I question the choice of random drops

Wicked Feedback
1

Hi, I have 40 hours in the game, enjoying it so far BUT the random drop choice is really awful.
Let it be simple, in other souls-borne/rpgs :
You finish your first run and want to do a second one with a specific weapon, before getting it you’ll throw your level points in appropriate attributes for your weapon to come, thus optimizing your build.
In this game it’s impossible to theorize the slightest of optimization because it’s RANDOM. You can do an entire run without getting the weapon you wanted in the first place. It feels like a poor way of creating replayability and is a disservice to any rpg oriented game.
At least guys, make bosses/specific areas ennemies 100% guaranteed drops.

Thank you.

2

I agree it’s rough to like a weapon you can’t buy infinitely or craft easily. I’m hoping we’ll be getting more recipe drops more often on top of more drops for resources so we can invest 10-20 gold a day into new weapons.

Given this game is said to have 200 weapons, even if I MAXED 1 weapon a day it would still take 200 days to get them all completed. I feel like the grind should be made much easier or at least progression-based so you can slowly max out enchants or gems with further materials, so we can enjoy swapping weapons daily and often instead of needing to dedicate so much to so little of a game with…so much.

But I also like games like Dauntless and Wild hearts where I was able to max and complete every part of that game. It had grind but a means to an end too which was much appreciated. Imagine spending 400hrs and still not having a better weapon than your first enchant ever. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I dislike the idea of adding specific drops. Dragons Dogma had this and it lead to people rushing to specific areas to grab a specific weapon ignoring all the other content.

Now, I do agree that we need white gear to be more readily available and less random. I would make crafting more widely available for those items by giving players the option to ‘deconstruct’ an item and gain the recipe for the item.

Even with static drops, or a mixture between static and random, enchanting is still 100% random; except for using gems etc. We could use an item gained from a static drop and still mess up with enchanting. Of course enchanting is also way too random.

Conclusion: Make white gear more readily available through recipes and more customization when enchanting with less randomness.

If you are interested I have made a post on the whole ‘deconstructing’ and more:

2 Likes
4

I agree, we need some sort of influence on how we craft/enchant/infuse gear. Like I suggested before, it would be cool to for example use gems when enchanting a weapon to influence one out of the 4 random perks we get.

For example, use a red gem to get 1 affix to be a HP related affix like life leech or x% more hp for armor.

Or as also suggested in other threads, when crafting a recipe, (and when the skill tree is introduced), give us a skill like “blacksmith” that makes crafted gear higher quality. For example make it automatically blue, or give it a buff to its stats.

Or maybe (i know it could break balance or be hard to implement) give us another gear “tier” when crafting. Like green weapons, which are not as strong as blue or purple, but give 1 affix.

There are lots of ways, crafting can be made more rewarding, matching the time and effort put in to acquire the materials. That would also counter the pure randomness we have now. even tho i think this game does random drops right. In Nioh for example u can have so much bad luck, that a built you want to play is just impossible to get right.

1 Like
5

That topic is a sore spot for me as well… Thank you for sharing! :pray:

All I ever seriously used in all my three playthroughs was enchanted gear, bought from a vendor. Which says a lot about the state gearing RNG is at currently. If you are anywhere close to interested in playing a targeted build, it is abyssmal.

RNG in drops needs to go down and RNG in crafting needs to go down.

Drops

I like the idea of target farming. It rewards knowledge and gives you clear goals for a playthrough. Guaranteed drops are a bit much though, at least for this style of game.

When it comes to Recipes - Basically agree 100% with @RomoloHero there. Target farming recipes could be a good middleground.

Base Stats

The inherent variance in Gear Stats (weight, dmg/armor), is a feature I don’t like at all. Why do I have to buy/craft/drop 20 white items with the same name to get 3 with a good base result? At least make it balanced (more dmg = more weight). Even then, the identity of the item gets lost, especially when it is not a weapon, that comes with a unique Moveset. The Base Stats of gear should be reliable.

Customization

Both, enchanting and gems feel awful. Enchanting is the lottery and gems are Blackjack. Sorry for ranting, but I would like to play the game with a playstyle i enjoy, without being forced to gamble to this extend.

It is okay to have high highs, but a much more reliable baseline when it comes to crafting would be great.

There are a lot of ways to introduce this:

Reducing the range of affixes, Rerolling specific Affixes, Rerolling while locking specific Affixes, directly choosing Pools of Affixes or specific Affixes, Custom Items with lower Numbers, transferring Affixes between items, block out Affixes you don’t want, …

And a lot of ways to enable them in a fair way:

Pay enough money, build up Crafting Mastery, Upgrade shops, gather Recipes, gather the right Base Materials, collect extra Materials, collecting other Items with the right Affixes, well communicated pity system, collectable Affix shards, …

Outlook

Luckily, we are still at the start of this journey. I have faith gearing will improve in time! Still, feedback is important.

1 Like
6

i was thinking about this a lot too. sometimes i think “wow that mobs hammer looks awesome” (no pun intended)
but instead they drop a shield.

while i do not really want 100% predictable drops, it might be cool to have a enemy specific loot pool, similar to boss loot which probably works with a loot pool as well.

so for example give those shield mobs a few shields they can drop with random affixes, some swords and some armor pieces, and give the firebomb mages more bombs and bufs/consumables to drop, and the 2 hand guys no shields, but more 2 handers to drop.

get what i mean? that would make some sort of targeting farming possible, while still keeping drops fairly random within their pool and affixes.

1 Like
7

Yeah, I think i do :smiling_face:

Mobs have to have a drop pool, so simply giving the Mob that wields the type of gear you want a higher dropchance would go a long way!

Also like the idea of excluding or at least heavily diminish unfitting drops.

Maybe some sort of bias is already in place just not well communicated?

8

yeah it feels like we already got some sort of loot pools for enemies, like low level are mobs preferably drop healing items etc. but i could not figure out farming strategies. for let’s say 1 hand swords or 2 hand clubs. even tho there are plenty of enemies wielding exactly those weapons.

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I do want targeted farming of some kind but I 100% do not want the scenario where one mob is grinded for wicked’s equivalent of a moonveil katana because absolutely fuck that sword. On the other hand I think borrowing the mob farming aspect of MMOs isn’t a terrible idea but you just have to put an ARPG spin on it with the way the zones work.

10

I think we are in the same boat here. 100% specific targetfarming makes sense for a game like Elden Ring, which is mainly about discovery… Problem is, Wicked is in a niche, where the exact item can matter. So people will want to farm for that, so some targetfarming would be good.

Let’s think about a few ways, how targetfarming can be a bit more possible without that effect.

Targetfarming Options

  • Area Loot Pools
    → Go to a specific Area to farm
  • Faction Loot Pools
    → Fight a specific Faction to farm
  • Item Type based Loot Pools
    → Fight enemies that rock the same kind of gear you want (e.g. One handed sword wielders for one handed swords of any kind)
  • Activity based Loot Pools
    → Do the right activity: “Bounty: Weapon smuggling: One handed Swords” // Okay that one is right on the nose, but you get the idea :upside_down_face:
    → Activities could also be tied to Vendors, which then offer a collection of items of a desired type
  • Equipment based Loot Pools
    → Passively increase the chance gear of the same type you are wearing drops, or even gear that has exactly the same base // This one isn’t as much targetfarming, but would make upgrading gear through drops much more reliable
  • (Specific) Resources
    → Be able to gamble for/buy targetet gear through a Resource
    → Farming that resource becomes the new targetfarming
    → Could be tied to a Faction/Area again // I personally don’t like general resources for gambling, it lacks theme and directly converts money to power - We basically have this now through Vendor + Enchantress
  • Expanded conditionals for special items and Affixes
    → Day/Night cycle, weather, underground/above ground, elements present etc.

That’s all i can think of for the moment…

What are your thoughts?