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Low level dungeons should give better loot.
Quizzical
Member LegendaryPosts: 25,483
A lot of MMORPGs with group dungeons at endgame have fairly limited drops from them. A five-man group goes in and kills a boss, and the boss drops one good piece of loot. Not one per player, but one for the whole group. Someone gets it, and the rest get nothing.
At endgame, that's reasonable. You want to get the loot from a dungeon? Run through it several times until the pieces you want drop. That way, you don't immediately have the best available gear. The endgame is supposed to take a while, and if there is a way to get better gear at all, it will be by going through the same slow process for the next dungeon that you need the gear from this one to be able to handle.
The problem is that games tend to take pretty much the same approach to loot in the lower level dungeons. Stop questing to go do a dungeon and a few pieces of loot will drop over the course of the dungeon. It's likely that you'll get none of them. Maybe you'll get one piece if you're lucky. You'll level past it so that it will be junk pretty soon, anyway. Someone who actively does group dungeons in the leveling process won't be meaningfully better geared than someone who doesn't. If you stop on one dungeon and run it repeatedly to get all of the good loot out of it, you'll have leveled way past that loot by the time you finally get it.
It's better if low level dungeons give out a lot of loot. If a boss is capable of giving several good items, and it takes a group to kill that boss, don't just give out one good item so that only one player gets anything. Have the boss drop its whole loot table, every time. Make it so that someone who does the dungeons as part of the leveling process can get the gear they want in one or two runs, and will tend to be considerably better geared than someone who ignores dungeons.
The best example of this that I've seen is Riders of Icarus. Do a dungeon run, get a few heroic drops. Do another dungeon run, get a few more. And they're all bind on equip, too. Even if most of the drops you get are for other classes, you can sell them and buy the ones you want. Getting full heroic dungeon sets with all of the set bonuses in the low level dungeons absolutely is viable--and not just after you've leveled way past the gear.
Astellia does something like this, too. Do a dungeon run, get several rare drops that are bind on equip. You may or may not get a heroic drop, and it will be bind on pickup even if you do. But if you do some dungeon runs on the way, it's easy to be decked out in rares or better with a number of choices on the random stat rolls most of the way through the leveling process. If you don't do any dungeons, rare quality gear is considerably rarer until you reach the cap.
A lot of players might still ignore dungeons on the basis that it's faster to level by other means, such as questing, and leveling faster is what matters, not the gear you have along the way. But if you're going to make it so that the way to get the best gear at endgame is by doing dungeons, then you should make it so that that's true all the way through the game, so as not to have the endgame change gameplay more radically than necessary. It's stupid to make the best low level gear come from low level dungeons, but be so hard to get as to be irrelevant to the leveling process.
At endgame, that's reasonable. You want to get the loot from a dungeon? Run through it several times until the pieces you want drop. That way, you don't immediately have the best available gear. The endgame is supposed to take a while, and if there is a way to get better gear at all, it will be by going through the same slow process for the next dungeon that you need the gear from this one to be able to handle.
The problem is that games tend to take pretty much the same approach to loot in the lower level dungeons. Stop questing to go do a dungeon and a few pieces of loot will drop over the course of the dungeon. It's likely that you'll get none of them. Maybe you'll get one piece if you're lucky. You'll level past it so that it will be junk pretty soon, anyway. Someone who actively does group dungeons in the leveling process won't be meaningfully better geared than someone who doesn't. If you stop on one dungeon and run it repeatedly to get all of the good loot out of it, you'll have leveled way past that loot by the time you finally get it.
It's better if low level dungeons give out a lot of loot. If a boss is capable of giving several good items, and it takes a group to kill that boss, don't just give out one good item so that only one player gets anything. Have the boss drop its whole loot table, every time. Make it so that someone who does the dungeons as part of the leveling process can get the gear they want in one or two runs, and will tend to be considerably better geared than someone who ignores dungeons.
The best example of this that I've seen is Riders of Icarus. Do a dungeon run, get a few heroic drops. Do another dungeon run, get a few more. And they're all bind on equip, too. Even if most of the drops you get are for other classes, you can sell them and buy the ones you want. Getting full heroic dungeon sets with all of the set bonuses in the low level dungeons absolutely is viable--and not just after you've leveled way past the gear.
Astellia does something like this, too. Do a dungeon run, get several rare drops that are bind on equip. You may or may not get a heroic drop, and it will be bind on pickup even if you do. But if you do some dungeon runs on the way, it's easy to be decked out in rares or better with a number of choices on the random stat rolls most of the way through the leveling process. If you don't do any dungeons, rare quality gear is considerably rarer until you reach the cap.
A lot of players might still ignore dungeons on the basis that it's faster to level by other means, such as questing, and leveling faster is what matters, not the gear you have along the way. But if you're going to make it so that the way to get the best gear at endgame is by doing dungeons, then you should make it so that that's true all the way through the game, so as not to have the endgame change gameplay more radically than necessary. It's stupid to make the best low level gear come from low level dungeons, but be so hard to get as to be irrelevant to the leveling process.
Comments
As far as equipment goes, I think there should be a plateau of strength. Instead of scaling vertically, it begins to scale horizontally. Each piece stat wise isn't superior to another, they just have different specializations making them more useful in different situations. So the player collects different sets and they don't just toss them when the next level cap increase happens.
Classic or Vanilla World of Warcraft proves this wrong. You come out of a one to two hour dungeon with one or two usable items.... the game seems balanced anyway. It's good to not be happy with maximum stuff, it keeps you wanting therefore keeps you wanting to play !
If you have a problem with always being wanting, then why play ANY GAME ?
I have several times stated that too many are not real rpg gamer's.their only care for the game is loot.This is also a problem if developers such as ahem...Blizzard design their game as a non rpg game but more of a dungeon loot crawler game.
Then it doesn't even matter what else these games offer if the only thing players care about is loot.
First of all who says dungeons need ANY loot at all?WHO says there needs to be a BOSS inside a dungeon?IMO there are far too many bad design ideas catering to deliver a non immersive experience all about loot and bragging platforms like pvp ratings or world firsts or giving rewards just because you walk into some area on a map.
In FFXI loot really never mattered,at least before Square turned FFXI into more of a WOWish type game focusing on loot more than game play and classes.We entered a dungeon with a group to kill stuff and attain earned <<<EARNED xp by utilizing our skills and weapons that also skilled up with use.We never entered to attain loot or kill some Boss albeit there are elite mobs all over the game world,there is no singular focus to see a Boss inside a dungeon.
It is really too bad that MOST mmorpg's gamer's know ONLY of WOW's design and are now brainwashed to think that is how a mmorpg should be designed.If people just think a little bit about the genre,what the letters MMO and rpg stand for they might realize just how bad Wow is.I am not by any means saying FFXI is AAA either,i have been for a long time demanding MUCH better mmorpg designs as i feel devs have been downright lazy and cheap on their designs.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Current industry standard allows you to kill mobs a bit faster if you wear BiS gear for your level, but you don't have any problems whatsoever to progress in game in questing greens only. That's not how a game should work. Games are about constant progression and that's missing in today's MMORPGs.
I think it like this: I play Super Mario Bros and start a new game. There are no pits, mobs or traps in first few dozen of stages, or if there are they won't kill me and make me start all over. Everyone will get to the last boss, guaranteed. Who would want to play such a game? Or even call it a game, for that matter? "Yeah but the last boss is sooo hard! Did you even finish the game in highest difficulty level?", says the fanboys. I'm sorry but about 99% of this game is just pointless waste of time and that 1% boss fight is not worth of my time or money.
I don't watch football but my team is the Miami Dolphins they lost most every game this year....Why are they getting paid ?
They should starve and be homeless until they start winning.
Same with video games, we should be homeless if we loose.
Sure in guilds people do the runs without asking for payment. Of course the guild mates will chip in and help the tank. In pugs the tank usually ask for some payment because let's face it the tank repair costs are very high and when they die it is mostly the fault of the others not targeting the the proper target or pulling themselves and so on.
Doing a dungeon the first few times is fun but it can become a boring when you grind it and having loot even in the lower dungeons should be a thing. I don't see why this is not implemented you can make them bind on pick up and more class appropriate.
People are spending time doing a dungeon and working together to complete it, why should they go home empty handed. I really dislike walking away with nothing at the end of a long run like wailing caverns because typically my ass luck makes sure I win nothing. That day it took close to 2 and half hours and I was happy to complete the quests but I could not use anything I got as a reward from the quests.
Far too many MMOs today don't even have mid-level dungeons, saving them for "end game" time sinks.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
You should only do it if you enjoy that type of game play - they are multiplayer games after all - instead of obsessing over any of the incentives. That's how you should play at all levels including "end game," but it's even more perverse to worry about loot that will be useful for less than an hour at lower levels.
In the old days when we all walked to and from dungeons, uphill both ways, we just did it as normal, everyday game play and even (gasp!) made friends doing it. If we got some good loot while we did it that was just some nice gravy but it wasn't the meat: we were there for the group play.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
When I quit raiding I decided to rank up on PvP in BGs and get my gear there and I dislike open world PvP and still found this a far better option to raiding, far more fun. I enjoy the system where you get points or some system to accumulate currency and faction to gain the gear you want and not depend on some goddess of fortune to wink and get you that gear from the 100th run in a dungeon you're so sick of you want to puke.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
" Let’s go to the core of the “looter” game design that Destiny is built on: the loot is only meaningful and fun when it’s matched with challenging content. It’s when you’re squeezing all you have to try to push past a difficulty wall that you feel the real thrill of a new piece of loot. Because that loot gives you that bit of help that you absolutely need to push through. That gives you a necessary nudge.
But if instead there is no wall to climb, and you rush through the content effortlessly, then the loot becomes perfunctory. An end to itself without a function. It will feel like a grindy, repetitive and boring experience.
I made through all the missions of the base game without even using my class power. Because enemies and bosses would die effortlessly anyway. If I used my power I could have killed those bosses so quickly that I wouldn’t even been able to experience the mechanics of their encounter. When instead I went through Osiris and Warmind while under-leveled, I had to throw EVERYTHING and the kitchen sink to survive and win."
I became a multi boxer in order to remove the grouping dependency. While my first few characters in DAOC leveled the traditional way through grouping, I quickly graduated to the point I could power level 3 or 4 at a time using a class like a Vampr.
In the last 5 years I played on two different DAOC free shards which both did not permit multiboxing, and in both cases I had to go back to grouping....and I loathed it despite the fact all of my old DAOC friends were there with me.
Theme Park style games or any game really which heavily use gear as a primary progression tool are just not my thing anymore either.
Like when telling your girlfriend when breaking up, it's not them, its me, I have changed and it's best if I no longer play such games.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I raided with guilds who used some form of DKP so I could reduce the randomness of it all allowing me to bid / spend my points if something dropped which I really wanted.
You are so right, I grew to really hate raiding and never did it again after I left WOW back in 2006.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED