[nenja]

Earlier today, I sent this in a private message to Rogean for consideration. I want to share it here as a system for consideration to address a number of issues currently present and to be exacerbated with later expansions. The constant flow of threads related to the /list mechanic and associated items gives us a small glimpse into perhaps the biggest flaw with EQ - loot system - and what is really a more systemic issue that can relatively simply be remedied. I look forward to a constructive dialogue on people's thoughts.

Rogean,

I am hoping you will consider an idea for a change to the loot system on Project 1999 Green/Teal servers. I believe my proposal will address many of the issues which plague the community on these servers and which have required some amount of effort by not only you but the other p99 staff as well to police. This message became a bit longer than originally expected, so I apologize for that, but I wanted to be sure it was fairly well outlined.

Currently, rare named NPCs and raid boss NPCs have a static number of items they will drop upon death and an assigned chance for each of the possible items in their loot table. The issues with this system are many and well known by now. These include but are not limited to: kill stealing, camp stealing, training, complicated, divisive, and contentious guild loot distribution methods (DKP, loot council, etc.), existing absurd raid rules, policing of those raid rules, physically unhealthy play behaviour (8+ hour camping sessions), discourages new players from committing to the game once it becomes apparent their ability to obtain some items will be outright impossible or would require years of their life to achieve, and now the recent /list mechanic implemented on Green/Teal to address what would otherwise have been a mess. I appreciate the effort you and the rest of the p99 development staff have made to try and get ahead of a foreseen issue, but I think we can do better. The current state of EQ, loot, spawn rates, etc., was born out of a number of motives and interests but I think it's safe to say that two principles guided those decisions: a game publisher wanting subscribers to continue their paid subscriptions through forced loot gating mechanisms (e.g. keys, some loot in general) and to give some items a sense of value due to rarity.

Since we're already straying a little from the Keep-It-Classic (KIC) mindset - which I think is good - with the implementation of the /list mechanic, perhaps we can address the overall problem at once and still stay true to the latter of those two aforementioned principles. I propose we implement an CBL system, which is based loosely on a system introduced to World of Warcraft (likely other MMORPGs I'm unfamiliar with) and has been one of the single greatest QOL changes to that game. Roughly, the idea is as follows:

• Allow anyone that had 'engaged' with the NPC in question or anyone able to get to the corpse before its decay a chance to loot the corpse, regardless of who "tagged" it first
• All players able to loot the corpse have an equal chance to receive a single item from the NPC based on the NPCs loot table's item "drop" chances.

Let's consider a recently relevant example, the 'ghoul assassin'. As you likely know, this NPC will drop one of two items, the Guise of the Deceiver (later the Mask of Deception) and the Serrated Bone Dirk. The mask is the 'common' and the dirk the 'rare'. For simplicity sake, let's say that means a 66% chance for the mask and a 33% chance for the dirk, one of which is currently guaranteed to drop with every kill. Under the CBL system, the NPC is no longer guaranteed to always drop an item but instead provides each person looting the corpse a chance to receive an item. To this end, we set the % chance to lower values, e.g. mask = 10%, dirk = 5%. In this case, 85% of the time, the player would receive nothing, 10% of the time the mask, and 5% of the time the dirk. These chance values are, of course, arbitrary, but I know it is simple enough to determine values which would result in reasonable drop rates which also maintain a reasonable degree of rarity (more on this later).

What benefits does this mechanism provide?

• Fosters player coordination and cooperation rather than greed driven competition (e.g. guild raid bosses, small cliques of players locking down certain named/rare NPCs for the sake of personal gain, etc.)
• Vastly improved player satisfaction
• Vastly healthier player habits (i.e. no perceived or necessary 8+ hour camp sessions, no sense of need for 3 AM "bat phone" calls to get ahead of other guilds, etc.)
• Maintains reasonable item rarity while also resolving the unreasonable rarity of certain items (e.g. Earth Staff from Magi P'Tasi in Plane of Hate).
• No need for DKP/Loot Council/Other loot distribution systems, which create inherent tension, suspicion, and strained relationships amongst guild members
• No need for the current complicated and absurd raid rules
• No need for guild raid rotation in certain zones (e.g. Plane of Sky or similar)
• No need by p99 administration staff to police or be asked to police raid rules or similar
• No need to further develop, maintain, and police the /list system to account for the many ways some players will continue to seek to diminish the enjoyment of the game for others

I expect the primary argument against this system will be that it makes some items worthless from an economic standpoint. This is untrue, as items will still maintain a degree of rarity and some players will always prefer to pay for those items over trying to get them through camping the respective NPC. Likewise, it is because of how unreasonably 'rare' some items are, for a number of reasons, that results in the majority of undesirable player behaviors we experience on these servers and which diminishes overall enjoyment by the community at large.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this and those of the p99 staff, discussing how it might work on p99, and to answer any questions you may have.

Thanks.