Treasure map balance

[Gheed]

I decided to take this topic to a new thread other than derailing a previous thread on a different topic. It's another t-map balance thread. I was toying around with some interesting ideas I had and wanted to know what you folks thought:

1. Chest Gaurdians - The name says it all. These gaurdians should not be able to be led away from the chest forcing others to deal with them. They should automatically teleport back to the chest if they stray too far. Also, if there is no chest to guard then there is no need for a chest guardian. Once the chest is destroyed, the guardian(s) should dispel with it.

2. Paragon/Blacrock infested maps - Paragon and Blackrock infected creatures should give Paragon and Blackrock infected maps. These maps would be hued fire orange or etheral respectively and spawn Paragon or Blackrock infected guardians initially with a high chance of of addtional guardians spawning with the same affliction. The chance these guardians will carry additional maps should be halved, but they could still drop minor arties or boxes.

3. Remove Trap - This skill has been overlooked for some time. I was thinking at first to suggest nerfing telekenisis to cause the explosion to damage the loot and lower it's intensity. Kind of the opposite of luck. But we really don't need another reason not to do t-maps. So I had a few other ideas that could work fine alone or in combination with each other:

a. Leave existing loot as is and add new loot to the tables. Then factor in the telekenisis explosion to give a high chance of destroying or severly damaging the new loot. Remove trap would guaruntee the additional loot would be in the chest and un-harmed. This could be loot for imbuing as a dev suggested before, a resource/rare gem cache (a commodity deed for various amounts of rare ingots or wood based on the level of the chest), ancient gold checks, different types of rubble, ML ingredients, rare (like 1/1000) chance of an artifact or set item. These are just ideas for new loot. Whatever the new loot would be, it should be substantial enough to merit GMing remove trap.

b. Change the telekenisis explosion to leave the chest in tact but scatter loot all around (like a crimson dragon kill) and initially spawn twice as many guardians. The gaurdians will immediately start gathering the loot (like looting a corpse) and would have to be defeated to get it back. The guardians will ignore you unless you attack them until all loot in the blast radius is gathered. If the chest is destroyed, the guardians will remain long enough to gather all loot on the ground in the blast radius, then they will dispel taking the loot with them.

c. Remove trap will actually place the trap in your pack. This trap can be dis-assembled by a tinkerer for rare resources, ingredients, imbuing items and rare gems similar to the items suggested in point a, and/or you can obtain different gears and parts from various dis-assembled traps that allow you to make other assembled items or enhancements. You can also just use the traps as you would an explosion pot... double click and throw.

d. Remove trap would eliminate or greatly decrease the chance of any additional guardians spawned by rummaging through the chest.


Well I think that about covers all my issues with t-hunting. Thanks for reading and letting me vent. Feel free to add more ideas or comments on mine.

 

[Olahorand]

Besides the fact, that I have read some similar ideas several years ago, which never got an ear of the developers, I like those ideas.
Of course the absurde failure rate of Remove Traps on high level chests at GM level should be adjusted then.
*Salute*
Olahorand

 

[Silly Seadog]

c. Remove trap will actually place the trap in your pack. This trap can be dis-assembled by a tinkerer for rare resources, ingredients, imbuing items and rare gems similar to the items suggested in point a, and/or you can obtain different gears and parts from various dis-assembled traps that allow you to make other assembled items or enhancements. You can also just use the traps as you would an explosion pot... double click and throw.

Arrrr, dis-assemblin' traps from paragon chests should give ye parts ta create runic tinker tools!

 

[Maplestone]

Remove traps becomes a debate over whether maps should be a solo activity. Once you add the requirement for remove traps (or mining), you start crowding a lot of templates, making them unviable (not to mention the high probability of needing a res when remove traps fails).

 

[Mistura]

A really quick way to fix treasure maps and make them really appealing again would be to change the loot to strongbox quest standard and allow any minor arty to spawn in the green bag, including ilsh paragon drops..

Surely this wouldn't be that hard and I know it would get plenty of people out doing maps again!

 

[Fink]

Can you suggest a good template for doing paragon/blackrock maps? Keep in mind you'll need carto, lockpick, and remove trap at gm, so 400 points left to play with. Fair warning: if you say "greater dragon" I'll bite you. Also, no cheating with +skill items as they're being considered for a nerf.

If you're wondering, yes I like to solo maps. I'm a treasure hunter, not a treasure sharer.

 

[gummy460]

I do agree that maps need a revamp.. the loot especially

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Good suggestions!

 

[Fink]

*re-reads..*

Gheed, I think you left out "randomise map locations"!

 

[Gheed]

*re-reads..*

Gheed, I think you left out "randomise map locations"!

AHHH! Please no RNG map locations! If ever there was an exact and equal opposite opinion to the majority... in most cases that opinion would be mine. But I can't have less love for any "enhancement" concept than I do for the typical RNG cop out... as anyone who reads my opinions on the mining changes might have realized. But those who took the time marking and indexing all those t-map locations for themselves or their public libraries should continue to reap that small benefit.

 

[laurlo]

generally good ideas

 

[gummy460]

I really do wish a dev would read this post

 

[Tom_Builder]

I just wish they would replace all the worthless crap in the chest with one good item.

 

[Maplestone]

I just wish they would replace all the worthless crap in the chest with one good item.

Define "good" in such a way that it is true today and two years from today.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

1. ABSOLUTELY. But I would go one step further in saying that any time there is still a guardian present, an item in the chest CANNOT be moved/taken out/etc. There should be no leftover guardians to roam OR dispell at the end of a chest.

2. Meh... not so sure about this one. I think that the chest loot in general needs to be revamped as a whole.

3. I think there's really not much that can be done about Remove Trap vs Telekinesis with Treasure chests. Instead I would save it for better quest-based content and other such traps that CANNOT be triggered by telekinesis.

 

[J0KING]

Sounds like some good ideas...

Only concern I would have is the cramping of templates to put that skill in... however... you left the option to still use the spell and then I remembered that soulstones exist...

Really like the idea of the guardians leaving when the chest is removed.

Have Fun!!!

 

[gummy460]

I personally think that fishing loot should get a look over too!!!!!

 

[Gowron]

I concur with the incentives for GM'g remove traps, but disagree entirely on penalties for using telekenisis. Overall good post by the OP.

 

[Antonio Cataneo]

lo why whining about templates every time? Do every skill need to have at least a COMPLETE template to ub3rh4xx0r it ?

 

[Maplestone]

*double clicks* ... "you have failed to decipher that post"

 

[deadite]

Good ideas. The community has suggested several ways to improve Treasure Hunting over the years. I wish the devs would move this up on their priority list.

With any luck, T-Hunting loot will be a part of the "balancing pass" that is supposedly happening now.

 

[gummy460]

dbl

 

[gummy460]

Good ideas. The community has suggested several ways to improve Treasure Hunting over the years. I wish the devs would move this up on their priority list.

With any luck, T-Hunting loot will be a part of the "balancing pass" that is supposedly happening now.

lets hope so!!!!!!

 

[Freelsy]

Complete revamp of T-maps....best damn idea i've heard in a long while please let the devs hear the proposed ideas or decide to upgrade the loot.

 

[Gheed]

There is some good input here. I wanted to take a second and address a few responses. The dynamic is to encourage reward for team play in completing treasure hunts. Not to punish folks who solo maps. But to make sure that if a group of two or three people decided to do a group hunt, then the loot could be adjusted to reward all by building the t-hunter template a little differently. I have always thought professions should be catered to be good at doing one thing or so-so at several jobs. So a pure t-hunter should be good at finding lots of treasure but not so good at fighing for it. Another example, the new coming crafting changes, are another fine example of a cramped template starting to force folks to specialize. I don't like it.... I LOVE IT!

Of course adding in remove traps makes it a little more difficult to defeat the spawn. But the trade off is more loot. Just for that piece let me make a few examples of a scaled drop. Using loot From my OP, here is an idea of the loot in addition to the normal drop distribution if you used remove trap…ok I’m dreaming:

Level 1
1 deed randomly committing 100-200 iron or normal wood resources.
1 rare gem
Rubble (common) 1 piece (25%)
Level 1 trap
common imbuing item


Level 2
1-2 deeds randomly committing 100-200 iron/ dull copper or normal/oak wood resources
1-2 rare gems
Rubble (common) 1 piece (50%)
1,000-3,000 ancient gold check (paragon/blackrock only) (25%)
Level 2 trap
common imbuing item
uncommon imbuing item (25%)


Level 3
2-3 deeds randomly committing 200-300 iron/dull copper/shadow or normal wood/oak/ash resources
2-3 rare gems
Rubble (common) 1 piece
Rubble (uncommon) 1 piece (25%)
3,000-5,000 ancient gold check (paragon/blackrock only) (25%)
Level 3 trap
common imbuing item
uncommon imbuing item (50%)



Level 4
2-4 deeds randomly committing 200-400 dull copper-copper or normal wood-heartwood resources
2-4 rare gems
Rubble (common) 1 piece
Rubble (uncommon) 1 piece (50%)
1 minor ML ingredient (20%)
5,000-10,000 ancient gold check (paragon/blackrock only) (25%)
Level 4 trap
common imbuing item
uncommon imbuing item (75%)
rare imbuing item (10%)



Level 5
3-5 deeds randomly committing 300-500 copper-verite or ash- bloodwood resources
3-5 rare gems
Rubble (common) 1 piece
Rubble (uncommon) 1 piece (75%)
Rubble (rare) 1 piece (10%)
1-2 minor ML ingredients (40%)
1 major ML ingredient (5%)
10,000-20,000 ancient gold check (paragon/blackrock only) (25%)
Set item (.1%)
Level 5 trap
common imbuing item
uncommon imbuing item
rare imbuing item (15%)


Level 6
4-6 deeds randomly committing 400-600 gold-valorite or heartwood-frostwood resources
4-6 rare gems
Rubble (common) 1 piece
Rubble (uncommon) 1 piece
Rubble (rare) 1 piece (15%)
1-3 minor ML ingredients (60%)
1-2 major ML ingredients (10%)
20,000-30,000 ancient gold check (paragon/blackrock only) (25%)
Set item (.5%)
artifact (.1)
Level 6 trap
common imbuing item
uncommon imbuing item
rare imbuing item (20%)
ultra rare imbuing item (1%)

Add an additional 50% chance to increase intensity/drop rate 20% for Paragon/Blackrock maps.

Failing to remove trap resulting in triggering the trap gives a 50% chance each piece of the loot will be destroyed.

Luck of the person removing the trap will be slightly factored into success chance of remove trap as well as the chance of destroying each item on a failed attempt to remove resulting in triggering the trap.

If you did not use remove trap there would be a high chance (85%) that each of these items would be destroyed (100% trap destroyed). So you could still do higher level chests solo without remove trap and have a pretty good chance of getting something of the new loot. Doing team hunts with remove trap would give you a lot more loot… but you might have to share… But with chest guardians set to teleport back to the chest and reset hate, soloing those level 6 paragon/blackrock chests become very difficult…. If not impossible.

With possibly 4 para/Blackrock ancient Wyrms hovering over the chest waiting to crush anyone who comes near, the strategy becomes very different. If using remove trap in a group, your mates’ primary objective is to keep the spawn occupied while you are grabbing as much loot as you can. Since remove trap also eliminated the chance for additional spawn, you are free shovel loot in your pack or to your beetle not worrying about additional spawn. As long as your mates don’t lead the initial spawn off too far or die, you are safe. If they do die or spawn bounces back to you... and if you think you have enough loot... you can destroy the chest and despawn the guardian's to bail out of the hunt. You can even add hiding to your template as your mates are doing the fighting.

T-hunting is an interesting profession. You can get the loot without having to kill anything at all. My ideas were just a way to expand on that and giving teamwork a boost without penalizing solo players too much. I like the use of RNG for things like this… determining the loot. To expand on that I would also like to suggest that the type of chest guardian that initially spawns also give a slight bonus to the quantity and intensity of the loot. A level 6 chest that spawns 4 AWs would give you better grade loot from the tables then a levl 6 chest that initially spawned say 1 AW and 3 lower creatures. I think this would get more folks to Ilsh as well farming those paragon maps. Also it’s another boost to doing Ilsh champ spawns on top of the already awesome boost coming soon. Those fire orange maps would be worth quite a bit. It’s fun to imagine anyway.

 

[Maplestone]

My concern with your loot tables is that adding too many resources risks devaluing other systems - you don't want to completely undermine mining and lumberjacking characters (unless the consensus is that scripting has won and those of us who get out and harvest are an eccentric minority).

As biased as I am in favor of solo hunting, the idea of rare supermaps balanced for groups is appealing. Something I noticed thinking about this: there are several ways for a character to mark an item (eg: completed treasure maps, crafted items, owned items), but there aren't any systems that mark an item with a party list. If the supermap idea was used, it would be nice to have the map somehow "completed by" the whole list of names who participated.

 

[Gheed]

My concern with your loot tables is that adding too many resources risks devaluing other systems - you don't want to completely undermine mining and lumberjacking characters (unless the consensus is that scripting has won and those of us who get out and harvest are an eccentric minority).

As biased as I am in favor of solo hunting, the idea of rare supermaps balanced for groups is appealing. Something I noticed thinking about this: there are several ways for a character to mark an item (eg: completed treasure maps, crafted items, owned items), but there aren't any systems that mark an item with a party list. If the supermap idea was used, it would be nice to have the map somehow "completed by" the whole list of names who participated.

I completely unsderstand your concerns with the loot tables. All of those examples were just that: examples to illustrate a point... which was ad a little loot for low end and a hell of a lot of loot for high end. And to show that without remove trap you would still blow most of the stuff up but probably get something new. So the new items added and amounts of those items is pretty open.. I just used examples of things that sounded cool to me.

The resources idea... I could argue that reagents currently in chests don't really seem to be hurting the reg market too much. At least I still sell plenty of them. And in all my years on these boards I have yet to see a "t-hunting is ruining the reagent market" post. The real demand concerning rare resources is for community collections. These days the only ingot vendors I have found have been selling Valorite upwards of 140 gps per. So a little extra influx into the system wouldn't be too damaging.

Also, I can see some future system to deliver tools to upgrade wood types much like garg axes and prospectors tools today. With that in mind I don't see that the amounts would be too far off what could be mined or chopped in a similar amount of time it would take to complete a "supermap" and divide the loot between all of those who participated.

I like the idea of group marking supermaps. Makes for a cool item to remeber the event. Also, maybe handing those in to community collections would give everyone on the list a big chunk of points. It really drives the whole team concept home. Something like 2k points per char flagged to a level 6 paragon/blackrock map. So one person doing the map gets 2k points, but if three complete it you EACH get 6k points. Of course you would have to add in system checks to make sure all who were flagged actually participated. Either by getting a % of damage points to the spawn, digging up the chest, picking the chest, or removing the trap. You could fiddle with interesting group templates too. One person digs, another picks, a third removes. Then you have 600 points to spare on each template for fighting the spawn. Not likely it would go that way but at least make it possible. Fun stuff to think about!

 

[Troll The T Hunter]

"With any luck, T-Hunting loot will be a part of the "balancing pass" that is supposedly happening now."

What is this balancing act you mention? Someone also mentioned something about crafting changes where is this written out by EA?

 

[Ozymandies]

I like these ideas, though I would just scale the magery skill required for telekinesis with map difficulty level (weight of lid requires higher magery skill).

My idea for t-maps was to turn in all those wands to get a wand of treasure finding, which would somehow boost the loot and guardians.

OZ

 

[Maplestone]

What is this balancing act you mention? Someone also mentioned something about crafting changes where is this written out by EA?

see town hall notes: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=107323

"A person working for Leuro doing a HUGE balance pass"

( a comment like that makes a nice inkblot in which everyone can see their wishes fulfilled )

 

[Uvtha]

A system years out of date. Good ideas.

 

[Tom_Builder]

I just wish they would replace all the worthless crap in the chest with one good item.

Define "good" in such a way that it is true today and two years from today.

I define good as something that I can use. Out of the last 100 level 5 maps I completed I think the best item was the gems. I can go to shame and kill earth elements to get them. I dont want some super reward, just something better then a peice of armor with a total of 20 resists or a wep with 5 ssi and 10 di. You get better loot off a monbat.