Feedback talk:User/Cinnamongod/Chests, Lockpicks, Gold Drops and Chest Loot.

tl;dr learn to paragraph. Noone like reading through a wall of text like that... --82.26.245.69 12:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

First of all this is a forum and those who are intimidated by text might reevaluate what they are doing here. Please sign your responses also. I have fixed the post and hopefully this is to your approval. This was a result of making a post at 3am when I was very tired but couldn't sleep. In my opinion it is more important to get important ideas out before they are lost and that is what I was doing. Please make your posts more constructive in the future. TY Cinnamongod 17:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Rant or suggestion?

Hey, I tried reading through the entire suggestion, but ... I hate say, tl;dr; it reads (to me) more like a rant than a specific idea (or series of ideas). If you wouldn't mind, could you summarize what you would like to see different? (I +/- agree that HM chest loot doesn't seem to scale up as much as I would like considering the increased risks and costs and I was hoping you had a better idea than I did.) Thanks.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what "tl;dr" stands for and to clarify I am not ranting. I didn't give specific ideas but general ideas because I assumed that if my post was given any consideration then they would go about it in their own way. I figured pointing out problems or conflicts might be helpful but stating specific fixes might be unappreciated. If it would be better for me to propose specific solutions to problems then I will do that. I am just affraid that if I give a specific idea that may not be the best idea I may end up turning them away instead. I will make another attempt at simplifying soon. Cinnamongod 07:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, my apologies. I agree that stating issues and leaving details to the developers is a wise course of action. I've done that with some of my suggestions and with others, I've peppered the article with examples because they can be easier to imagine than the abstract ideas.

tl;dr stands for too long; didn't read; I used it to mean that I had trouble following what you are trying to say. What you might try doing is separating out the specific issues you see with loot and putting those out front...and then leaving the current text as an explanation.

• Suggestion that includes detailed example
• Suggestion with problem statement upfront and example at the end

In both these, the problem statement is separate from the suggestion and separate from the example. Allows anyone reading to agree with the issue, but dislike the idea (and, one hopes, think of something better). I don't mean to say that you have to set things up this way, but I am having a hard time getting anything more from this page other than: "the rewards don't scale well with risk and effort."

In any case, I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with. Thanks.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 08:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that is ever so much easier to read. Thank you!  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 03:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Comments (plus, minus, neutral)

Short story: I think these are some useful ideas, about half of which I would like to see implemented. Details: below.

"Make all drops from chests in hard mode max damage gold drops."	/Agree. Seems silly to have non-max golds from HM chest.
"Eliminate or significantly reduce basic weapon skins from hard mode chests."	/Disagree. Rare skins are only rare because basic skins are common.
"Increase value of weapon parts and inscriptions at the merchant."	/Disagree (but support the related idea below). Blue runes/insignia are only with a few gold; grapes not much more; and even golds are only worth about 100. Not worth worrying about imo.
"Create weapon parts and inscriptions trader"	/Agree! Could work the same way, with market prices.
"Make the lock-pick retention rate in hard mode equal or better than the normal mode retention rate especially if drop quality isn't increased"	/Disagree. It's hard mode ;-)
"Make all hard mode chest drops and hard mode drops inscribable in Prophecies and Factions."	/Agree. However, I'm not sure the mechanics allow it, though. That's why the only inscribables in Factions/FoW/UW are in the end chests (different mechanics).
"Make all drops solely for human players. No more drops for heros or henchman."	/Disagree. It should cost us something to take h/h.
"Make drops equally divided or designated for all human players in party."	/Confused. The drops are random. Over time, they will be equal. However, on any particular run, one player (or another) will see better drops.
"Remove all keys from the game ( except keys like Zaishen Keys ). Lock-picks used instead."	/Disagree. One can choose to avoid keys (that's what I do).
"Merchant in Guild Hall will give 10% discount on goods. Similar to 20% discount in owned Factions outposts. It would also be fine if this was implemented that the merchant costs 100k instead of 25k."	/Disagree. I don't see any point in offering a discount that is roughly available to nearly every player.
"Make all drops area specific. ( Like the Shadow Shield is to FOW or the Shadow Axe is to DOA )"	/Confused. I think the drops are already area-specific, however (as you note above) there are a lot of basic skins that can appear everywhere. And, as mentioned, I think it's better to have a lot of junk; that helps make it more fun to get rare stuff. (If everyone could afford a Porche, it wouldn't be as cool.)

 — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:05, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I see we disagree on alot of areas. Let me see if I can furthur convince you?

Rare skins are too rare. The fact that people charge 60 Ectos for some skins proves this. These could definetelly afford to drop many times more often. My suggestion would still have Fancy skins the grade under exotic in hard mode. People shouldn't run through every chest in the game and never get a rare skin which is what happened to me and to friends. It seems to happen all to often.

I am confused on the comment when you disagreed that because it was hard mode lock-pick retention shouldn't change. It seems as you are looking at the retention rate to reflect difficulty which makes absolutely no sense to me. The chests are harder to get to that is what hard mode should be about; not retention rate. It is not hard to use a lock-pick it is exactly the same as using one in normal mode.

I also disagree that there should be a cost to heros/henchmen based on the fact that ArenaNets wishes are to require parties and prevent soloing. Having the expectation that somebody should solo something to acquire greater benefit turns out to be very unfair in this game. All classes aren't created equally. Some have great abilities to solo like the Assassin and others pretty much no ability to solo like the Paragon. Equalizing this can only be done through heros/henchman thus soloing should included them! This is also of major importance to my idea of having enough gold to buy lock-picks from the beginning which is what should be done. Continuing to split gold with heros/henchman keeps the grind in titles like the Treasure Hunter title.

Drops being equaly divided was meant to included the randomness that you stated. Yes they will even out over time. My point was that they should be split only by human players ignoring heros/henchman. (Ex. I shouldn't receive more drops if I had 6 heros and you had none and we were in the same party of 8)

The merchant discount would be the right thing to do. I can already buy lock-picks for 1250 gold anytime from players which is around a 16.7% discount. There should be a benefit for spending all that money on a guild hall otherwise what is the point. If not then the merchant should be free with the guild hall.

I can't tell you how disappointing it is to spend 6 hours doing the underworld only to get a gold hand axe from the chest or to do every dungeon in EoTN in normal mode and in hard mode and never get a none common skin. That is exactly the opposite of fun. I have no desire to ever do any of these dungeons again because I can count on not getting rewarded. This doesn't add to replayability. This NEEDS to be fixed!

Cinnamongod 07:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I absolutely disagree with proph/fac insc in hardmode... some skins and oldschool stuff is much worth with the right mods... a q9 zodiac scepter with 20/20 oldschool mods, or a -5/20%, 30 life outcast shield, same as q8 maxdam shinobi blade 15^50. Special things should stay "special"... But also there are much skins for PvP that can be unlocked but can never be found in the game like "Darkwing Staff", "Tiger Rod", "Noble Dragon Cane" and "Silver Dragon Cane"... it could maybe drop in "Vloxen Excavations" this dungeon is pretty tough in HM but the endchest can't drop any special skins. Also: so much staffs are bound to class-primary attributes... this pretty suxx... :/ --Kali Shin Shivara 05:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)