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What MMO Had/Has the Best Loot System?
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[Deleted User]
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Loot drops need to make sense. I mean how dumb is it to have bears and wolves dropping gold and armor? We've all seen that.
Similarly, a giant mushroom monster probably wouldn't drop weapons/armor, etc. either.
As far as loot and raids and such, I do like the traditional idea of a dragon's lair full of treasures. Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing that done to where you could actually sneak in and steal gold/items without killing the dragon, if you were really, really talented at sneaking around(and I don't mean magic invisibility stealth).
I believe, personally, that all the best things should be crafted by players. I'm okay with raids playing a big part. I mean, to craft that enchanted golem-skin leather jerkin, someone is going to have to kill the golem first.
Oh, and as far as current games: None have impressed me enough to make me say they got it right. There are alot of MMOs I haven't played, however.
TL:DR - I think mobs should drop what they carry, generally. The gnoll with the iron sword should drop a regular iron sword, etc. Loot should support crafting, not invalidate it.
Speak for yourself and what you want. Do create this "most people want" as your imaginary army of people supporting your point. It is fake.
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Games are directly responsible for the delay of third world war as well as avoiding many conflicts through the world. Entertainment, especially cheap one is what keeps us from going full loot and PvP on each other. To answer OP question what MMO has/had the best looting system, it is the one where it takes great skill and risk to obtain such loot as well as great chance to lose it for using it unwisely.
Loot that gives me significant advantage, power or simply glory/bragging rights for the community around me to witness is is the loot that satisfy me the most, not some loot that boost my character by 1-2% overall power, which at the end regardless of how good loot I could have I still can't overcome some newb gank of 2-3 and lose it. That's one of the worst loot designs I've seen.
I liked SWG loot the most since first I had to become powerful to use powerful loot, which took year+ of dedication and persistence. My jedi with the powers I obtained and the loot to go with it made me feel like a true jedi knight at the end in the Alliance, where I could actually stand my ground on newb ganks and use force speed to separate myself from massive zergs. It was a truly epic experience and sadly this is what's been lacking a lot in our modern MMO's, a place where players can feel the glory, and become something more than a clone of others around them.
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You are roaming through the wilds, and off in the distance you see a massive, giant snake. It's terrifying, and he could probably swallow you whole. Still... how can you resist checking out such a massive creature?
It's not moving much, so you bravely(or foolishly) approach. As you get a good view, you notice that there is a piece of armor actually emerging from its mouth.
That's right, apparently you aren't the only brave and curious person to approach the snake... it is regurgitating the remains of its last admirer.
Before you get over the shock that giant snakes seem to be re-gifters, the snake finishes and slithers away, ignoring you completely(he's probably eaten enough adventurers lately) and leaving you with the remains.
You pity the fool who believed that some metal armor would protect him/her from a creature that could simply swallow him/her instantly... But, while looting through his/her (slimy)armor, you have to admit to yourself, this person had good taste in gear.
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^ That's the kind of thing I wouldn't mind seeing as far as loots go. I guess it would also give new meaning to the term "corpse looting".
Edit for clarity: I'm not talking about players actually losing all their stuff or anything, specifically. Two main points being: 1) Loot tables being based on/affected by players previously killed by monsters(rather than completely random or fixed). 2) Loot can be acquired in more creative ways than only "kill Raid Boss A".
I hate the bad blood that it creates. I hate the tension in the air when 2-3 people need the same item and suddenly the guy you were just laughing and joking with is your worst enemy because you both need some ridiculous glowing gloves of prostrate examination +10.
The one system that I want to see, and that I still haven't seen yet, is a system where the boss drops items that are required for crafting rather than fully formed loot. If our raid kills a giant wyvern, then we should basically get all of the useful crafting parts of that creature as a single pile of loot. The guild can take the crafting materials and either sell them on the market and divvy up the profits to the raiders, or craft items with them to sell back to the raiders at a fair 'guild market value', or craft items and sell them on the market and divvy those profits up for the raiders.
We do this in EVE Online already in a way. The big 'bosses' of the world drop extremely rare loot. So one person takes the loot, we do a quick market check, that person splits the profits among us before he even sells it and then he keeps his portion of the profits after the sale. If he manages to sell it for more, and make more profit, then that's the benefit of being the guy who has to do the leg work.
You never had to worry about losing gear, but you could acquire different factions' loot by looting the enemy players. And you had storage lockers to keep them in. I thought this was a really fun for a fps kind of game.
for traditional mmorpg games..
Everquest
I think EQ was the best. Usually if you were lucky enough to get gear, it was useful, and if you couldn't use it, you could sell it. It wasn't like the standard system, where you get a bunch of junk gear while questing that you just sell to the vendor.
There were also lots of items in the game that you would keep forever and never want to sell, like the breathe underwater earring, things that gave you night vision, items with spells on them (like healing), items that summon things, etc.
The best part about the loot there is that most of it was tradable, even after use.
But ... there is no way I would have the amount of time I did to play that kind of game again. It was a blast, but I could never repeat it.
Difference is instead of making you grind for it for over a year they sell it to you via the RNG cash shop.
EVE recently went down this road, used to be it would take almost 30 real years to get all possible skills (meaning it was near impossible unless the game even lasted that long) and there was a cap on how fast one could earn skills.
Now with the magic of the cash shop, you can buy full skill injectors from other players and accelerate your skill gains tremendously.
In a close to home example I just had a corpmate say the other day he went from no skills in flying cruiser hulls to good skills in a day.
Now he may have just used ISK he earned in game, or bought PLEX and then sold them for ISK which he could then use to accomplish it.
One very wealthy player recently used his massive ISK reserves (aledgedly from running an in game lottery) to obtain every skill in the game with an estimated cash value of $28K.
Fortunately with EVE's skill caps on activities this has far less impact on other players, especially long term veterans such as me, but still is a power gap (or advantage if you will) that can be influenced by spending cash. (or if you are ISK rich enough in game.)
Also one other big limiter is the skill points can only be extracted from other characters in the game, meaning not everyone can tale this road or an inverse sort of ponzi pyramid sets in where eventually there won't be any characters left willing to sell their skill points.
Not the only game that sells power imbalance though, and in games such as AA or BDO it can be more impactful on others.
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1.AC
2. DDO
3. AO tied with UO wad very generic in the early years and its playfield and full loot dictated that .. but later it got more interesting as expansions added content
why .. why cnat Turbine /warner just make AC3 based on AC1 .. it would be a great game ...
This version makes me rage when I see it in a game
I'm talking a view of Everquest after a few expansions.
While most MMOs struggle with expansions, or even patches, obsoleting gear, EQ did not. Sure, hardcore raiders were probably always wearing current expansion gear, but if you take a look at a casual raider or group player you were likely to see pieces of gear across several expansions.
Also, the game balanced risk vs reward with loot better than most, which ties into the previous point. If you were in a casual raid guild and doing a raid from a prior expansion and it was challenging, its very likely the gear would be upgrades for you. Same thing with grouping. Gear acquisition was not limited to the expansion you were currently in.
I think a large part of EQ's success is that the casual and semi casual had so much to do for their own progression.
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