[X] My Assistant

The loot generating system is quite complex, but if I'm not mistaken, what varst said was that this is already happening. Again, you're wishing for a higher value for same quality loot, which cannot happen since we base value not only on quality but also on availability.

Based on my understanding of the way the loot drops work, both ethereal/prefixes and PABs are calculated after quality is initially decided (decided once again after PABs are rolled).

Anyway, I wasn't really saying 'we must have this or I will QQ more', I just thought that it was a decent idea that could use some more expanding, and some re-ordering to make quality further reflect the impact that having a prefix implies makes perfect sense. Meh.


Side-note: I have no idea why the spacing on my last post disappeared. Ah well.

3. As for case of staff/power/plate you've mentioned, it really goes down to how many stats you would like to be good (which is already something about desired stats). People are more demanding on staff's stats (i.e. they want more stats to be good), so of course they're going to have difficult time finding a good one.

4. So assuming Tenb increase the portion of AGI before 0.7.4 and decrease them after 0.7.4, would people simply accept that as 'all right, it's a new patch, everything should change' or 'WHY WOULD YOU NERF OUR AGI EQUIPS?'

5. Prove your 'experience' with hard data.

I think others have already dealt with some of these issues, so;

3. Yes, and that's the point. Maybe it's just laziness, but I would like a Superior equip to be, I dunno, actually superior. It's damnable when the name tells you bugger all about the equip, and you have to check all the stats.

4. My beef has to do with stat weighing when it comes to naming equips and quality determination, not what the actual stats do or don't in battle. If there was a type/prefix/suffix that denoted AGI stat, which meant it was highly weighed, and then that got tuned down in the next patch? Yeah, I'd be bloody unhappy. However, there isn't. A Slaughter equip, for me, is always going to mean higher ADB than a non-Slaughter. ADB may be more or less useful in the next patch, and its weighing for OTHER equips may go up and down, but for Slaughter, it should remain highly weighed.

5. OK, here you go.

Superior Kite Shield of the Barrier... whose Block is overshadowed by Superior Kite Shield of Protection (which also has 3PABs and lower PXP!)

What I would like is more along this situation:

Superior Tower Shield of the Barrier, a clear and distinctive Block % difference from its Warding counterpart.

That is to say, if I saw a Barrier equip, I shouldn't have to worry about the Block %. It should ALWAYS be higher than an equivalent non-Barrier equip. Yes, you can roll a lower number, but then it should be of lower quality. It's ridiculous to say that hey, this is an Exquisite Barrier Shield, when the whole reason it's a Barrier (higher Block %) doesn't exist.

I'm not arguing that the rolls should be moved up, though. I'm arguing that the whole quality naming and determination system should be weighed more in favour of the appropriate stats (as given in the, I dunno, actual equipment NAME?) In other words, if you had a (initially) Protection Shield with crap PMI and awesome Block %, then either move its quality for Protection downward (which may cause other problems) or rename the damned thing to Barrier (which might cause fewer problems).

Well...Tenb can always make it so the quality prefix refers to the lowest stat, or what you called 'desired stat' only, instead of the average stats. Will that make anyone happy?

(Yes, the first one will make legandary truly legendary, while the second one will make the 'desired stats' better.)

Tightened stat ranges will mean not only that the lowest a stat can be will be higher, but the higher a stat can be is lower. It will make old legendaries with a max roll irreplaceable since instead of rarely getting a sweet drop, you always get a mediocre one.

Well...Tenb can always make it so the quality prefix refers to the lowest stat, or what you called 'desired stat' only, instead of the average stats. Will that make anyone happy?

(Yes, the first one will make legandary truly legendary, while the second one will make the 'desired stats' better.)

Hey, I actually kinda like that, yes. That means if you have a Fine item, you know its shittiest stat is in the Fine range. Of course, this will have everyone complain that the quality of drops has reduced dramatically, but if explained in the patch notes adequately... yeah, people will still not read the notes and complain, but at least we can all laugh at them.

Or maybe rather than a single desired stat, since if it's a Shielding Plate of Protection, PMI, (maybe END) and Block % would need to be taken into consideration.

Tightened stat ranges will mean not only that the lowest a stat can be will be higher, but the higher a stat can be is lower. It will make old legendaries with a max roll irreplaceable since instead of rarely getting a sweet drop, you always get a mediocre one.

You do know that's how things work in real life, right? Mechanisation, assembly line processes and standardised quality management systems all work to remove variability in the products being generated/manufactured. Yes, this means that a McDonald's burger will never be Legendary, but it does mean that you won't get any unpleasant surprises, by and large, when eating one.

Also, nothing is stopping Magnificent and Legendary drops from breaking the rules, rather like hand-crafted cars being works of art costing millions each, but only having 100 ever being built. It doesn't stop the stat ranges getting tightened towards the higher end rather than the lower end, or towards the middle on both sides.

Or would you like to go back to the time when the edibility of a loaf of bread depended largely on what the baker had for dinner, or whether he had his ashes hauled the night before?

We already had a conversation about improving loot over time. Nothing has changed since then, Tenboro made his stance clear. If you want a game where everyone has the same equipment go play Zelda or somesuch.

I'm not going to judge if the complaints' fair or not; that's not my job anyway.

More stats to roll also = more chance of getting stats with high values or them appearing. Tightening the scale would solve absolutely nothing on this.

I've also gone through my random equip database. I picked up ADB on superior estoc/mace of balance and found that more equips have batter stats than quality suggests, compared to equips with less stats. Tighting the stats would mean you're getting slightly better legendary equip, but much worse superior/ex/mag (which drops way more often). Is that what you guys want to have? Or you guys just want to remove all the downside risk, claiming that superior should still have a chance to have max stat and legendary should never get anything sub-par?

For phases it's relevant. It's increment from getting no EDB to getting some.

xmagus: Note that most ex+ equips have better stats because of the quality bonus.
And no, what you're talking about is called 'quality control', which can apply on both assembly-line process and man-craft processes.

More stats to roll also = more chance of getting stats with high values or them appearing. Tightening the scale would solve absolutely nothing on this.

I said the roll is tightened with increasing quality, I also said that the current system should remain as is for superior and below so that there is a chance of this happening, and that the issue of more stats to roll is different and I did not have a suggestion to fix it (thought bubble below). The reason why I suggested that the lowest a stat can get be reduced with increasing quality was to reduce the large variability and to make an items quality more closely resemble its usefulness. This would only apply to exquisite and above.

And yes more stats to roll means more chance of getting stats with high values but that also means greater chance of getting more low stats is higher as well as the chance of getting no stats. For cloth and light armor the lack of certain stats makes an item useless or close enough to it.

I am more than happy with the lucky draw nature of drops for sup and below, but for exquisite plus that are rare I would prefer that it is not such a lucky draw, even if that means I have to lessen the option of getting an exquisite phase with max MDB, INT. I would rather have a full set of useful exquisite+ equips than a whole lot of bazaar/forge material

The only way that I can think of fixing what I believe to be a problem with items with high number of stats is to split the quality value over certain stats. Specific mitigation be one group, player stats another, physical/magical mitigation, proc chance/duration, MDB bonuses/WD, proficiency bonuses. These could then be modified by the typical weighting given by the item type, ie plate prefers END>dex=str>agi power STR>DEX>ENG>AGI, cloth INT=WIS>DEX=AGI and so on so that inside their category the percentage of quality an item has is weighted like that. This could then be further modified by prefix/suffix, so a staff of Niflheim would have the cold one weighted more inside the EDB category along with the normal bonus for the suffix. Protection could increase the physical mitigation weighting inside its category, along with END on heavy armor, kevlar and dex or agility on cloth and other light as well as the bonus from the suffix, slaughter WD and str, balance accuracy, crit, dex, and so on.
This would at least give more meaning to the suffixes, it would also stop the instances where you have all of the armor specific mitigation high but no player stats. Though I haven't crunched any numbers so I have no idea of the implications of this as this was just a recently occurring thought bubble.

even if that means I have to lessen the option of getting an exquisite phase with max MDB, INT. I would rather have a full set of useful exquisite+ equips than a whole lot of bazaar/forge material

That sounds so goddamn lame. Seriously, if you eliminate the extremes it makes the equipment drops so boring. Equipment drops are pretty much my favorite part of the game, what makes them fun is their unique nature.

xmagus: Note that most ex+ equips have better stats because of the quality bonus.
And no, what you're talking about is called 'quality control', which can apply on both assembly-line process and man-craft processes.

Sure, and I'm not arguing that exq+ equips are lousy... precisely. Just that they could be better suited to their name.

As for OC, QMS and TQM and all the other Q acronyms, you would be hard-pressed to find them existing in pre-industrial societies. It is only with the advent of automated processes and mechanisation (and the resulting increase in productivity/reduction in variability) that any meaningful level of quality measurement can be spoken about.

You've just seen that behaviour in action throughout this thread. All kinds of people have posted that they like things the way they are... because of the 'uniqueness' of the drops; i.e. the high variability in rolls. Any effort to standardise the rolls or reduce the variability is seen to make the equipment 'boring'.

Well, yes. Just like the assembly line made Model Ts boring, as compared to earlier horseless carriages, which were doubtlessly very unique. A Stradivarius, too, is very unique. There's no point in talking about OC there.

But never mind any of that. I would welcome any sort of quality control whatsoever here. As it is, quality determination of equipment is the equivalent of saying, "hey, the engine is crap, and the wheels could come off at any moment, and the ABS mostly works, but on the plus side, the windshield is really, really sturdy and the seats are real pony leather, so we'll say this is a Superior."

That sounds so goddamn lame. Seriously, if you eliminate the extremes it makes the equipment drops so boring. Equipment drops are pretty much my favorite part of the game, what makes them fun is their unique nature.

It's not fun when you keep seeing Legendary And Magnificent Phase with everything <superior max and PMI Mag/Legendary max. Unfortunately I keep seeing that again and again.

What you suggest might work for melee armours, due to how PMI is very highly weighted. Doesn't mean jackshit for a mage, whose sole defense is evade and damage.

This post has been edited by ChosenUno: Mar 7 2013, 12:06

So how about like usual QC, the one getting inferior stats get automatically dumped by the system?

Again, note that ex+ equips already gets a boost in stats. There are rare cases when it's inferior, but overall they're better.
The problem with EDB is that just like many other stats in HV, the range's just too narrow. So assuming 10 = 0.0 quality and 15 = 1.0 quality, 14 ~ 0.8 quality. Which means that anything ranging from ex to leg would fall either into roll 14 or 15. If it's 14, then it would be about the same as superior grade's 15 (14 * 1.05 = 14.7, 14 * 1.1 = 15.4. Both rounds to 15).
One way to mitigate this problem is to adjust the base_factor and base_roll, so to increase the range of roll while keeping the overall result the same. For example, increasing all equips' base_roll by a factor of ten and decrease base_factor by a factor of ten will produce the same base range, and at the same time represent the quality difference among ex to leg equips in a much better way.

This post has been edited by varst: Mar 7 2013, 12:30

It's not fun when you keep seeing Legendary And Magnificent Phase with everything <superior max and PMI Mag/Legendary max. Unfortunately I keep seeing that again and again.

What you suggest might work for melee armours, due to how PMI is very highly weighted. Doesn't mean jackshit for a mage, whose sole defense is evade and damage.

Picky, picky, picky (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) . Hmm, I guess I wouldn't mind having edb and evade weighed a little bit more heavy in the phase formula for quality. Being that phase is very different from melee.

We need a way to see if a monster exists before committing to a monster of that type. Or maybe there already is, and I'm a derp?

We need a way to see if a monster exists before committing to a monster of that type. Or maybe there already is, and I'm a derp?

Agreed, it's very frustrating when you pick a monster type based on a desired name and the name is taken.

Agreed, it's very frustrating when you pick a monster type based on a desired name and the name is taken.

Simply delete it and make a new one.
It's only 50 crystals (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

More than 50....But no, don't waste crystals on deletion:

Instead wait until you have less than 3 crystals and check names on sth preexisting under 100.

@xmagus: If all stats had to be that tier, I'd bet we'd have some current legendary equips become crude equips. And problem persists, yay.

More than 50....But no, don't waste crystals on deletion:

Instead wait until you have less than 3 crystals and check names on sth preexisting under 100.

You mean less than 3 tokens?

Yes. Oops.

Simply delete it and make a new one.
It's only 50 crystals (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Yes, I know. It would still be convenient to be able to check names.