Christopher Cannonskull
Site Founder
Alright so this will probably be a long post so I'm going to try and get my views on this out as clearly as concisely as possible. I don't claim to be an expert on how looting currently works and what is currently bugged and what isn't.
Currently the loot system in the game is still buggy from beta which is fine. But even back when the game was open and Disney was operating it the looting system did not seem very good which is bad because that's the reason a lot of people play this game.
Firstly from what i can tell the how the game currently works is this ( this is stipulation from what I've read and how i remember the game from what it was)
Here's an example of what i mean. lets say in this example there is five players looting on a server. one of them has been looting for 3 hours and hasn't received any good drops. and the other four players have all started looting right before the server reset its loot table. Now there are 2 famed items available for drop. meaning that only 2 of the 5 players can get the drop. Even though the first player who has been looting for hours should be the one to get a drop because of how many enemies he has killed it doesn't matter if he cant hit the drop before the 4 new players hit the drop. In this scenario if 2 of the players who just started looting hit the drop the first player is stuck there until the system resets again before he has another shot at looting a weapon.
Like i said this system works for beta keys because as it allows for growth it simultaneously prevents overflow of players potentially crashing the server.
Now for the system i propose (the numbers that i use here will be much bigger than they probably should be just for ease of understanding)
Admirals cutlass: 1%
Vice admirals cutlass 2%
Commodores cutlass 3%
Now these are just base percentages and i believe these should scale down depending on the enemies level ill only give and example for yellow plated enemies and bosses to keep it simple for demonstration purposes.
Against a yellow enemy:
Admirals cutlass .5%
Vice admirals cutlass 1%
Commodores cutlass 1.5%
Against a (red) boss:
1.5%
2.5%
3.5%
Now these values would be likely much different and probably lower in game just to add balance but these are just to help people understand the concept. now the scaling handicap i was talking about earlier in the bullet points,
To keep this system fair to the players who loot for hours without getting drops and to keep players actually playing because they know they will eventually get a payoff if they stay committed unlike how it currently is this system should be in play:
the handicap that i propose is a flat scaling applied to drop rate based off the number of enemies killed and heres my example
we will still use the admiral group to keep things simple. after killing say 300 enemies without a drop the player to build a number they cant see (lets refer to this as "luck" )
this luck value will be applied to all items in the family to keep the rarest items exactly that. Rare. i believe it should look something like this
every 15th enemy after 300 will give .25% to the drop value.
so after 15 enemies:
Admirals cutlass 1.25%
Vice admirals 2.25%
commodores cutlass 3.25%
and this trend would continue every 15 enemies for a max of:
Admirals cutlass 5%
Vice Admirals cutlass 10%
commodores cutlass 15%
Once this number is hit and the famed weapon is dropped for the player the "luck" value will reset to 0 and the player will need to kill another 300 (possibly more for balance?) to be eligible to receive this bonus again
I am unsure whether this "luck" bonus should apply to legendary drops or now. It would probably be best if those were just a low low flat % drop from bosses and high level enemies.
Also i believe that chests should be tied to loot quality instead of loot amount as it seems to currently be.
This system will keep the wonder and satisfaction of finding a famed weapon randomly while questing alongside keeping players who live to loot satisfied and it will serve to keep people interested and playing. This will help balance out the endgame and provide large amount of content to the players who have finished all of the story quests and just with to collect as much loot as their little pirate hearts can stand
Feel free to ask any questions im sure there are things that i have left out here that i should add but it seems like it would be a crime to type to much more here for now.
Currently the loot system in the game is still buggy from beta which is fine. But even back when the game was open and Disney was operating it the looting system did not seem very good which is bad because that's the reason a lot of people play this game.
Firstly from what i can tell the how the game currently works is this ( this is stipulation from what I've read and how i remember the game from what it was)
- Each server has its own loot table with items on it to be available to drop that refreshes at intervals that are unknown to me.
- loot boxes seem to have no discernible correlation it item quality inside of the box ( this could be a bug but it happened in potco as well)
- besides a few sets items do not seem to have a correlation to where they drop from leaving many people to farm the exact same areas causing crowding in locations
- bosses have a slightly higher drop rate of higher quality items
- due to the limited amount of famed weapons per server per interval it makes the weapon drop rate for high quality items seemingly meaningless
Here's an example of what i mean. lets say in this example there is five players looting on a server. one of them has been looting for 3 hours and hasn't received any good drops. and the other four players have all started looting right before the server reset its loot table. Now there are 2 famed items available for drop. meaning that only 2 of the 5 players can get the drop. Even though the first player who has been looting for hours should be the one to get a drop because of how many enemies he has killed it doesn't matter if he cant hit the drop before the 4 new players hit the drop. In this scenario if 2 of the players who just started looting hit the drop the first player is stuck there until the system resets again before he has another shot at looting a weapon.
Like i said this system works for beta keys because as it allows for growth it simultaneously prevents overflow of players potentially crashing the server.
Now for the system i propose (the numbers that i use here will be much bigger than they probably should be just for ease of understanding)
- the loot table system on the server should not be used for items besides beta keys and maybe small drops
- Famed and above quality weapons should all have their own static drop rate.
- Families of items should be lootable from certain locations and enemy groups. I.E cursed blades on tormenta and ravens cove
- these families should be spread through the Caribbean keeping the lore consistent and making players explore the island we usually would never go to besides leveling and quests e.g Isla Cangrejos, Isla perdida, and other wild islands
- after a certain number of enemies in a group have been killed the player should be eligible for a hidden handicap towards looting to keep the system rewarding for the people that grind all day(will elaborate on this below)
- legendary items should be drops from either (new?) raid bosses or existing bosses like Foulberto Smasho
Admirals cutlass: 1%
Vice admirals cutlass 2%
Commodores cutlass 3%
Now these are just base percentages and i believe these should scale down depending on the enemies level ill only give and example for yellow plated enemies and bosses to keep it simple for demonstration purposes.
Against a yellow enemy:
Admirals cutlass .5%
Vice admirals cutlass 1%
Commodores cutlass 1.5%
Against a (red) boss:
1.5%
2.5%
3.5%
Now these values would be likely much different and probably lower in game just to add balance but these are just to help people understand the concept. now the scaling handicap i was talking about earlier in the bullet points,
To keep this system fair to the players who loot for hours without getting drops and to keep players actually playing because they know they will eventually get a payoff if they stay committed unlike how it currently is this system should be in play:
the handicap that i propose is a flat scaling applied to drop rate based off the number of enemies killed and heres my example
we will still use the admiral group to keep things simple. after killing say 300 enemies without a drop the player to build a number they cant see (lets refer to this as "luck" )
this luck value will be applied to all items in the family to keep the rarest items exactly that. Rare. i believe it should look something like this
every 15th enemy after 300 will give .25% to the drop value.
so after 15 enemies:
Admirals cutlass 1.25%
Vice admirals 2.25%
commodores cutlass 3.25%
and this trend would continue every 15 enemies for a max of:
Admirals cutlass 5%
Vice Admirals cutlass 10%
commodores cutlass 15%
Once this number is hit and the famed weapon is dropped for the player the "luck" value will reset to 0 and the player will need to kill another 300 (possibly more for balance?) to be eligible to receive this bonus again
I am unsure whether this "luck" bonus should apply to legendary drops or now. It would probably be best if those were just a low low flat % drop from bosses and high level enemies.
Also i believe that chests should be tied to loot quality instead of loot amount as it seems to currently be.
This system will keep the wonder and satisfaction of finding a famed weapon randomly while questing alongside keeping players who live to loot satisfied and it will serve to keep people interested and playing. This will help balance out the endgame and provide large amount of content to the players who have finished all of the story quests and just with to collect as much loot as their little pirate hearts can stand
Feel free to ask any questions im sure there are things that i have left out here that i should add but it seems like it would be a crime to type to much more here for now.
