Loot Drop Rate

[Unsung]

I understand the need for balance and fairness in MMO's. I can't help but feel some concern for the rate at which "Legendary" pink loot drops now. Its my opinion that a player should have a sense of excitement when they are lucky enough to find one of these treasures. Players should feel compelled to log on from time to time and grind out a map in hopes of earning a pink but it shouldn't be expected. The frequency of looting pinks certainly has dulled my enthusiasm for them and subsequently, the game.

The thought of liquidating a pink would have never crossed my mind prior to this first Oasis expansion but to be honest, they are a dime a dozen now and my inventory is almost completely full of pinks that everyone else seems to have too. The awe is fading.

If lowering the drop rate is unacceptable for fear of losing the casual player, would you guys consider releasing certain items that could only be obtained for a limited time? For what it's worth I still love the game and what you developers have done with it so far.

[Royce]

Aside from gear balance issues I won't get into here, this is my only significant complaint about the otherwise excellent new campaigns. Pinks are just too easy to get in Skeller and Oasis. And the frequency of Skeller pinks has also killed the market for all but a few swamp pinks since most are identical in stats.

[bmc85uk]

I think the Skeller drop rate needs to be changed also.

In addition to that, as far as I can see you have one drop chance per person, even with no clear definition of solo/group encounters, I would personally prefer a fixed loot table for bosses, with a certain chance for each item, this would gel with adding in something better than pink, as the game is now saturated with them.

Alternatively give us a use for pinks, crafting them down to lower level versions to equip lower toons maybe, either way the economy is crying out for a sink for these overabundant items, sure the additional content might make the app download a lot bigger, but with certain games hitting the 600mb+ mark and MMOs usually taking a monstrous 10gb+ I'd be happy to devote even as much as 2gig of my iPhone to this game.

As I said with a new item grade, giving the economy a use for pinks or not, if you add in a new item grade, the hardcore players delight, pink saturation would gradually fall as they were sapped up for use by more casual players (so long as you do something about Skeller!) become valuable enough to please the casual players, while us more hardcore followers would be questing for the super loot with the low drop rate (at least then we could throw our fat piles of gold at each other instead of just the potion merchant :-)

[vulgarstrike]

i think thats the point. if skeller drops are easier, people will buy skeller, thus more money for devs, meaning better quality work, which leads to more fun on our iDevices! i say continue on, i like it fine.

[bmc85uk]

Personally I think if you weighed up the financial benefits for the developer compared to the discontent it brings for the players, it's a minor plus.

I play PL because I enjoy the game itself, not the fact that the loot is easy to get - after you play all the way to level 30+. it just makes me bored, I downloaded PL because I love RPGs compared to other games purely because of the depth, how much you can do and the sense of aschievement when you achieve your milestones, the timesink element just adds to the challenge making the end result all the more satisfying.

Most of the casual players are more than happy if I hand them items, even white/green/orange.

[Unsung]

i think thats the point. if skeller drops are easier, people will buy skeller, thus more money for devs, meaning better quality work, which leads to more fun on our iDevices! i say continue on, i like it fine.

I disagree with the thought that players are attracted to easy when it becomes easy for everyone. I think players want to differentiate themselves from the others. Trophies are a great way to do that.

Legendary loot should be like a 1st place trophy. What value does a 1st place trophy hold when everyone can get one anytime? As I said above, the thought of limited release items sounds great.

[MrBlue]

Prior to Oasis, I sold only white for cash. Now I sell everything except purple and pink. And just today, I have so many purples that I went into random games giving them away for free.

I actually think the drop rate is ok. The real problem lies with the level design for Oasis. On a typical night, I see more Alien Oasis 5: Great Pyramid than any other map being played in that campaign. If the devs track the game instances, I wouldn't be surprised if 5: Great Pyramid is being played multiple times more than all the other levels combined. The 2 bosses are very close to the entrance and can be farmed for loot within 5 minutes. Maybe less if it's a skilled group.

IMO, change the level design to reduce farming. Bosses shouldn't be right at the entrance anyway.

[Royce]

No that's just the easiest to farm currently. They tweak that, people will farm elsewhere. That was proven by the several failed attempts to end farming in the swamps. Problem is the rate. You can't stop farming, but at least make farmers work for pinks.

[Esus]

Seariously? How many threads are needed about one subject? You all seem to forget this is a CASUAL game. you want to spend hours, days or weeks searching for the best of the best gear wise, go play any of the many MMORPGs geared towards hardcore players. That being said, I agree with maybe adding a new teir of items, maybe RED for items that belong to a set where obtaining each set piece and equiping them will grant the player +1 to all skills or something like that.

[bmc85uk]

They actually said they wanted to gear it towards both casual and hardcore players, you'd never spend as long trying to get an item in pocket legends because the enemies drop that much faster than every other MMO.
There's no fixed loot table for bosses so any boss could drop the item you want, as well as every other item for that expansion, so getting what you want is a lottery rather than chasing what you want from a certain enemy/level.

[MrBlue]

No that's just the easiest to farm currently. They tweak that, people will farm elsewhere. That was proven by the several failed attempts to end farming in the swamps. Problem is the rate. You can't stop farming, but at least make farmers work for pinks.

The farmers will farm and that's fine.

I've never farmed before Oasis and yet I accidentally stepped into a farming game. It's really not that hard right now; there are always some Alien Oasis 5: Great Pyramid farming going on. The hardcore players want to farm, there's no way of stopping that. But when the casual player can just easily fill up his inventory with pinks by coat-tailing these farmers, then something is wrong.

If you can double the amount of time it takes to farm 2 bosses, then you half the available gear in the market. In this case, I believe it more than halves because all but the hardcore players will no longer be interested.

I don't think the drop rate is broken. Had I not accidentally found these farming games, I would've equiped my characters with a couple of pinks each that naturally dropped while I was leveling. But instead, I now have pinks on every slot on every character and still a lot more in my inventory.


[edit]
I went back to the earlier campaigns and the drop rates were really, really stingy. I barely saw a green. I think drop rates for previous campaigns are too low and should be increased.

[bmc85uk]

I definitely think the early drop rates are too low, but I still think a full group getting so many drops of all purple and pink is wrong, each drop should be a mix with maybe one or two purps or a pink, but I see loads of all one colour all the time, if only a couple of good items dropped each level, and the bosses were rebalaced so that seth and the mage weren't so badass it would be worth pushing through a whole map to try your chances at each camp.

Or in an ideal world, start making some persistent zones with respawns, timed right a group could just do dungeon runs and it feels a little less like farm & reload, give each boss it's own loot table so that to get certain items you'd be forced to kill different things.

Thoughts?