Goblin Squad Member
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On one hand, gaining a rare drop is hilariously fun, especially when it comes out of a creature that should never have had it in the first place.
"Oh, wow! Look at that sword! Where did it drop?"
"....I found it in the guts of a boar."
"... HELLBOAR from the deepest pits of the Abyss, devourer of Paladins and ravisher of Druid-Groves!"
"Actually I was working on the farm..."
On the other hand, actively targeting well-equipped NPCs for their gear is not only far more challenging, but also allows you to 'pick and choose' your targets based upon their gear and potential challenge. Yes that Hobgoblin in Full Plate with the Earthbreaker that seems to be shooting out small arcs of lightning is going to drop some excellent items ... unfortunately he'll also be USING those Items on you during the battle...
What do you guys think? I apologise for not being too clear, but right now I've got the mother of all migraines and I can't sleep (1am where I am right now)
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I know a lot of people didn't like the idea, but I'm a fan of FF XIII's loot system. Nearly every monster you fight drops something. A tusk, or a hide, or a poison gland - very few things dropped actual coins. Then, you dump them all back in town to an NPC for coin.
You're not going to get rare drops in the terms of boars dropping vorpal swords, but you are going to get rare drops like "flawless tusks" or something, that then allows you to craft masterwork bone items or trade for a bucket of money.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well IMO since gear is supposed to be crafted, creatures should be lootable for things that are appropriate to them, I would even go as far as to say with animals it should be a 100% drop rate of things such as eyes, skins, toungues, teeth etc... (mainly because it just dosn't make sense why when you kill 50 wolves, only 1 of the darn things happened to have a tongue, how the heck does that work?) I would say that any enchantment or whatever on gear, should be a combination of metals as well as random body parts/leather etc... from magical creatures. The more powerful enchants should be from rarer deadlier creatures.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@RonarsCorruption: I never played FF XIII, but that sounds like a superior loot system. First of all, I think the best weapons should come from the crafters with highest skill or from rare bosses or epic quests, not from boars or wolves. If boars and wolves are dropping powerful weapons (or any weapons for that matter), then the crafters are irrelevant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would prefer to see skills for extracting particular useful things from creatures, such as hides or teeth.
Honestly, I would also like the game to not make strong incentives to loot every single thing on every single corpse. Frankly, I find it rather distasteful to think that my Paladin is rifling through the pockets of the dead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@RonarsCorruption: I never played FF XIII, but that sounds like a superior loot system. First of all, I think the best weapons should come from the crafters with highest skill or from rare bosses or epic quests, not from boars or wolves. If boars and wolves are dropping powerful weapons (or any weapons for that matter), then the crafters are irrelevant.
But a combination could be fully plausible. Say a particular weapon could be crafted from 3 lbs refined mithral, 20 boars teeth, and a red dragons tongue. There is no reason an epic boss has to drop a completed weapon at all, the epic boss could just as easily only drop part of the solution. A single item could require a combination of the work from a crafter, a harvester, a rare/epic monster hunter + mundane monster fighter. (now obviously unless either someone enjoys spending the majority of their time on all 4 tasks, people are going to buy the work of the parts they can't/don't enjoy doing)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am a fan of this whole thread...everyone got favorited!
Seriously though...not only should loot be logical, but if some orc has a +5 Sword of Colorless Green Uberness that will drop when they die...let them use that sword to defend themselves.
Define their loot tables upon creation instead of death. And let the AI decide the best gear for the situation. Also let them pick up dropped gear (I think NPCs should be able to gather player gear, but understand the pushback...at least let them loot each other if no player does). I could see a goblin wearing a goblin tooth necklace...yay for the crafter who needs 20 goblin molars.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm all for some system where rare components are consumed in the creation of magical items, and at least some of those rare components should be parts of dangerous creatures.
To some degree, I would like to see a dragon have a lot of dragon scales, but only one set of organs. Damaged scales would be plentiful, and have many uses, while pristine scales would be rare, and make better versions of the same thing. The lightning glands of a blue dragon, however, would have to be undamaged by combat and also removed by an expert in such things, then preserved without delay (don't just stick it next to the ore chunks for a month).
Lots of cheap 'Chipped blue dragonscale pendants' could be made for every sword of shocking burst that way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(don't just stick it next to the ore chunks for a month)
This reminds me, I'd really like to see perishable items in game. Especially prepared food should be better if it's freshly prepared. Dry Rations should be possible, and last quite a while, but not improve the character's state as much.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see the treasure chest come back with PFO, instead of mobs dropping coin and weapons let that stuff be found in chests and boxes.
For instance let's say you happen apon a goblin encampment, in this encampment is surrounded by many goblins of all types.
In the center of there encampment is treasure chests and crates full of goods they have collected o er time from scavenging and killing adventurers.
This is how you get gold and weapons from treasure chests, not from the mobs dropping items.
Say you venture out into the wilds and come apon a mysterious lair, you call your friends to help you clear this lair. After clearing hordes of beast in the lair you end up face to face with a group of succubis guarding a room full of treasure chest, crates and boxes full of gold and armor.
There's nothing better then finding treasure chests, and not knowing what's inside untill you dispatch the evil that surrounds them.
Also it's great when your out adventuring and you happen to find an abandoned encampment with crates and chests (Easter egg gifts).
So mobs only drop materials for crafting and all gold, magical items and armor come via treasure chests in encampments, Lairs, caves, dungeons and Easter eggs etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So mobs only drop materials for crafting and all gold, magical items and armor come via treasure chests in encampments, Lairs, caves and Easter eggs etc.
Well personally I'd rather most magical items/armor be crafted. I don't see a reason why finished products should be created in the wild at all. If they are better then crafted... then it kills crafting, if they are the same, then if crafting has multiple parts needed with multiple people... than just hunting a chest would be a better investment unless they were very very rare, and if they are worse... well why bother.
Plus it always brings up the mystery... why didn't they go into their armory and use the best weapons when they realized they were under attack. If a robber breaks into someones house, the dude attempts to beat him with a baseball bat but fails, and then the robber looks under the persons bed and finds a loaded shotgun... it is safe to say he robbed an idiot.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would very much like this because it removes the strong incentive to have even Lawful Good paladins partake in the very distasteful practice of rifling through the pockets of every brigand they dispatch.
I still have a hard time seeing why breaking into someones house, killing them and taking the jewelry off of their dresser, is a lesser evil then breaking into someones house, killing them, and pulling their wallet out of their back pocket.
However when we are talking materials rather than weapons, it does make sense that just like players, goblins won't likely be carrying more than they need.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi
Agreed. I do believe crafted items should rain supreme, but also i like to reward the adventurer.
Maybe the treasure chest have a very low chance at having something of high quality, mostly full of gold and vendor items.
Also magic items are not understood by all, I'm sure most goblins wouldn't understand what they had in that chest and wouldn't know how to use it. Goblins have never been known for there intel.
Plus if you happen to run into an encampment and start killing them I would think there first reaction would be to charge and attack, not run over and equip that sword or dancing.
But I do get what your saying about crafting items should be king and agree 100%.
But I think rewarding the adventurer is a good thing as well, maybe just limit the drop rate to very low or leave it to very high level encounters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi
Agreed. I do believe crafted items should rain supreme, but also i like to reward the adventurer.
Maybe the treasure chest have a very low chance at having something of high quality, mostly full of gold and vendor items.
Also magic items are not understood by all, I'm sure most goblins wouldn't understand what they had in that chest and wouldn't know how to use it. Goblins have never been known for there intel.
Plus if you happen to run into an encampment and start killing them I would think there first reaction would be to charge and attack, not run over and equip that sword or dancing.
But I do get what your saying about crafting items should be king and agree 100%.
But I think rewarding the adventurer is a good thing as well, maybe just limit the drop rate to very low or leave it to very high level encounters.
Well I do agree on the gold, and if you look at the chart that GW drew up, coins do go from the adventurers to the crafters, so adventurers obviously have to get something for gold. I also recall ryan saying something to the regards of an adventurer finding items that crafters drool over what they can make with. IMO I don't see why a finished product is necessary at all. If a boss drops the rare item needed to craft, plus enough gold to pay for both the less rare materials and labor for a crafter, then you essentially have rewarded the adventurer with a weapon, but also get the perk of rewarding a crafter and harvesters at the same time.
Second perk of it being a material rather than a complete item, a material can work for any class. While a mace/rapier whatever can drop that nobody has put the points into, a powerful ingredient, could produce a powerful weapon of your choice when you bring it to a crafter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the main reason to allow completed items to drop or be found in chests is simply because it makes sense. The item shouldn't be better than the best crafted item, and probably shouldn't even be as good. But I don't see any reason to try to force the game not to let actual usable items drop.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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What's this talk of "vendor items"? Why are we assuming that the mechanics of WoW are the norm?
There exists gold, proxies for gold, items which are useful, and items which can be made info useful items; 'vendor trash' is really just 'gold' with an added inventory minigame.
Some usable equipment should be available directly from adventuring. Customized equipment should be available from crafting. Want a weapon? Raid a tomb. Want a +3 undead bane holy flaming scimitar? Gather the eyes of a lich, tears of a salamander, and a feather of an angel along with some steel and precious gemstones and convince a swordsmith to make one for you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Daniel
Never played WoW so I'm not familiar with the norm. But I have played UO and many other sandbox games and when opening up treasure chests there seems to be many low lvl items that can be broken down for crafting mats, not just sold for gold.
I just call it vendor items or trash for general terms.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Ah. WoW has items with a specific type of icon, which are only usable to sell to NPC merchants for a pittance. The term there is 'vendor trash'. Anything that can be broken down to crafting materials is 'resources'.
That's the terminology I thought you were using; sorry for not making sure you were saying what I was hearing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Several things that I would like to see . . . realism is key.
1) NPCs do not automatically drop items or currency. Instead, if you are skilled in skinning, pick pocketing, or similar skills, NPCs will drop equivalent resources. Furthermore, creature NPCs won't drop currency. For example, a ranger kills a bear in the woods. Ranger has skinning and cleaning skills. Ranger skins the bear and cleans the carcass. The drop yields the ranger hide, meat, and bone. The amount and quality would vary on skill level. The type could also be random (tarnished meat). Another example, a soldier kills an Orc who is harassing a farmer. The soldier utilizes his pick pocketing skill. The drop yields the soldier currency and stolen items the Orc acquired.
2) Any item looted can be disassembled or broken down to be used for crafting.
3) Crafting is king. Crafting items should be superior to all items with the exception of rare or epic pieces. Unique items from treasure chests or applicable drops from NPCs should further increase the unique weapon creation and unique weapon stats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Several things that I would like to see . . . realism is key.
1) NPCs do not automatically drop items or currency. Instead, if you are skilled in skinning, pick pocketing, or similar skills, NPCs will drop equivalent resources. Furthermore, creature NPCs won't drop currency. For example, a ranger kills a bear in the woods. Ranger has skinning and cleaning skills. Ranger skins the bear and cleans the carcass. The drop yields the ranger hide, meat, and bone. The amount and quality would vary on skill level. The type could also be random (tarnished meat). Another example, a soldier kills an Orc who is harassing a farmer. The soldier utilizes his pick pocketing skill. The drop yields the soldier currency and stolen items the Orc acquired.
2) Any item looted can be disassembled or broken down to be used for crafting.
3) Crafting is king. Crafting items should be superior to all items with the exception of rare or epic pieces. Unique items from treasure chests or applicable drops from NPCs should further increase the unique weapon creation and unique weapon stats.
I agree with most of this, but I think anything actually carried by the mob should be lootable by anyone once the mob is dead...including money pouches. Pulling resources from naked corpses should be the aforementioned skills as described.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with SpiritCrawler's post too, but I would actually like to see it take a fairly significant amount of time to rifle through the pockets of a corpse.
Perhaps a 3 minute channeling bar pops up and starts counting down. Periodically, you find an item. Easy-to-find items show up in the loot box right away. Well-hidden items might not show up until the channeling is almost complete. Player skill in Searching Corpses or some such could vary your chances. Basically, the idea is to make it easy to get the obvious things, like the gem-encrusted sword you saw him holding, but give some incentive to leave stuff on the corpse, or not even bother searching it sometimes.
Part of the reason I feel this way is my experience recently in Rift and SWTOR where my bag space gets filled up with absolute trash, especially if I kill in a couple of different areas that have different mob types. Personally, I want to be able to ignore the corpses of the door guards when I'm bursting into the lair of an evil wizard. I'll almost certainly search the evil wizard himself, and his private quarters, but I really don't want the game built to expect me to loot every single thing from every single kill.
All I know is I knocked my vorpal sword off the table while making dinner; that startled my pet pig "Honker" and he got all tangled up with the sword and my scabbard and took off for the forest like his tail was on fire. I haven't seen him for three days.
So THAT'S where he went.
I think they should keep craftable items and drops on the same level. Craftable items will always be better because you can choose what they are and what they do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think they should keep craftable items and drops on the same level. Craftable items will always be better because you can choose what they are and what they do.
I agree with this in principle, but care must be taken to ensure you don't destroy the market for crafted items because it's too easy to get the same quality item as a drop.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think they should keep craftable items and drops on the same level. Craftable items will always be better because you can choose what they are and what they do.I agree with this in principle, but care must be taken to ensure you don't destroy the market for crafted items because it's too easy to get the same quality item as a drop.
If crafted goods are on the same level as common drops, crafting will useless. I am an avid supporter of highly customizable craft items that maintain unique stats due to the resources used (a la SWG style resources) versus common drops. Now, if my craftsman only uses common wood to make my furniture instead of exotic pines, then the common drop chair should be near the same. I digress...
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I am all for drops making sense. Too tired of archers not dropping bows, mages not dropping magic items, animals dropping weapons that clearly would have killed them LONG ago....or things they would have no reason to have, like a pile of coin on a rat not in a lair, or mages with magic chain mail that they have on them instead of in a chest. Suspension of disbelief cannot overcome such discrepancy.
Nihimon, most games already don't force you to loot all, it's a toggle. And you can still select what you want from a list for the most part. If people wish to be thorough, let them. If they don't, that's good too. Making it take time? Not so sure of that. It takes little time to strip bags and obvious jewelry and pour them into your own bag for perusal later. Armor on the other hand DOES take time. I have no problem at all with a timer for removing armor, based on armor type and size of the corpse wearing it. Also, if you can't SEE it because it's worn UNDER something, you should have to remove whatever covers it FIRST before you can find it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Jumping back in, I don't see a problem with non-crafted items popping up in treasure chests or off monsters, but at the same time this should be relatively rare, a 1-in-10 chance perhaps.
Such items should always have random abilities dependant upon the creature that dropped them. A Hobgoblin is obviously going to drop martial or exotic weapons and armor, but the nature of the weapons, and the powers of the magical weapons, should be randomized.
Kill one Hobgoblin, and he drops a +1 Flaming Burst Cold Iron Battleaxe, which he was using against you during the fight. Another Hobgoblin deeper in the ruin might drop a +1 Shocking Icy Flail.
Players will gravitate towards items that fit specific roles, however much we might loathe it. A weapon that increases their chance to hit and deal greater damage overall will be preferable to a weapon that has a small chance to inflict horrendous amounts of damage, if it hits. Random Magical Items dropping from specific 'dungeons' or 'rare' spawn Monsters/NPCs (Yes, I went there!) will hopefully exist, but again, be a second choice to Crafted Items, but handy in a pinch if the Crafters are being troublesome and charging ludicrous rates for their items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon, most games already don't force you to loot all, it's a toggle. And you can still select what you want from a list for the most part.
Probitas, I intentionally avoided describing the mechanic as the game "forcing" me to loot. What I said was I want to be able to ignore looting. That means the game will have to use a different mechanic than most games. Those other games create a dungeon where most of the loot/coin is evenly distributed among all the mobs in the dungeon, so that as you kill and loot each mob, you build up to the amount of coin they decided they wanted you to have. This doesn't "force" me to loot everyone, but it does make it fairly painful for me to "ignore" most mobs.
The timer idea was to encourage a style of play where most players would quickly loot what was quickly available, and only stick around to thoroughly search a corpse if they believed there was likely to be something of real value on it.
As for crafted versus dropped items, I think the key is to ensure that only very special mobs drop quality items. In essence, the "boss" of a lair or ruins should drop a crafted-equivalent weapon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Or perhaps weapons/equipment/items that are a step 'down' from the current 'level' of Craftable Items? If Pathfinder Online goes with magical items that can be continuously upgraded, requiring stronger components for each step, getting your hands on a World or Mob drop that might be inferior to a normal Crafter Item, but can be upgraded to 'full' power, and then continually upgraded like a normal 'Crafted' item, can be a benefit to players.
The only problem I am seeing with looting is that the potential to leave quest items behind if your group is in a hurry or you need to bug the hell out.
Rather, obvious items such as Armor, most Weapons and obvious Magical/Monetary items such as Rings, Necklaces and the like are clickable from the start of the looting.
Smaller items that might not be so obvious, such as coin-purses, smaller weapons or weapons designed to be easy to hide on the body such as Daggers, magical items that might not be flashy or obviously enchanted, might require a certain skill (not a 'Class' Skill to avoid every man and his dog having a 'multi-class' character just so they are getting the most out of looting) to detect items, with the more valuable they are, the longer/harder the Skill is required to be used to find them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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raising a favorite weapon through crafting or enchanting is an excellent idea but there is possibilities of your hypothetical boar having a ring inside him as it ate it and the hand attached to it off of an unlucky adventurer. I agree said boar having a + 5 Holyburst sword of wounding bunnies! isnt likely but some stuff could easily be in the guts or s!!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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raising a favorite weapon through crafting or enchanting is an excellent idea but there is possibilities of your hypothetical boar having a ring inside him as it ate it and the hand attached to it off of an unlucky adventurer. I agree said boar having a + 5 Holyburst sword of wounding bunnies! isnt likely but some stuff could easily be in the guts or s%!~
True, but the odds are significantly against... say 1/10,000 boars might have eaten a ring that happened have neither digested nor passed through their system, and what the heck kind of adventurer takes the time to gut and search the innards of every boar for odds like that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Given who is making the game and the kinds of games they are clearly using as inspiration. I don't think you'll be killing NPC's for items but to collect things that can be used to make items.
Overall I agree, I think if items do drop it should be rare, or they have to be drastically worse than crafted items.
At least from the general description of the crafting system
Harvesters gather some mats and adventurers to protect them as they do it.
Adventurers gather other mats
Crafter assembles the mats
Adventurer pays crafters + harvesters for completed items.
Now that system has to be = or better for the adventurer than.
Adventurers gather completed items, customization is a factor, but then you throw in trade etc... and an adventurer could just sell the item he got and buy what he wants, or find someone to trade with.
Either the drop rates for completed items need to be low enough that getting a completed item is a happy surprise once in a blue moon when hunting for mats, or the dropped items need to be significantly lower quality than direct dropped mats.
It is pretty much established that crafters and harvesters WILL be dependant on adventurers (mats are obviously not going to spawn in town, and even ignoring PVP risks resource nodes spawn NPCs)... They will be completely out of luck if the adventurers aren't also dependent on them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hey now that 1/10000 chance might be my lucky day. but yeah slaughtering that many pigs would take quite a while.
I would imagine youd find rare loot outside though especially from evil necromancers lairs, dragon lairs and what not, but I anticipate youll need loot from the crafters on a daily basis to adventure
If they have randomly spawned NPCs you should be able to loot all their randomly spawned stuff. Maybe bosses can go through different variations so they don't drop the same awesome gear for everyone. Items you pick up in that way could be also made through crafting, but they're not the most elite items you can possibly make. I don't like the idea of a boar or a giant dropping a wearable helmet or something.
Logical loot is fine, and I wouldn't expect pigs on a farm to have loot, but I'd always seen it as 'Ah, I'm looting the area this wild boar lived in, he's obviously killed a few people because I found a rusty longsword, a few old coins and a strange book after searching a bit', rather than 'The boar was carrying stuff!'.
Consider how many times you've seen fantasy game illustrations and images of skeletons in a web, or similar , their gear still sparkling in torchlight. When my players killed that large spider for example, it was unspoken common sense that any loot recovered after the battle was obviously a small treasure hoard that had amassed in the spiders general area over the years left behind by victims, not tucked away in the spiders belt pouch.
I guess that's why I've always been more forgiving of the concept.
I think there's room for some logical leniency in that sense while maintaining a modicum of realism. If you're out hunting deer, it's almost guaranteed killing it won't result in uncovering a treasure trove, but if you're braving some wild boars thicket, an area that's been a home it's defended for years, I think it's feasible to assume that when the threat is removed, a bit of searching might uncover some loot. I guess it's all down to how it's represented in game.
The shorter version would be: Logical loot is fine to a degree, but a fantasy world in which there isn't at least a very minor chance of stumbling onto powerful, maybe even out of place treasure, is somewhat less enticing to me.
Then again, if it were to work as I've laid out above (the loot not actually tied to a mob in every case, but rather an area in certain situations) could open up potentially fun approaches for thieves and other sneaky folk by offering a chance to ceep in and out rather than use brute force in every situation. More options and a diversity of situations is always good, in my opinion.
Crafting items dropping from the wildlife, including now and again a rare one, is the principle followed in LOTRO and it is, I think, a sensible one. Mage staffs dropping from wolves is just plain ludicrous.
I would take this one step further, and argue that all NPC drops should be consistent with the character: in other words, kill a goblin, and you should find, for instance, breeches, leather hauberk, short-sword, Swiss army knife and used hankie. One in a while, a boss goblin might also drop a +1 wooden club, or the like. That makes more sense than facing off a fully armoured goblin hacking at you with an axe, only to find when you kill him that all he drops is the aforementioned hankie - what happened to the rest of his stuff, did the pixies run off with it?
The corollary should probably be, however, a certain realism in terms of what you can carry. Each of the ten goblins you killed may have dropped a hauberk, but... what makes you think you stagger off with all ten in your arms, unless you have a cart and horse with you? I have to say I'm a bit cheesed off by carrying limitations based on units, where you open your pack and go, "Hmmm.... I think I'll try the steel plate armour +2 next, or should I go for the Enchanted Mail?".
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You know what would be nice? Reclaiming materials.
You've just slain the Hobgoblin warchief and looted his adamantine mace, but you've spent all your time training in swords, not knobbly sticks! No problem - take the mace to your smithing friend, and have them use the adamantine to forge you a new sword instead.
It makes far more sense than having to sell it just because it's the wrong kind of weapon, and is an alternate resource stream for crafters too.
If you do go with realistic please make sure all boars have at least one liver and two eyes if they are quest items.
Alternately you allow everything to drop anything, with higher level creatures having a higher level chance of dropping increasingly better gear.
So your pig has a 0.00000000000000000001 % chance of dropping the vorpal greatsword of BBEG slaying, but its exceedingly rare.
However Imagine the nerdrage when the level 1 mage kills a pig and gets the vorpal greatsword of BBEG slaying when it's BOP and he cant even use it.
BWA HA HA HA HA H AH A
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Goblin Squad Member
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Alternately you allow everything to drop anything, with higher level creatures having a higher level chance of dropping increasingly better gear.
So your pig has a 0.00000000000000000001 % chance of dropping the vorpal greatsword of BBEG slaying, but its exceedingly rare.
However Imagine the nerdrage when the level 1 mage kills a pig and gets the vorpal greatsword of BBEG slaying when it's BOP and he cant even use it.
BWA HA HA HA HA H AH A
While an amusing concept, I really hope PFO does not introduce binding at all. Binding only makes sense in a continuous linear progression of weapons, personally I would far prefer a system of equipment wearing out with use as the way to remove items from the world, rather than continuous jump from one weapon to the next, leading to a never ending increase in power.