onto groups. I can only see this getting worse when unleashed on a larger scale.

Also, a couple passing thoughts on the "loot piñata" argument: Why exactly is that such a horrible thing? It's a bunch of foraging stuff and a set level of gear drops. For example the droaches drop level 50 gear. Why would that matter so much to a character with level 60/70/etc skills? The gear for them is mostly useless...sure it may help gear some in the 50 skill area but it's not gonna solve anything else beyond that gear-wise. The stuff made great fodder for augmentation practice, favor and allowed some people to put a few councils in their wallet by vendoring it....not everyone in this game is stinkin' rich.

Since I don't want to repeat or quote myself read the above reasoning if you wish to in my previous post. On top of the other arguments I made it's simply freebies awarded daily for just being present.

On topic, I agree that overall the changes impacted negatively the number of active players. Imho the zergs were also bad, running Lab with 20+ players was a complete nightmare. I did like the group limit but the loot tag applied to everything seems to not work so well. I still stand for removing the current type of druid events, tag or not. Keep only dreva blessings as reward and make them more involving for all lvls druids.
I'm disappointed myself in general terms, I appreciate the amount of work that's involved in putting out so much new content in a short period of time, don't get me wrong. But if the result is fun to play is another conversation.

I enjoy crafting, crafting is on the backburner (not fun for me)
I try to get enthusiastic about new skillsets, knife was not what I expected and bard became expensive af overnight. There's no dedicated gem to craft bard gear so I can at least see what it does and due to the fact I'm not "stinkin' rich" I can't afford to uncap it so I can run GK for gear and use bard at its full potential.
I would get on board with druid events if I felt like a druid and if I wasn't so sick and tired of people complaining that "High levels don't participate". I'm not even that high level in druid but understand once and for all there's no incentive for me to attend druid events. Even before I didn't agree with getting everyone free loot like candy. I think I'm generally a helpful player but going to kill a bunch of mobs so lower levels can get loot and exp (or they were stuck waiting for us to kill the mobs) is not my idea of "help". Give a man a fish ...kind of situation.
Most of us gave a more or less negative feedback when the druid events were implemented. It's not an "i told ya so" moment but the long term effects are starting to show now-players who started more recently feel like they are being robbed of something they were entitled to, simply because the loot pinata druid events were in place when they started playing. Obviously they are going to complain, can't blame them for that. They can't kill the event mobs even if they group (lower levels), they can't get anything unless they tag and drag. Obviously this feature is not working out as planned.

Again, I appreciate how much work goes into this and the rapid succession of updates. I would imagine it's because you would like to do the early access release but there are too many things left unfinished (not unpolished, just unfinished, like augmenting skills) from previous updates and we simply don't have the time to adjust to changes in the way of playstyle, gear, grinding enough cash etc. If I find this overwhelming as an older player think how overwhelmed a new one must feel with these updates making the game more grindy, more competitive, more hardcore.

[rastaah]

It's a change for the worst, and I think that's nearly universally agreed upon at this point. I don't think it's necessarily because the change itself is bad, it's just poorly implemented.

The assumption is that mega-groups (the zerg) are really boring. In some cases that's probably true, but it's only true because current design limitations only allow content to be balanced for solo and group play. If content is balanced for 6, then a smaller group will be frustrated and a larger group will find little challenge in it. From a design standpoint, it's much easier to force everyone into a predictable group size and adjust content to that size. That works fine for some things, like dungeons with simple objectives, but it's a poor design for open world content.

Rift was one of the early pioneers in creating adaptive content. Events were dynamic, grouping was automatic, and everyone could contribute and earn rewards. Guild Wars 2 followed with a similar system that also worked quite well.

As a player, I'm less concerned with the innovative coding that allows for dynamic content. It's neat, sure. I like loot, I like playing with others, but I really want a sense of community. That's what keeps players engaged for the long haul, and my real fear is that this change is directly harming the community. Peak numbers are down at least 30-40% from two weeks ago. Mants/Pask is no longer a chance to catch up with familiar faces. Guild runs have become only about maximizing a chance at success, and players with lesser gear are stuck watching from the sidelines. I used to run lower level dungeons for folks, but I haven't since the change. I'm not going to tell a player that they can't come along, or even worse, they can watch while only a few others loot -- and I won't have a part in it. Tonight, I won't even be logging on.

Community keeps games alive. A better change would have been to create an incentive for cooperative play. Have you seen the amount of cooperation that goes into killing those silly Scape Goats? There's no loot, it's low tech, but it's fun. It wouldn't be hard to simply scale global events (currently limited to druid events) based on progression. Kill the easy green ones, advance to the gold ones. Kill them, advance to the red ones. Kill the red ones, final blue boss. If loot inflation is an issue with the event, then award "participation points" like Dreva's blessings that can be redeemed for keys. Problem solved.

I have no idea why forcing group size is a good idea in dungeons. If players want a challenge, then they can create a group that it's balanced for, but players and guilds should have the option to have fun in whatever way floats their collective boat. That's the whole idea of a sandbox, right? Players ought to be able to create their own experience.


Everything you said here is very true , I'd have to say my biggest reason for leaving is MMORPG is when Dev decisions or 'balancing' takes away from the fun factor OR the sense of community

It is not even remotely similar but when I left RIFT it was over a community thing more than any other reason, I loved RIFT and wish I was still playing it but they ruined it for me.
It may be good for those that play it now, but I left once they started to do certain changes that made it less RIFT and more 'like other games'

EQ2 was brought up in the post above yours and thanks Alleryn for that quote from Citan.

While I don't feel qualified to comment on this games grouping at higher levels I can comment on a lot of other games including EQ2. The loot rules in EQ2 were 'fine' overall. I played that game a long time until they started to mess with PVP too much (I liked its PVP a whole lot and they kept ruining it , again trying to be like other games!)

I would think WOW with all of its 'world boss' kill type events would be a good place to look, RIFT for sure (played that Alpha onward) Rift had a really good way of doing it....and EQ2 more for small group play but not sure they had many huge world group events.

The most annoying thing as a lower level player is the loot is locked then and if the person runs away I now can't do as I used to do and close the corpse etc.

That does bug me already and I'm just low level.


EDIT: I was out of town and had not seen the new update yet :) I see on the 3/29 one it addressed my issue already , sorry if my post overlapped that fix. Thank you as well.

[mrwarp]

Ok, so if the druid event itself is the problem, how about this solution:

Reduce the druid emergencies to once or twice a month if you really want to keep that in the game. Create a "nature nexus" - a place only druids can enter. It doesn't have to be anything huge, a small space where you can place all the trainers and anything else druid that exists now or in the future. Inside you could also have a daily exercise...maybe something like a gauntlet type quest to help hone your druid skills. That way it could include all levels of druid, the higher you are, the farther you can progress. You could even have different tiers of difficulty. The reward is simply some dreva blessings and/or druid xp based on how far you go. You could even add a teleport skill that can be bought with blessings that will teleport you directly to the place. There! Problem solved! No loot piñata, no tag and drag, no single person mass tagging everything....except for once or twice a month. :)

[Sasho]

Perhaps make it so that anyone that does damage to the mob can loot it, and also - you have to be a druid to loot.

[Khaylara]

http://projectgorgon.com/forum/general-gorgon-discussion/3055-druid-event-feedback?limitstart=0

Some ideas thrown out there when the druid events were implemented