One of the biggest fun-killers out there for me in gaming. I hate 'diablo loot', where there's a ton of random bullshit arms and armor, with random stats and rarity and little "+5% damage to undead" nonsense. Its petty, but it stresses me out to have to sort through 50 tons of useless bullshit just to make sure I'm keeping up with the difficulty treadmill.
Quite a few games I've dropped or avoided just because of this shit.
It's not petty, generic randomized loot sucks, period. Beyond the hassle, it removes a lot from the atmosphere.
I prefer the Baldur's Gate formula: basic weapons (declined in several metals), magical +1/+2/+x weapons, and the rest being rarer but unique artefacts with a cool small RP story attached to them in the description.
I guess it feels petty to me sometimes to feel like a single sub-system ruins a whole game to me.
Big example is probably Nioh 1+2; I'd love the games if they just gutted to the loot system out of it.
Smaller indie example of a game I dropped is Gordian Quest, a 'slay the spire' like where you have a team of people. And the gear is dumb diablo bullshit, gems sockets included. And just, I love everything else about the game, but the gear is just fun-killing to me.
If the gear isn't legendary or whatever the highest rarity tier is, it shouldn't have more than two stat modifiers. I played a lot of Diablo back in the day and it was out of control.
The absolute worst it should get:
Normal = no stat modifiers
Rare = one modifier
Epic = two modifiers
Legendary = three or (maybe) four modifiers
If you need more tiers than that, you've fucked up.
Legendary loot shouldn't be randomly generated and it should actually be difficult to find, you shouldn't get 10 random legendary drops from killing a boss. God of War actually does decent job of it (I can't speak on Ragnarok because I haven't played it yet) except for the fact that a couple of the sets are much better than the others and nobody uses most of them.
I mean, this is just my tastes, but I don't like any of that. I don't want random loot. I want items made intentionally by people. Even games that do random loot 'right', I still hate the system.
Like, Skyrim and Elden Ring are are think good examples for what I like in a 'loot system'. Its What You See Is What You Get for the most part. Neither are my favorite games overall (and also, Elden Ring still has more 'shitty items' than are probably necessary). But I like that the items are what they are. If you want to 'enchant them' to give them extra effects, you do so intentionally. You don't have to 'grind levels' hoping to get 'the right drop', or re-do bosses just because that legendary didn't drop with the modifier you wanted.
GoW loot isn't random fwiw. It can be difficult to find sometimes, but the armor sets are themed around builds and also are usually in locations that make sense lore-wise.
It's like Dungeons and Dragons: nobody actually keeps loot dropped by monsters. They take it to town and sell it, and use the cash to craft magic items that they really want.
I don't like magic walmart stores or magic crafting for that reason. You're supposed to go adventure and do daring deeds to find cool stuff, not sit around knitting your own chainmaille +2. Like I'll talk with players about their builds to make sure they get items they need to make the build work, but what's the point of going on adventures if you know exactly what's going to happen?
Idk, i really don't like min-maxing. For one it almost always makes it a pain in the ass for the gm to create interesting encounters bc the totally mathematically optimized barbarian/wizard will ohk everything while the flavorful bard will struggle to stay alive and do anything. For another it's just like bro, are you here to have an adventure and save the kingdom from the king, or to do calculus homework? Like I don't mind when my players spend half an hour playing accountants and actuaries to divvy up the loot at the end of the session and pick out curtains and new furniture for the bar they run between adventures, but something about making your own bespoke magic items irks me.
I think it comes down to a distinction that maybe isn't real, but i feel like some players want characters who are special because of what they do, while other players want characters that are special because of what they are. I always start as a boring soldier or callow youth or minor temple functionary or whatever bc i want to watch the character grow and become a hero. People who start out with a totally min-maxxed purple eye'd half elf half dragon princess have always perplexed me.
I like the idea that your characters' adventures are exceptional moments of their lives, and they spend most of their time doing normal stuff in the place they live. I remember the Lord of the Rings RPG made a big deal out of this, characters could spend months or even years in between things happening so you had a real good idea of how they lived during that time.
(I can’t speak on Ragnarok because I haven’t played it yet)
Ragnarok is very good as well. There's a ton more armor sets, and upgrading one can cost a lot, but they each seem to have a distinct playstyle, which is good. Also, it's basically always suboptimal not to have the full set, which again I think is good design esp for an action game.
I was playing Torchlight 2 recently with some overhaul mod that added a lot to the game, also turned up the loot drops to the point there's like 20~ items on the ground after every large group. Even with the familiar that let's you auto vendor while you're still fighting I had to go back to town frequently to store items I might actually want. Really harshed the vibe to the point I rapidly lost interest in playing it.
One of the biggest fun-killers out there for me in gaming. I hate 'diablo loot', where there's a ton of random bullshit arms and armor, with random stats and rarity and little "+5% damage to undead" nonsense. Its petty, but it stresses me out to have to sort through 50 tons of useless bullshit just to make sure I'm keeping up with the difficulty treadmill.
Quite a few games I've dropped or avoided just because of this shit.
It's not petty, generic randomized loot sucks, period. Beyond the hassle, it removes a lot from the atmosphere.
I prefer the Baldur's Gate formula: basic weapons (declined in several metals), magical +1/+2/+x weapons, and the rest being rarer but unique artefacts with a cool small RP story attached to them in the description.
Pretty standard D&D stuff, too.
I guess it feels petty to me sometimes to feel like a single sub-system ruins a whole game to me.
Big example is probably Nioh 1+2; I'd love the games if they just gutted to the loot system out of it.
Smaller indie example of a game I dropped is Gordian Quest, a 'slay the spire' like where you have a team of people. And the gear is dumb diablo bullshit, gems sockets included. And just, I love everything else about the game, but the gear is just fun-killing to me.
If the gear isn't legendary or whatever the highest rarity tier is, it shouldn't have more than two stat modifiers. I played a lot of Diablo back in the day and it was out of control.
The absolute worst it should get:
Normal = no stat modifiers
Rare = one modifier
Epic = two modifiers
Legendary = three or (maybe) four modifiers
If you need more tiers than that, you've fucked up.
Legendary loot shouldn't be randomly generated and it should actually be difficult to find, you shouldn't get 10 random legendary drops from killing a boss. God of War actually does decent job of it (I can't speak on Ragnarok because I haven't played it yet) except for the fact that a couple of the sets are much better than the others and nobody uses most of them.
I mean, this is just my tastes, but I don't like any of that. I don't want random loot. I want items made intentionally by people. Even games that do random loot 'right', I still hate the system.
Like, Skyrim and Elden Ring are are think good examples for what I like in a 'loot system'. Its What You See Is What You Get for the most part. Neither are my favorite games overall (and also, Elden Ring still has more 'shitty items' than are probably necessary). But I like that the items are what they are. If you want to 'enchant them' to give them extra effects, you do so intentionally. You don't have to 'grind levels' hoping to get 'the right drop', or re-do bosses just because that legendary didn't drop with the modifier you wanted.
GoW loot isn't random fwiw. It can be difficult to find sometimes, but the armor sets are themed around builds and also are usually in locations that make sense lore-wise.
It's like Dungeons and Dragons: nobody actually keeps loot dropped by monsters. They take it to town and sell it, and use the cash to craft magic items that they really want.
I don't like magic walmart stores or magic crafting for that reason. You're supposed to go adventure and do daring deeds to find cool stuff, not sit around knitting your own chainmaille +2. Like I'll talk with players about their builds to make sure they get items they need to make the build work, but what's the point of going on adventures if you know exactly what's going to happen?
Idk, i really don't like min-maxing. For one it almost always makes it a pain in the ass for the gm to create interesting encounters bc the totally mathematically optimized barbarian/wizard will ohk everything while the flavorful bard will struggle to stay alive and do anything. For another it's just like bro, are you here to have an adventure and save the kingdom from the king, or to do calculus homework? Like I don't mind when my players spend half an hour playing accountants and actuaries to divvy up the loot at the end of the session and pick out curtains and new furniture for the bar they run between adventures, but something about making your own bespoke magic items irks me.
I think it comes down to a distinction that maybe isn't real, but i feel like some players want characters who are special because of what they do, while other players want characters that are special because of what they are. I always start as a boring soldier or callow youth or minor temple functionary or whatever bc i want to watch the character grow and become a hero. People who start out with a totally min-maxxed purple eye'd half elf half dragon princess have always perplexed me.
:I-was-saying:
I like the idea that your characters' adventures are exceptional moments of their lives, and they spend most of their time doing normal stuff in the place they live. I remember the Lord of the Rings RPG made a big deal out of this, characters could spend months or even years in between things happening so you had a real good idea of how they lived during that time.
Ragnarok is very good as well. There's a ton more armor sets, and upgrading one can cost a lot, but they each seem to have a distinct playstyle, which is good. Also, it's basically always suboptimal not to have the full set, which again I think is good design esp for an action game.
I was playing Torchlight 2 recently with some overhaul mod that added a lot to the game, also turned up the loot drops to the point there's like 20~ items on the ground after every large group. Even with the familiar that let's you auto vendor while you're still fighting I had to go back to town frequently to store items I might actually want. Really harshed the vibe to the point I rapidly lost interest in playing it.