Drops

[Nurvus]

I don't know about you guys, but I always find it odd to see a panther spit a humungous 2-handed hammer when he dies, specially such hammer in perfect condition!

Or a dragon (boss) when killed, dropping a whole set of items, possibly double items (the hero who was eaten by the dragon had 2 identical breastplates? Where are the pants?)

Instead, 2 important features would add great immersiveness:
1 - humanoids would be lootable (you'd be able to strip them of their armour/weapons/items - some or all pieces might be intact, some or all might be damaged, or even completely unrepairable (but perhaps still salvagable to recover raw materials/components to make new items)
2 - Generally speaking:
a - you may be able to recover from a creature's corpse (maybe a blade stuck in their legs, or something in their stomach, from nearly intact to unrepairable) a reasonably sized item.
b - the monsters could have some treasure nearby you could loot.
Specially bosses, might be guarding something.

Maybe a boss might have a certain pendant with a stone that can be used to open a chamber with great loot, etc.
Not just drop loads and loads of items from their pockets...

[amz181]

With dragons, they are meant to guard a mound of treasure so after you kill it, a door behind him swings open and bang a mound of gold.

And with the looting, it could be like morrowind, just take all their stuff, i found it so hillarious how when you took all their stuff they're just lying on the ground naked :D

[Nurvus]

Another very important factor - If equipment is very restricted (in terms of production) to its "wielding race/faction", Specially if humans are very inventive, and so forth, it would make no sense if some "ancient" or otherwise non-human creature granted access to/dropped a powerful weapon of a "recently invented type"...

It makes more sense for the great bosses to grant access to loot in the form of powerful material, with wich you can make craft/invent equipment.

Imagine a boss granting access to some stone/crystal/gem that due to its unique properties allows the application of some energy-production theory that was no more than a theory thus far due to unavaliable compatible materials. - this allowing you to create one or more energy cores that can be used in the creation of a new, more powerful ranged weapon kind

[trast]

I don't know about you guys, but I always find it odd to see a panther spit a humungous 2-handed hammer when he dies, specially such hammer in perfect condition!

Or a dragon (boss) when killed, dropping a whole set of items, possibly double items (the hero who was eaten by the dragon had 2 identical breastplates? Where are the pants?)


I dont' find it odd, since I know it's a Fantasy game. And about the boss drops, I mean sure, you go on and on on how unrealistic things are, but then why not add the factor that the heat inside the dragon melted the plate, burnt the leather and the cloth, it erroded some of the tougher armors making them useless. And you could make it so that if you kill a huge boss, and he drops this awesome axe named "Moghans Giantslayer" and it's his axe, you can't use it, since it's to big.

The best part in killing raid bosses, is to see that huge looking awesomness of a weapon, and knowing that, that weapon could be your's.

[Nurvus]

Exactly. And that boss could be, for a change, of your size, even being a boss.

And the thing about the melting of items, that's right too.
And it doesn't need to be heat, it can be acid.

The thing is, the monster doesn't need to drop stuff - A monster might just be skinned or carried whole for resources/food/leather, etc.
Imagine you taking a powerful beast's arm, because you know those monstruous claws cut through anything and you might harness them as a weapon.
That kind of ideology is specially logical where it concerns demons, since their masters, the Carcite, also want to harness the Soulstream.

That boss, may have an object - a gem or stone - inside it, or adorning its armour, or its weapon itself might be the object you need, to access the "ancient chamber of uber gear" behind him.

He doesn't have to spit the uber gear himself, unless he's wearing it ;)

[Moloch]

Most important point with loot, however, is:
1. balancing the drop tables against (time + consumables * difficulty).
2. balancing the random drop Vs encounter drop Vs craftable loot Vs PvP rewards (assuming they have them)

[Nurvus]

My personal opinion on the perfect "best loot vs best craft" is:

Suggestion
- Crafting should ultimately be the best source of gear.
Why
- Crafting must be needed or it doesn't sell; and it must have a certain difficulty to improve.
Plus it inevitably takes time from you wich you could be spending just getting loot and currency from mobs, and challenging bosses to get their great gear.
If gear is only useful as a bridge to help get somewhere, it will be very flawed and frustrating, ultimately pointless, even if fun at start.
Such is the case of most gear crafting in WoW - it's a money sink, and ultimately isn't really needed, specially with all the trouble you're put through to get to the best crafting, wich aren't the best items anyway...

Problem
- What use would the boss/rare gear be?
Sollution
- Boss/rare gear should be great in itself, at least for the "level" range it is meant for.
- All gear should be salvageable, sorts of like in Guild Wars, but not quite the same.
- The best gear would be crafted by directly upgrading boss/rare gear; or by crafting brand new gear using raw materials/components either salvaged from that boss/rare gear, or from directly dropped boss/rare raw materials/components.

Conclusion
- So you might beat the best boss, and he doesn't necessarily need to have drops for every kind of build, specially if there will be great freedom.
Instead, a good crafting system, that uses all kinds of materials, including salvaged materials from exceptional gear, together with great variety of crafting "options" for any given gear, would offer every class, everything they'd ever need, without removing value from anything in the game.

Ofcourse, the "blueprints or recepies" needed for such crafting, wouldn't be readily avaliable.

- You'd dismantle the items, "learn" from seeing the gear inside out - if it is the kind you craft - and eventually, after having seen so much different "craftsmanship" you would develop better crafting, using the same materials.
Experience as a crafter, who has crafted and seen many different items, would make a vital impact.

I am strongly against people needing to change their builds just because the best weapon is X, not Y - when the "best gear" nullifies lots of cool strategies/combos/builds.

[amz181]

Ive recently played a game which has possibly the best looting/gathering system i have ever seen.

The games called monster hunter, and for those of you who know nothing about it, it is one of capcoms biggest games and is Japan's favourite game.

The game consists of hunting monsters as some of you may have guessed, a simple but surprisingly engaging mechanic.

The materials dropped by monsters once slained didnt just appear, but the carcass of the monster remains on the floor, and then the player can press X, and then his character would carve the carcass and carve off things that you might actually find on the monster. Meat, scales, hides, fangs and claws.

I would love kaos war to incorporate this, as disapearing bodies and loot apearing in there place, it tacky and dated. Also, the fact that realistic items can be carved is key, so you wont get a super spade from a toad.

And seeing as kaos war is probably going to have humanoid mobs aswell as monster mobs, perhaps another animation could be played, and istead of carving your player would touch the corpse down (O_o) and then take something.

Obviously if the corpse/carcass is left too long then it will dissapear. Also, it acts the same as normal loot, so you may get fangs, you may get hide. Or for humanoids, you may get money, you may get a spiked club.

The base materials obtained from monsters and the like can then be made into weapons and armours, which is alot more realistic than getting pristine weapons from your slain foes.

Monster Hunter also has a foraging/searching function, say there is a paticular flower, you can go up to it, and your player will search around and get florwer seeds, or herbs. You can continue to do this until it says nothing is found, just incase you thought it was unlimited. theres a variety of things which can be foraged and then can be combined.

For example, herb and blue mushroom when combined make potion (restores hp).

Its a very good system and i really hope kaos war incorporates something similar or better.