Hammergoblin
Active Member
I've been playing MMO's of every kind now for well over 20 years. Started with Asherons Call (Darktide) back in 2000 and played pretty much every western MMO since. One of the most fun (and addictive) qualities of MMO's is loot. Finding cool gear.. incrementally improving your character and the hopes that once in a while you'll find that rare drop that makes a noticeable difference for a few levels and/or REALLY adds some flavor to your class.. Occasionally a GOOD crafting system will let you fill in some spots without being OP or removing that urge to hunt and find better stuff. No crafting system should provide BIS for every slot.. maybe just a couple. And for decently crafted gear the mats are possibly rare (like ember). Most players under 20 look like hobos wearing cut up blankets and pots and pans tied to their body.
Whether you realize it or not, whether you want to admit it or not.. and whether you like it or not. This is a simple truth.
So herein lies the problem with Embers Adrift. The loot drops are horrid. Even fighting difficult mobs seems pointless and your chances of seeing anything worthwhile are extremely slim. (you usually need a good sized group for a lot of difficult content and the roll system means you're chances of winning a rare drop are extremely slim)
I spent a few hours the other night fighting with a group of guys at the exile camp in Northreach. We were fighting white, yellow and dark blue 3 chevron mobs with a smattering of 2 chevron and the rare single. I would estimate we were there about 3 hours. I gained close to a level and a half and I walked away with a net gain of 12 SILVER, a few ability additives and some arrows I didn't need picked up by accidentally clicking greed. Since we were fighting humanoids.. not a single ember drop and not a single named drop because I guess technically its not a "dungeon" which is a ridiculous premise,. After I turned in the final quest I walked away with a quest reward shield the was SLIGHTLY better than the ember crafted one I carried and the 5 or 10silver the quest rewarded as well.
The simple reality is soloing exiles was a MUCH better return on my investment if I were just looking for money. That's a problem. 3 chevron mobs should be worth more silver and drop better loot knowing how many people it take to kill them.
The other problem I'm starting to notice is that the lack of a marketplace of ANY kind means you have to sit there and obsessively watch chat hoping that you'll see an item go up for sale that you can use. Well that only works if you're logged in.. and that only works when you have a lot of people playing, finding loot and buying/selling it. I noticed over the last week the "sell" chats are getting thinner and its just a rehash of the same few items. I spent a WEEKS spamming for tin crafted shield recipes and didn't get a single response. Finally I gave in and asked for a crafter who had the recipe.. I got one response. We aren't talking epic gear here.. just an imbued tin shield. The sad part if I ever find the recipe Ill be half way to 20 and the shield would pretty much be garbage at that point. Why because the 10 LEVEL GAP in gear.
Mid tier gear (level x5 requirement) gear is simply too rare and its ridiculous we cannot craft some of it. I've seen other threads on this so no reason to beat a dead horse. In case you all haven't figured it out.. unless you have no life and play this game for hours every day.. 10 levels is A LOT and takes forever to gain. So its quite demotivating to have my alt hit level 10 .. gear him up nicely and think "well thats i for the next 10 levels.. maybe Ill get lucky and find a decent level 15 items I can use a few weeks from now."
The other issue and I know its been brought up is a variety of class specific items to add some variety. I would be REALLY motivated to run a quest line knowing there was a quest reward that gave me a bonus to my healing or stamina chants.. or a staff with some cool class bonuses (you get the point). Since there aren't talent trees in the game having different items to give flavor to each subclass would really do wonders for the game. And NO, subclasses are NOT talent trees. Every warlord has EAXCTLY the same skills as every other warlord and in any given 10 level range 90% of them will have almost identical gear.
I understand you want this game to be "hardcore", group focused, old-school etc but in some cases you all went way overboard. I played nearly every one of those "old-school" games and every last one of them had loot systems that were significantly more rewarding than this one.
I know the game is still new and I know the dev team is small.. but please tell me there are some plans to address this to some degree.
Whether you realize it or not, whether you want to admit it or not.. and whether you like it or not. This is a simple truth.
So herein lies the problem with Embers Adrift. The loot drops are horrid. Even fighting difficult mobs seems pointless and your chances of seeing anything worthwhile are extremely slim. (you usually need a good sized group for a lot of difficult content and the roll system means you're chances of winning a rare drop are extremely slim)
I spent a few hours the other night fighting with a group of guys at the exile camp in Northreach. We were fighting white, yellow and dark blue 3 chevron mobs with a smattering of 2 chevron and the rare single. I would estimate we were there about 3 hours. I gained close to a level and a half and I walked away with a net gain of 12 SILVER, a few ability additives and some arrows I didn't need picked up by accidentally clicking greed. Since we were fighting humanoids.. not a single ember drop and not a single named drop because I guess technically its not a "dungeon" which is a ridiculous premise,. After I turned in the final quest I walked away with a quest reward shield the was SLIGHTLY better than the ember crafted one I carried and the 5 or 10silver the quest rewarded as well.
The simple reality is soloing exiles was a MUCH better return on my investment if I were just looking for money. That's a problem. 3 chevron mobs should be worth more silver and drop better loot knowing how many people it take to kill them.
The other problem I'm starting to notice is that the lack of a marketplace of ANY kind means you have to sit there and obsessively watch chat hoping that you'll see an item go up for sale that you can use. Well that only works if you're logged in.. and that only works when you have a lot of people playing, finding loot and buying/selling it. I noticed over the last week the "sell" chats are getting thinner and its just a rehash of the same few items. I spent a WEEKS spamming for tin crafted shield recipes and didn't get a single response. Finally I gave in and asked for a crafter who had the recipe.. I got one response. We aren't talking epic gear here.. just an imbued tin shield. The sad part if I ever find the recipe Ill be half way to 20 and the shield would pretty much be garbage at that point. Why because the 10 LEVEL GAP in gear.
Mid tier gear (level x5 requirement) gear is simply too rare and its ridiculous we cannot craft some of it. I've seen other threads on this so no reason to beat a dead horse. In case you all haven't figured it out.. unless you have no life and play this game for hours every day.. 10 levels is A LOT and takes forever to gain. So its quite demotivating to have my alt hit level 10 .. gear him up nicely and think "well thats i for the next 10 levels.. maybe Ill get lucky and find a decent level 15 items I can use a few weeks from now."
The other issue and I know its been brought up is a variety of class specific items to add some variety. I would be REALLY motivated to run a quest line knowing there was a quest reward that gave me a bonus to my healing or stamina chants.. or a staff with some cool class bonuses (you get the point). Since there aren't talent trees in the game having different items to give flavor to each subclass would really do wonders for the game. And NO, subclasses are NOT talent trees. Every warlord has EAXCTLY the same skills as every other warlord and in any given 10 level range 90% of them will have almost identical gear.
I understand you want this game to be "hardcore", group focused, old-school etc but in some cases you all went way overboard. I played nearly every one of those "old-school" games and every last one of them had loot systems that were significantly more rewarding than this one.
I know the game is still new and I know the dev team is small.. but please tell me there are some plans to address this to some degree.
