[Open] Loot and Legendary Items

[Katarak]

Let’s be honest. The market is broken, and it will stay broken because of the huge number of legendary items that have dropped over the past months and years. Nerfing the drop rate would not help at all. It would only take away the last bit of hope from players who don’t already appear on every page of the legendary item thread.

If anything, the focus should be on fair distribution. Everyone who truly invests time and grinds should have a chance to be rewarded. Right now, some players loot legendaries almost every day — sometimes even multiple times a day — while others play a similar amount of time and haven’t looted anything for years. 
Regarding fair distribution, I want to be clear about one thing: I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once.
Instead, I would like all forms of favoritism or weighting in the calculation to be removed entirely, whatever the calculation is handled internally. The goal should be a neutral and fair system where everyone is treated the same.

Another issue is the lack of item variety. Why do we always see the same items in the loot history? When was the last time a Fell Edge dropped? Or a Thunder Pike? Or a Fang of Fenrir? Do players of Gen Alpha in NordInvasion even know these items still exist?

Personally, I’m not interested in having the best, rarest, or most expensive items. I've been playing Fashion Invasion for a long time now. And what I would actually like is:
A) loot being distributed more evenly across the whole player base, not just to a few selected “super IDs” or whatever system is used behind the scenes, and
B) all items dropping at the same or at least a similar rate, instead of seeing the same unwanted items over and over again. Aka Heraldic Plate as Hamster mentioned in the entry post.

Maybe one approach could be to slightly increase the overall loot chance, but limit it to one legendary drop per player per week. That way, everyone would have a fair shot at getting at least one drop without flooding the market.

[Lophorius]

What I'd like to see is something akin a 'Wandering Trader'. A separate shop sectiin in the store overview where you could buy legendaries in exchange for gold and essence. This trader could be on something like a bi-weekly rotation, having a set anount of legendaries up for sale, lets say 2 single hero locked ones, 3 non single hero locked legendaries. Similar to what we used to have with the upgrade roations. The cost would be its essence value + 1M gold for each essence you pay.
This would help:
1) against the frustration of being locked out of playing a specific legendary just because its not favoured by the loot system
2) gold wouldnt be worthless anymore
3) encourage the selling of surplus essence for gold to finance trader purchases, making essences more liquid in the market, thus preventing players from being locked out of upgrading when they dont loot
4) equalising the distribution of absurdly rare legendaries (eg. Byrllysg, Gothic Gauntlets)
5) random trader offerings boost player activity -> motivation to play so you can afford that item you really want when it comes up as available purchase.

Something like what Warframe had with its Void Traders sums it pretty much, i suppose.

[Angar]

Let’s be honest. The market is broken, and it will stay broken because of the huge number of legendary items that have dropped over the past months and years. Nerfing the drop rate would not help at all. It would only take away the last bit of hope from players who don’t already appear on every page of the legendary item thread.

If anything, the focus should be on fair distribution. Everyone who truly invests time and grinds should have a chance to be rewarded. Right now, some players loot legendaries almost every day — sometimes even multiple times a day — while others play a similar amount of time and haven’t looted anything for years. 
Regarding fair distribution, I want to be clear about one thing: I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once.
Instead, I would like all forms of favoritism or weighting in the calculation to be removed entirely, whatever the calculation is handled internally. The goal should be a neutral and fair system where everyone is treated the same.

Another issue is the lack of item variety. Why do we always see the same items in the loot history? When was the last time a Fell Edge dropped? Or a Thunder Pike? Or a Fang of Fenrir? Do players of Gen Alpha in NordInvasion even know these items still exist?

Personally, I’m not interested in having the best, rarest, or most expensive items. I've been playing Fashion Invasion for a long time now. And what I would actually like is:
A) loot being distributed more evenly across the whole player base, not just to a few selected “super IDs” or whatever system is used behind the scenes, and
B) all items dropping at the same or at least a similar rate, instead of seeing the same unwanted items over and over again. Aka Heraldic Plate as Hamster mentioned in the entry post.

Maybe one approach could be to slightly increase the overall loot chance, but limit it to one legendary drop per player per week. That way, everyone would have a fair shot at getting at least one drop without flooding the market.

Not a fan as I mentioned: "I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once."

Players would only show up to grab the loot and then vanish for a week or whatever cooldown is set. I want to avoid that kind of gameplay.

[Katarak]

Let’s be honest. The market is broken, and it will stay broken because of the huge number of legendary items that have dropped over the past months and years. Nerfing the drop rate would not help at all. It would only take away the last bit of hope from players who don’t already appear on every page of the legendary item thread.

If anything, the focus should be on fair distribution. Everyone who truly invests time and grinds should have a chance to be rewarded. Right now, some players loot legendaries almost every day — sometimes even multiple times a day — while others play a similar amount of time and haven’t looted anything for years. 
Regarding fair distribution, I want to be clear about one thing: I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once.
Instead, I would like all forms of favoritism or weighting in the calculation to be removed entirely, whatever the calculation is handled internally. The goal should be a neutral and fair system where everyone is treated the same.

Another issue is the lack of item variety. Why do we always see the same items in the loot history? When was the last time a Fell Edge dropped? Or a Thunder Pike? Or a Fang of Fenrir? Do players of Gen Alpha in NordInvasion even know these items still exist?

Personally, I’m not interested in having the best, rarest, or most expensive items. I've been playing Fashion Invasion for a long time now. And what I would actually like is:
A) loot being distributed more evenly across the whole player base, not just to a few selected “super IDs” or whatever system is used behind the scenes, and
B) all items dropping at the same or at least a similar rate, instead of seeing the same unwanted items over and over again. Aka Heraldic Plate as Hamster mentioned in the entry post.

Maybe one approach could be to slightly increase the overall loot chance, but limit it to one legendary drop per player per week. That way, everyone would have a fair shot at getting at least one drop without flooding the market.

Not a fan as I mentioned: "I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once."

Players would only show up to grab the loot and then vanish for a week or whatever cooldown is set. I want to avoid that kind of gameplay.

Not a fan as I mentioned: "I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once."
fair point.
Players would only show up to grab the loot and then vanish for a week or whatever cooldown is set. I want to avoid that kind of game
that is easy configurable:
Just change the condition to: the player must accumulate 10 hours of real gameplay—not AFK—after their last drop before they can get another chance.

[King Harlaus]

Let’s be honest. The market is broken, and it will stay broken because of the huge number of legendary items that have dropped over the past months and years. Nerfing the drop rate would not help at all. It would only take away the last bit of hope from players who don’t already appear on every page of the legendary item thread.

If anything, the focus should be on fair distribution. Everyone who truly invests time and grinds should have a chance to be rewarded. Right now, some players loot legendaries almost every day — sometimes even multiple times a day — while others play a similar amount of time and haven’t looted anything for years. 
Regarding fair distribution, I want to be clear about one thing: I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once.
Instead, I would like all forms of favoritism or weighting in the calculation to be removed entirely, whatever the calculation is handled internally. The goal should be a neutral and fair system where everyone is treated the same.

Another issue is the lack of item variety. Why do we always see the same items in the loot history? When was the last time a Fell Edge dropped? Or a Thunder Pike? Or a Fang of Fenrir? Do players of Gen Alpha in NordInvasion even know these items still exist?

Personally, I’m not interested in having the best, rarest, or most expensive items. I've been playing Fashion Invasion for a long time now. And what I would actually like is:
A) loot being distributed more evenly across the whole player base, not just to a few selected “super IDs” or whatever system is used behind the scenes, and
B) all items dropping at the same or at least a similar rate, instead of seeing the same unwanted items over and over again. Aka Heraldic Plate as Hamster mentioned in the entry post.

Maybe one approach could be to slightly increase the overall loot chance, but limit it to one legendary drop per player per week. That way, everyone would have a fair shot at getting at least one drop without flooding the market.

I think the idea has some merit, but there are a few concerns to consider. Increasing the overall loot chance could definitely improve player motivation in the short term. However, even with a weekly legendary cap, it might still have long-term effects on the economy.

For more active players, hitting that weekly limit quickly could also reduce the sense of reward afterward, since any further effort wouldn’t feel as meaningful.

Maybe instead of a hard weekly cap, a system with gradually increasing drop chances over time (like a soft pity system) could work better. That way, players still feel like they’re progressing toward a reward without relying on a strict limit.

That said, the idea of making sure everyone has a fair chance to get at least one drop is definitely something worth supporting it just needs the right implementation.

[Chaos Laicosin]

What about having upgrade trees that end in a non-upgradable legendary?
For example: sharpshooter bow + some mats and gold > (ebonwood/elmwood/huntress) + many mats and gold > hurricane/fiendish. Then there could be some flag on that end legendary that doesn't allow it to be upgraded to raging/cursed. Then a looted legendary would be special in so far that it could still be upgraded, but that system also wouldn't lock out the "unlucky" from legendary ownership.

Also, maybe could adjust drop rates based on essence value? Then oranges on normal would have a higher drop chance than the reds on rag. That would also tend to favour the newer players who will be playing on normal more often than rag.

[Lucien]

Let’s be honest. The market is broken, and it will stay broken because of the huge number of legendary items that have dropped over the past months and years. Nerfing the drop rate would not help at all. It would only take away the last bit of hope from players who don’t already appear on every page of the legendary item thread.

If anything, the focus should be on fair distribution. Everyone who truly invests time and grinds should have a chance to be rewarded. Right now, some players loot legendaries almost every day — sometimes even multiple times a day — while others play a similar amount of time and haven’t looted anything for years. 
Regarding fair distribution, I want to be clear about one thing: I do not want loot chances to be reduced after someone gets a drop, or anything like that. I don’t want any kind of punishment for being lucky once.
Instead, I would like all forms of favoritism or weighting in the calculation to be removed entirely, whatever the calculation is handled internally. The goal should be a neutral and fair system where everyone is treated the same.

Another issue is the lack of item variety. Why do we always see the same items in the loot history? When was the last time a Fell Edge dropped? Or a Thunder Pike? Or a Fang of Fenrir? Do players of Gen Alpha in NordInvasion even know these items still exist?

Personally, I’m not interested in having the best, rarest, or most expensive items. I've been playing Fashion Invasion for a long time now. And what I would actually like is:
A) loot being distributed more evenly across the whole player base, not just to a few selected “super IDs” or whatever system is used behind the scenes, and
B) all items dropping at the same or at least a similar rate, instead of seeing the same unwanted items over and over again. Aka Heraldic Plate as Hamster mentioned in the entry post.

where is the upvote button 

[Fendi]

Most of these ideas would require the code to be edited of the loot system.

Do you not think if the Dev's knew how 'broken' the system was they wouldve fixed it over the last 12 years?

The most likely reason for this
A) Old devs who wrote the game code and understand how the loots system was written by a drunk man at 3am, either left the mod or simply couldnt be bothered.
B) Current(Ish) Developers who knew how the system worked but didnt know how to ammend the code
C) Recent(Ish) Retired devs read the code and realised thats not what they wanted to be slogging away at with an already waining interest in the develoopment of the mod
D) Current developers who either don't know where to start or dont know how the code works, or even, know how to game code the loot system.

The reality is the loot system wont change, if it is infact a true random number generator that decides on who loots and what drops have a look at the birthday paradox of probabilty, this is probably the most likely explaination for the repeat looters or the repetitive nature of Heraldic Plates.

If the development team wanted to make a 'Random" loot chance Jez and ConquerorWorm shouldve probably used a Pseudo-random number generator all those years ago to make the loot drops feel 'random'. If you ever bump into them why dont you ask?

[Winter]

Instead, I would like all forms of favoritism or weighting in the calculation to be removed entirely, whatever the calculation is handled internally. The goal should be a neutral and fair system where everyone is treated the same.

There is no weighting that favors any player account, character ID, house, name, special characters used in names, chat, player actions on servers, etc. beyond being alive and gaining XP for more bots killed.

[Thunderstorm]

What I'd like to see is something akin a 'Wandering Trader'. A separate shop sectiin in the store overview where you could buy legendaries in exchange for gold and essence. This trader could be on something like a bi-weekly rotation, having a set anount of legendaries up for sale, lets say 2 single hero locked ones, 3 non single hero locked legendaries. Similar to what we used to have with the upgrade roations. The cost would be its essence value + 1M gold for each essence you pay.
This would help:
1) against the frustration of being locked out of playing a specific legendary just because its not favoured by the loot system
2) gold wouldnt be worthless anymore
3) encourage the selling of surplus essence for gold to finance trader purchases, making essences more liquid in the market, thus preventing players from being locked out of upgrading when they dont loot
4) equalising the distribution of absurdly rare legendaries (eg. Byrllysg, Gothic Gauntlets)
5) random trader offerings boost player activity -> motivation to play so you can afford that item you really want when it comes up as available purchase.

Something like what Warframe had with its Void Traders sums it pretty much, i suppose.

Its a really good idea in my opinion. Good job Löres