Is EVERYTHING supposed to be a loot fest...?

[☥ Docdra ☥]

I haven't bought the game yet (have to justify my GP sub somehow), but many of the reviews decry the fact that there is no real loot. They're upset that you grab crafting ingredients to upgrade, but that there aren't that many ingredients - they instead want to get that "shiny" loot, as if they have an addiction to gambling and need that "shiny" fix to feel satisfied now.

I remember games, from way back when, when you only got coins as loot. You had to kill enough to get enough to buy an upgraded weapon. Now, people just expect every monster/enemy to be carrying a random item that could be mundane, epic, legendary, or whatever??? How lazy people have become.

Instant gratification, brought to us by Social Media, has made lazy slobs of quite a number of folks apparently - or perhaps they should just get rid of the resources and go back to coins...

[MartyrSaint]

This game has upgrade mechanics, though. There's no "gambling" when you go out, all the loot is pre-determined.

[archonsod]

Yeah, it's the easy dopamine hit of having enemies explode like pinatas. I actually prefer it this way - means you can pick the weapons you actually want to use from the beginning and not find yourself having to flip halfway through because the RNG refuses to give you a better version.

[Naecabon]

The loot system in this game is just incredibly boring. All of the gear is very vanilla, very little player agency in choosing items, they try to ham up the Unique Weapons as being super meaningful but they're just dumb bonuses like "10% more DMG with this kind of attack" blabla, barely anything noticeable most of the time.

Gloves and boots are just 10% stat sticks and can't be upgraded, armor is just a raw dmg % stat stick depending on how much mana you want to trade off for it. I was 15 hours in and still hadn't seen a single Unique Wand yet before I got bored and took a break, so my entire game experience for that 15 hours was upgrading my Common Wand to a Fine Wand to an Exceptional Wand or whatever - real riveting stuff.

The game is fine-ish but the loot system is my biggest disappointment. It's really bland stuff. Your analogy here is just kind of off the mark and you really should just play the game to better understand why loot / crafting in this game sucks.

[☥ Docdra ☥]

Originally posted by MartyrSaint:

This game has upgrade mechanics, though. There's no "gambling" when you go out, all the loot is pre-determined.

I did not say this game has "gambling" - in fact I said it has "upgrade mechanics" just as you noted. I think you skimmed it without reading it...

Originally posted by Naecabon:

The loot system in this game is just incredibly boring. All of the gear is very vanilla, very little player agency in choosing items, they try to ham up the Unique Weapons as being super meaningful but they're just dumb bonuses like "10% more DMG with this kind of attack" blabla, barely anything noticeable most of the time.

Gloves and boots are just 10% stat sticks and can't be upgraded, armor is just a raw dmg % stat stick depending on how much mana you want to trade off for it. I was 15 hours in and still hadn't seen a single Unique Wand yet before I got bored and took a break, so my entire game experience for that 15 hours was upgrading my Common Wand to a Fine Wand to an Exceptional Wand or whatever - real riveting stuff.

The game is fine-ish but the loot system is my biggest disappointment. It's really bland stuff. Your analogy here is just kind of off the mark and you really should just play the game to better understand why loot / crafting in this game sucks.

As noted, I'll start playing once it officially launches on GP in two days, so all I've gone off of are reviews up to now. I avoid any streaming of games as a rule, but I don't have an issue with reading reviews - but still will play a game if the genre and other things appeal to me. With that said, thanks for a bit more detail on the upgrade/loot mechanics.

Originally posted by archonsod:

Yeah, it's the easy dopamine hit of having enemies explode like pinatas. I actually prefer it this way - means you can pick the weapons you actually want to use from the beginning and not find yourself having to flip halfway through because the RNG refuses to give you a better version.

I'm old-school enough where this may appeal to me too - we'll see.

[Nanashi]

Originally posted by ☥ Docdra ☥:

I haven't bought the game yet (have to justify my GP sub somehow), but many of the reviews decry the fact that there is no real loot. They're upset that you grab crafting ingredients to upgrade, but that there aren't that many ingredients - they instead want to get that "shiny" loot, as if they have an addiction to gambling and need that "shiny" fix to feel satisfied now.

hmm. I think a lot comes down nowdays to many people believing every game needs to be for everyone. so they play every new release even though it clearly caters to a different target group than they are part of. This might be one of these criticisms. And it is a fair argument. Some people might not like that aspect of the game.

Funnily enough this easily swings into the other direction where people complain about too much loot - see Nioh and Wo Long.

Originally posted by Naecabon:

they're just dumb bonuses like "10% more DMG with this kind of attack" blabla, barely anything noticeable most of the time.

never really get this argument. What exactly do you want to have in games? I mean I agree that the game has very little choice in regards to different playstyle due to equipped weapons (at least from what I've seen in videos) but isn't that the same in most RPGs? Even DS / BB / ER doesn't have all that much meaningful bonuses on new gear with a few exceptions. RPGs are mostly a stat-centric game. Choosing the right stats is going to make the difference (or not really, depending on the chosen difficulty). Taking another RPG as an example, Skyrim pretty much doesn't have any unique effects on the best gear you can get. All the unique effect gear is not "best-in-slot". Big special effects can be fun (see D3) but it's also a fine line to walk.

[themadpoet]

Originally posted by ☥ Docdra ☥:

I haven't bought the game yet (have to justify my GP sub somehow), but many of the reviews decry the fact that there is no real loot. They're upset that you grab crafting ingredients to upgrade, but that there aren't that many ingredients - they instead want to get that "shiny" loot, as if they have an addiction to gambling and need that "shiny" fix to feel satisfied now.

Yeah, this might be my favorite gear system in a western RPG just because of this (we'll see if it gets grindy later or not). It's a good mix of some equipment that you might want to try, crafting ingredient you keep around for upgrades, and the rare unique item you can customize. It's got a little bit of survival game DNA in there.

Never really liked sorting out a ton of useless stuff to sell to a vendor just so I can buy something else. The decisions are better here IMO: Do I keep upgrading this thing I like, or switch it out for something else? Do I shell out cash for an upgrade or can I wait? Feels like more adult decisions instead of being a loot vacuum.

[Lexi]

Originally posted by themadpoet:

Originally posted by ☥ Docdra ☥:

I haven't bought the game yet (have to justify my GP sub somehow), but many of the reviews decry the fact that there is no real loot. They're upset that you grab crafting ingredients to upgrade, but that there aren't that many ingredients - they instead want to get that "shiny" loot, as if they have an addiction to gambling and need that "shiny" fix to feel satisfied now.

Yeah, this might be my favorite gear system in a western RPG just because of this (we'll see if it gets grindy later or not). It's a good mix of some equipment that you might want to try, crafting ingredient you keep around for upgrades, and the rare unique item you can customize. It's got a little bit of survival game DNA in there.

Never really liked sorting out a ton of useless stuff to sell to a vendor just so I can buy something else. The decisions are better here IMO: Do I keep upgrading this thing I like, or switch it out for something else? Do I shell out cash for an upgrade or can I wait? Feels like more adult decisions instead of being a loot vacuum.

100% agreed i have the same opinion, if i wanted to grind my life with loot randomizers i would play a grinding game, this is pure RPG and its pretty nice. 25 hours in so far.

[MartyrSaint]

Originally posted by Lexi:

Originally posted by themadpoet:

Yeah, this might be my favorite gear system in a western RPG just because of this (we'll see if it gets grindy later or not). It's a good mix of some equipment that you might want to try, crafting ingredient you keep around for upgrades, and the rare unique item you can customize. It's got a little bit of survival game DNA in there.

Never really liked sorting out a ton of useless stuff to sell to a vendor just so I can buy something else. The decisions are better here IMO: Do I keep upgrading this thing I like, or switch it out for something else? Do I shell out cash for an upgrade or can I wait? Feels like more adult decisions instead of being a loot vacuum.

100% agreed i have the same opinion, if i wanted to grind my life with loot randomizers i would play a grinding game, this is pure RPG and its pretty nice. 25 hours in so far.

Yeah, just go play borderlands if you want an infinite loot generator.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Nanashi:

never really get this argument. What exactly do you want to have in games? I mean I agree that the game has very little choice in regards to different playstyle due to equipped weapons (at least from what I've seen in videos)

Funnily enough it actually doesn't. Fighting with daggers is an entirely different proposition to using swords, which are different again from spears, axes, maces and hammers. Similarly the bow and gun differ on more than just rate of fire and damage, and that's before you get into what happens when you start putting things in your off hand (or using two handed), playing with the two loadout slots (there's skills that do just that) or unarmed fighting. Then of course there's the magic system ...
The other thing that makes it interesting is that the uniques can have their enchantment upgraded to one of two options (for example, my current favourite pistol deals shock accumulation on hit, upgrade options were to apply that shock accumulation to nearby enemies or to have it cast a lightning bolt spell 25% of the time), and a lot of those effects are also present on the gloves and boots which also let's you play with those effects in interesting ways.

[☥ Docdra ☥]

Yeah, the skills PLUS the weapon variety sound interesting enough to me without having to have every mob carrying around invisible weapons they never use. I'm also glad this isn't another 100+ hour game, but has some replay-ability if you simply want to try out different weapon & skill combos. However, I'm still not getting it until launch day

[Minneyar]

I'm on the fence about buying the game or not, and hearing that it's not a lootathon is one of the most positive things I've heard about it. I hate it when games shower me in hundreds of different piece of equipment that all have slighting different affixes and bonuses and I have to spend entire game sessions sorting through them to figure out what's good -- and crafting systems are just another layer on top of loot systems that add more unnecessary padding to the game.

[The Big Weeb]

Anyone with more than 30 minutes in either PoE title will tell you this game is incredibly faithful to the source. The game(s) encourage you to upgrade weapons you want to use and scrap the ones you dont for upgrade materials. Everyone knows the uniques are the only items worth caring about anyway.

[Blade]

People reviewing this game never played a Pillars game.

[zaratan4o]

Originally posted by Naecabon:

The loot system in this game is just incredibly boring. All of the gear is very vanilla, very little player agency in choosing items, they try to ham up the Unique Weapons as being super meaningful but they're just dumb bonuses like "10% more DMG with this kind of attack" blabla, barely anything noticeable most of the time.

Gloves and boots are just 10% stat sticks and can't be upgraded, armor is just a raw dmg % stat stick depending on how much mana you want to trade off for it. I was 15 hours in and still hadn't seen a single Unique Wand yet before I got bored and took a break, so my entire game experience for that 15 hours was upgrading my Common Wand to a Fine Wand to an Exceptional Wand or whatever - real riveting stuff.

The game is fine-ish but the loot system is my biggest disappointment. It's really bland stuff. Your analogy here is just kind of off the mark and you really should just play the game to better understand why loot / crafting in this game sucks.

Yeah, it's pretty bad so far. (like around 10hrs~ in)

It limits you a lot. Wanna change weapon? You put your limited materials into another one, so you can't upgrade a different one. Have to stick with that one you already invested in, can't switch. As other will be useless.

Seems like 80% of the player power is in the weapon. So dmg stick>everything else (like character, skill and exploration). Which feels bad.

Pointless to explore for the most part. Particularly because you are often met with high level enemies that can 2-3 shot you and take 10 minutes to kill. (on hard)

But even when I spend 20-30 minutes of effort to somehow deal with them, you get almost nothing. They give practically no experience. Which makes it feel quite bad and pointless.(I guess partly because it's gear based or w/e? still give next to nothing in general)

Haven't dropped any items either. Outside the most basic starter stuff.

Only reason is to find some unique items, which also aren't really useful, particularly early on. They not gonna make your character suddenly strong. (and weapon, you still have to upgrade it, if you find one)

Yes, it tells you to go upgrade your gear in camp, to match up to the enemies. But it goes back to limited resources, I want to use a different weapon. Upgrade the current one, one more time? Pretty much all resources gone, which means I have to stick with that crap for much longer still. (I'd like to think there is a way to get a lot more crafting matts somehow, already)

[Nanashi]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by Nanashi:

never really get this argument. What exactly do you want to have in games? I mean I agree that the game has very little choice in regards to different playstyle due to equipped weapons (at least from what I've seen in videos)

Funnily enough it actually doesn't. Fighting with daggers is an entirely different proposition to using swords, which are different again from spears, axes, maces and hammers. Similarly the bow and gun differ on more than just rate of fire and damage, and that's before you get into what happens when you start putting things in your off hand (or using two handed), playing with the two loadout slots (there's skills that do just that) or unarmed fighting. Then of course there's the magic system ...
The other thing that makes it interesting is that the uniques can have their enchantment upgraded to one of two options (for example, my current favourite pistol deals shock accumulation on hit, upgrade options were to apply that shock accumulation to nearby enemies or to have it cast a lightning bolt spell 25% of the time), and a lot of those effects are also present on the gloves and boots which also let's you play with those effects in interesting ways.

that might be true. i havent seen much in the first few hours and didnt want to spoil too heavily. but isnt it like 6-8 weapon types in total? I could obviously be wrong here. and are axes actually different than maces?

regardless there are games with more choice even in the beginning. so I could see why someone would be disappointed there.

Not that it really matters in the context of the initial question. Im still wondering what else should be the difference of weapons in an RPG other than stats.