The Lands of Arda

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

Greetings all!

Just an idea.

Merits:
We get that elusive part quicker.
Dungeons aren't so frustrating.
Newbies can get good gear quicker and be more inclined to stay.
Reduces the need to camp and therefore frees people up for grouping

Problems:
We get drops quicker making them not quite so rare.

Okay, personally I think rates should be increased. Lets be honest, we all search for certain items, but we don't need multiple of each. onces we've got what we want we'll move on. There are so few people on arda these days that Possibly we should do things to increase fun on arda instead of keeping people playing and playing. A lot of old arda folk have reasons RL that mean they can't play for a long time or often. Those that power game still can just try different class/race combos.

Thoughts people?

SerraAvatar · Site Admin Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 573

Bad idea, that will again raise the powerlvl since more and more chars will run forges pnly equipped around (only some of mine have foprge items).
Cant we just leave Arda as it is?
You cant enjoy the reward of forge items if you get them too easily.

I looked at the dropprates last week in the toolset, I didnt check beasty, true, but I havent seen any below 10%. Some bosses have even the chance of 1/6 to let a certain named dropp.

Just a hint. Its so much easier to forge something if you try to trade. Trying to get all items yourself will indeed take forever.

Oh, and I dont find dungeons frustrating only because I havent got a named. I love to kill mobs, via strengh of build or via strategy, or both. The chance of getting something is for me enough to run happily through a dungeon. If you need scertain items, plz talk to me. Maybe I have some, and there are always things I m tarding for (even if I d0ont need them atm^^).

In case your are looking for high end items only, well, tehre is a reason why they dropp in hard locations and maybe with low dropp chances Wink

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

Hehe...I would love to trade, however people either don't have the items that I want, nor do I have items that other people want.

It was worth exploring. I know I can never find anything i want and hence why i don't create new chars.

Plus i don't see it being a problem having powerlvld gamers. It only becomes a problem if we then cater for them. If you want to run around getting all the drops and make all the forges and generally be an over buffed mad man, then by all mean do it...just don't come complaining to me when you're bored and everything is too easy.

10% doesn't mean that I have to do a place 10 times to get an item....more like if i do it 100 times I might have a change of having 10 of them. I know that I have, in the past, done places in excess of 60 times before I've got the item that I've been searching for. Personally, for me that is insanely boring hence why i don't hunt for items anymore. It's a pointless waste of time. Plus if i have to get a group together to do said high level place and then loose the role on the item I've then got to do the place with a group several more times.

In actual reality I don't need to forge anything, and I don't need any drops...I'm not going to create new chars cause I don't want to spend what little time I have on arda sitting in a place waiting for a boss to re-spawn so i can try again for a new item. I also don't want to do the same place over and over and over again to get to the boss if I'm gonna do it properly.

I don't drop hunt anymore.

SerraAvatar · Site Admin Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 573

Well, then I guessthats more a personal problem of you.
The people playing often I know do like to work for their items Smile

If you dont go item hunting anyways, dont need items and dont have much time to play, why do you want to change arda then? Smile

One of Oulu´s last posts reminded me something. Lots of players recently had ideas how to improve Arda. Like my idea to balance Arda even more by removing "overpowered" spells from wiz/sorc list and by removing improved evasion as well as hips from items. But the point is, that Arda is really playable as it was wwhen it went down. Everyone has something different he likes on Arda, and some few things he dislikes of course.
By changing details of that great world, we just can make it worse.

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

That time I had to do a place 60 times was the point I stopped caring about drops.

If the drop rate was increased I would start up again.

But anyway, as nobody else has weighed in on this I guess it's only me...so there ya go!

SerraAvatar · Site Admin Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 573

60 times, nice O_o Smile

The really thing I like on arda is that people trying 60 times to get a rare item really deserve it to possess it. And the rest still isnt unhappy when using less powerful and more common dropps.

Sure you dont wanna start new chars? Im sure you can have some fun with less than the optimum of equipment Smile

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

No I'd just get my ass handed to me all the time and have to go so slow I'd never get anything done.

Seems like a colossal waste of time and I play computer games to have fun, not to waste time.

Sir Nathan Ayloud · Vala Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 22

I have to agree with Exavior here. Most of us (well "us", i haven't had much time to play anything lately) don't have that much free time to do the same places over and over again while trying to get an item with a drop chance of 1%. Comparing raising drop rate on items with removing ie and the such from the gear in arda is imho preposterous. You can't seriously say that arda is the exact same as it was when it went down. you're forgetting a pretty important variable; The people.
Back in the days you could go item hunting, not get what you wanted but end up with something worth trading. That's still the case of course, the problem is there isn't anybody to trade with. The few times i managed to get online after it came back i never ran into more than 5 ppl online at any given time. The chances of me having something they really want and they having something I really want are slim to none and that's where raising drop rates come in.
Now how you can compare that to removing stats like ie and hips from items is beyond me. People built whole characters around the items they had. Removing them would be pretty much like giving all the people that invested quite a lot of their time into this game the finger.

Nathan

SerraAvatar · Site Admin Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 573

Removing hips and ie is out of the table since long, Nathan.

And there is no droppchance of 1% for any item.

And before Arda went down, there were less people playing than in our days. At least true for european playing times.

oulu · Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 188 Location: Finland

I wouldnt mind increasing drop rates. It really is frustrating to plan something ahead and realize you need about 3 months of continuous camping to get few items forged. And i really dont see how powerlvl would increase if the droprates go up. People can start new chars and not play the same old which already has the items. All my chars for example have beast ring and aragorns war helm. If ill make a new one it means i have to take those items from an existing char and quit playing the old one. How did the powerlvl go up?

I can see that it wasnt meant that everyone walks around in best of the best gear but it already is like that.

If the droprates go up people can concentrate more on having fun on server and for example party up more.

20% for every item wouldnt do any bad for the server.

Post is bit incoherent Rolling Eyes

SerraAvatar · Site Admin Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 573

I thought we already voted for no changes at all?

Some questions:
Can you only have fun with your chars when you have the best items existing?
Wouldnt it feel bad if all would run around with forge items?
What makes forges special, the rarity maybe?
Would it be so bad too have some chars naked or running around with dropp items while your actualö favorite has the top forges ?

Forge items have to be rare. Someone one complained every char was running around with Glam, Snapper or whatever... As it seems forges arent too hard to get.

Oh well, and if you have little time to play and dont want to camp, just go to the places where you want to. And once in a while to a place where you need an item from.

Its the obsession that every char has to run with best possible gear that makes you camping/farming, not the low dropp rates.

Its much more fun getting finally an item which is rare than seeing EVERYONE having ALL chars equipped with items that should be really rare.

Maybe you just have to admit the obsession to be finally free and be able to enjoy without having all optimized Smile

Last question:
Where would you head and what would you hunt if you had all items for all chars? Wouldnt you get bored after a time? Forging ones only cuz they use less space than a camo II? *g*

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

I think the point that's trying to be made is this.

1) At the moment it's only arda vets that are playing.
2) Most of us have the common items and it's the rare stuff we haven't got.
3) Most of us don't have as long to play arda as we once did.
4) Getting those rare items just isn't going to happen.
5) Increasing drop rates would suit the current player base.

Now I'm still for having nothing changed. However if things are gonna get changed and things made harder, then I'd want drop rates to be increased.

I actually play to do the dungeons, walk around, get more xp, wander around harder places, soak up the atmosphere. Drops play a small role in that for me, which is why I'm not that bothered about increasing the drop rates...as long as nothing else changes to increase the already high difficulty of arda.

As an aside...running around naked? I haven't seen any char outside of a caster doing that...and they didn't last that long!

SerraAvatar · Site Admin Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 573

oulu · Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 188 Location: Finland

Yeh maybe i should just play one char at a time but i think that gets boring.

And the thing that made me post on this thread in the first place is the really annoying damage resistance bug. It's really nasty because all of resistance items are really hard to get! I still say we need to get more damage resistance items to almost every item slot.

Mirwen · Joined: 15 Apr 2007 Posts: 15 Location: London

Didn't the drop rates go up a little while before the plug was pulled last time round, anyway? I seem to remember there was an overhaul because some items seemed ridiculously rare.

One aspect of drops - we used to have those regular DM events where we basically toasted large quantities of bosses, like all the Naz, or all the dragons, or all the Naz and all the dragons and several different versions of Sauron... Smile

That would produce a whole load of drops in one go. I completed two or three forges like that, either by getting something I needed, or a rare item I could trade.

So perhaps an increase of a few percentage points - not a lot - might compensate for not having big events any more.