Loot containers missing from dungeons.

[Mereyn]

Before I begin I'll have to say this. The majority, if not all of the loot doesn't interest me.
Because blessed with the timezone that I am in, spawns are very often low.
General lack of interest to dungeon due to that, and seeing no point in it as well, do take away from some of the fun.
But I digress, I don't think it's about how much of your resources you'll toss at something that won't yield any worthwhile reward.

The issue I see foremost is that it segregates newer players even more from people who have played and know
PotM's systems well enough. From my own experience of talking to and with new players, especially those who haven't even played NWN before,
is that they're often frustrated. They don't have anything, get nowhere and their best stop is to go straight from Vallaki to the Mist Camp.
That is, if they don't find it deserted. And how does the loot containers' (very, very late) fix connect to that?

Before, people could reliably get enough money to buy that random bit and bob they may need. This is only my estimate, but the change may
make the 'Rich richer and the poor poorer', as the saying goes.

tl;dr - This will only hurt the noobs, anyone else will probably live with it and notice no big change.

[Song of Danta]

Experimenting in the Beetle Caverns now. It's about medium-high spawn. Haven't seen a single rubble pile on the first level. So, yeah. That's going to hurt noobs, since it's a popular (and easy) place for them to get a bit of vendor trash. I agree with Mereyn's points. It's going to be TOUGH for low level characters.

[Legion XXI]

I think we should let the change be in effect for a while before coming to a judgement.

Also, I don't understand the whole low levels being broke thing.  Herbs/molds still sell to players for 1-2k per box and and can get multiple boxes every ingame day cycle.  Aside from that, I've known enterprising Rogue players to sell profiles on people, or warriors to serve as merchant guards for a fee.  This is a Roleplay server, and let's not forget that pretty much any challenge you run into can be solved by RP.  Sure, grinding out dungeons is an easy and reliable way to stack those dollar bills.  But the fact of the matter is, it wasn't working as intended, making it TOO easy.  There's a delicate balance between the various playstyles that the server is trying to achieve, and you can't please everyone all at once.

Just give it a chance, and once we have more data on how this is REALLY affecting things, we can have a more solid argument for possible tweaks.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Also, I don't understand the whole low levels being broke thing.

New players are all low levels, but not all low levels are new. The concern would be more about truly new players who don't know about the things you mention.

Regarding "delicate balance," that's part of the trick: keeping the challenge up for old hands playing new characters but who still retain OOC knowledge and connections versus fresh-faced victims joiners vital to keeping the server thriving.

I was on here at least a couple of months before I sold my first herb.

ETA: And even if new players are let in on this way to earn money, I'm not sure it's a positive lure to say, "Oh don't waste your time dungeoning. It's much more rewarding to spend your in-game time running around picking herbs and selling them."

[Iluvatar / Madness]

Just give it a chance, and once we have more data on how this is REALLY affecting things, we can have a more solid argument for possible tweaks.

I really think we should wait and give it a chance, adjustments to the spawning rate of loot container can be made in the future if the current one ends up being unbalanced.

Personally I think this change will have positive effects, because up to now, I think getting loot was too easy. Also, every trip, even if it's in a high level dungeon, can't always gives a lot of loot. Yes those dungeon often requires a lot of resources, but it doesn't mean that the dungeon has to give enough loot and gold to get all those resources back all the time.

Anyway, let's wait and see.

[Sinful Mystic]

With all the talk of how things impact new players I figured I should contribute.

I started playing on POTM about two weeks ago with a friend. We learned hunting furs could get us money right off. We also saw pretty fast that other players were the real source of income with herbs, furs, beetle red bits, and white stag antlers all having a market. It only took a couple days before I had crafted armor, shield, bow, boots, sword and hammer.

At level 3 mink, deer and rats all provide xp but all come with great dangers like stealth wolves and were rats. We quickly ran out of healing and I only once found a player selling any so I bought all he had, 2 moderates and 3 cure lights. I figured I had to learn herbalism if I wanted healing potions.

I concluded deliveries were the best way to go to earn money because when we did go into a dungeon it was not usually very profitable and we never found anything we could actually use. I also wasted a lot of money to identify things that were always worth less than the cost to identify.

So far the Shadow Forest is the only place I have found anything useful. When I look at my equip right now every slot but one has an item that gives a bonus but other than the armor and weapons I would not notice if I lost them. Yesterday I found a ring of negative energy resist, it is currently my greatest treasure.

My friend seems to have given up because we died so much in the early going but I like the server and the challenge so I have stuck to it. I think the server works on a basis of low levels gathering for high levels and buying crafted things to start. What is in the dungeons almost does not matter, you use outside sources to pay for your adventuring, basically you buy your xp here with resource and delivery money.

At first this seemed strange but now that I have a system I have money in the bank, bags of potions and I have gained some levels. My biggest problem is I cannot find anything to buy that will really improve my character. I have started going to the mist camp in hopes of finding something but have not had any luck yet. I have met some players and talked about trade and think I can probably now buy something if I find the right deal, I will keep saving until I do.

I still have not seen a lot of the server away from the roads because it is so dangerous but I have found people like to talk and share information. It is still hard to find parties but I do see some open doors for rp which is what we are here for. I think the economy is fine as it is with the only thing I would change being the lack of healing options. The crypt potions are very hard to get because the centre room army seem to detect you when you get in their area and if there is a Knight or a couple Hecuva you need to flee or die. Most times I have been in the crypts I have consumed more healing than I gained. I was lucky that my stats match the herbalism skill so by next spring I will be good but when I look at the big picture my character's first in game year will probably prove to be all about preparing for the second year.

I don't think you need to change anything but finding healing from time to time would be nice.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

Hi Purple Heart and welcome.

It can be very frustrating here when you start, and I almost quit a couple of times like your friend from constantly dying.

Thanks for the input because it's easy to forget what the first impression is like after you've been here awhile.

[ladylena]

While I sort of get why this was done.. Wouldn't it of been better for the lower levels if the dungeons provided more valuable loot since the amount been decreased? I know the other day I took a stroll through the sullen woods and only found 2 skeletons in all of it plus one chest. This was when there were some shadow fiends around..

I can see this possibly causing people to leave the server, or flat out stop dungeoning because it wont be worth it. High levels will have it easy, rarer loot drops in the higher dungeons, giving them more profit.

Now the remark about herbs, while it's easy to do that in the spring and summer, the rest of the time it's hard, especially in winter when you can only get herbs from dungeons.

[Legion XXI]

People won't leave the server over this, and people will ALWAYS dungeon even if it gave 0 gold.  Heck, even if you had to actually pay gold to kill enemies, people would do it, because dungeoning makes you a higher level and that (usually) directly affects how people treat you and how much you can accomplish.

This change is just a reduction in the amount of loot you're receiving.  As we've seen, a newer player has weighed in (thank you for your input, and welcome to the server by the way!) and didn't seem to be in full-on panic mode.  The least the rest of us can do is wait and see if this is as bad as we fear, it might turn out to be no big deal in the long run.

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Keep in mind also that this only applies to "secondary" treasure containers - the "main stash" will always be there.

[ladylena]

Keep in mind also that this only applies to "secondary" treasure containers - the "main stash" will always be there.

Oh that's interesting to know. But with the reduction in loot availible, will there be any plans to increase the value of loot in the places that are most heavily affected? (sullen woods, beetle caves, etc)

[Iluvatar / Madness]

Keep in mind also that this only applies to "secondary" treasure containers - the "main stash" will always be there.

Oh that's interesting to know. But with the reduction in loot availible, will there be any plans to increase the value of loot in the places that are most heavily affected? (sullen woods, beetle caves, etc)

I think the point of reducing the available loot is more or less to reduce the total value of loot available in a dungeon at the end of the run. Increasing the value of the loot would make reducing the amount of loot pointless in the end.

Like LegionXXI said, we should wait and see how it goes. If the total value of the loot after a dungeon run is judged too low, I'm pretty sure it will be adjusted.

[FinalHeaven]

I think it's pretty crazy to reduce the loot in these low level dungeons given that the loot was already pretty terrible to begin with.  Just because something should have been one way doesn't necessarily mean that changing it after several years is a good idea.  I'm curious what the actual idea behind the change is.

Is it to try and have some effect on the player economy?  I'm not sure it achieves that, personally.  I think it more likely that this will cause a loss of incentive for low level characters to visit certain low level dungeons.  I think we'll see an increase in low level characters hoarding gold to simply go buy the items they want, then heading to slightly higher level dungeons because they're better equipped.  Note - I don't consider this bad, just an observation that certain dungeons may be ignored.

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

The intent is to fix a bug.

I honestly feel you are blowing this way out of proportions - it just applies to a limited number of places and to a limited number of loot containers within these places. And incidentally, this way makes the loot roughly equal to how it is balanced challenge/reward-wise in every other dungeon on the server (where priorly it would have set it above). If you feel these places affected by the bug are now no longer worth it, then we should discuss the balance of challenge vs. reward everywhere, not particularly in these places.

[Meridian]

Here is my two pennies worth.

Lets just let it settle and see whats what, we're an adaptable bunch and it has been a long going bug with the loot
system in these places, but lets give it time and see what happens eh, give it a chance.