Destiny: Loot Plot

[mtarzaim02]

Could somebody explain what the loot system is like?

Upon killing any enemy there is a slight chance that an item called an engram will drop in the form of a colored orb. Standard MMO colors apply, green common, blue rare, purple legendary. The engram in your inventory has an indicator as to which item slot the result will fit into. Picture of a gun, glove, boot etc.

The engram is taken back to the central hub of the game called the tower and turned in to an NPC called The Cryptarch. He takes the engram and wipes his... I mean, hands you the resulting randomly generated loot. The trouble is, after hours of tedious grind when you finally get a purple drop, the purple drop has a bout a 60% chance of not being purple at all, but blue. On the rare chance that the drop is, praise the random number generator Jesus, a purple; one of a couple things happen.

One, the item was a weapon of one of the three types ( Primary, Secondary, Heavy) and is then converted into a random weapon type within those categories. For example, a primary weapon randomly generates as either an auto rifle, pulse rifle, scout rifle, or hand cannon.

Two, the item was a piece of armor. In which case you are handed a purple piece of armor that can be for any class in the game, not just yours. So you got lucky enough for a drop, got extremely lucky enough for that drop to be purple, turned it in and hit the roughly 37% chance that the purple stays purple when turned in, then get handed the result with only a 33% chance that it is actually something for the class you play. P.S. the game has no mechanic to trade items between players, so you are stuck with it.

According to Bungie's ass brained devs, this was because it gave the Cryptarch NPC "a personality" during playtesting.


Edit: oh, and one more thing! The items, when awarded, are just a shell of what they are capable of ntil you wear them and earn metric assloads of experience, thus progressively unlocking abilities for the gear (better defense value/increased light, a stat that determines your character level over 20, special abilities, etc.

Trouble is the last 3 upgrades on the item take 6 of an item called an ascendant shard (for armor) or ascendant energy (for weapons) which are rare to the point of unattainable for 99% of the game's population and the only way to reliably attain them is to destroy purple gear, which might give you two.

I feel I should also point out that to bring a set of armor to full upgraded status requires 72 of these.

Well.
The loot designer can congratulate himself.
He/she made Lex Luthor proud. Or the Joker. Probably both.

 

[Queen Michael]

Could somebody explain what the loot system is like?

Upon killing any enemy there is a slight chance that an item called an engram will drop in the form of a colored orb. Standard MMO colors apply, green common, blue rare, purple legendary. The engram in your inventory has an indicator as to which item slot the result will fit into. Picture of a gun, glove, boot etc.

The engram is taken back to the central hub of the game called the tower and turned in to an NPC called The Cryptarch. He takes the engram and wipes his... I mean, hands you the resulting randomly generated loot. The trouble is, after hours of tedious grind when you finally get a purple drop, the purple drop has a bout a 60% chance of not being purple at all, but blue. On the rare chance that the drop is, praise the random number generator Jesus, a purple; one of a couple things happen.

One, the item was a weapon of one of the three types ( Primary, Secondary, Heavy) and is then converted into a random weapon type within those categories. For example, a primary weapon randomly generates as either an auto rifle, pulse rifle, scout rifle, or hand cannon.

Two, the item was a piece of armor. In which case you are handed a purple piece of armor that can be for any class in the game, not just yours. So you got lucky enough for a drop, got extremely lucky enough for that drop to be purple, turned it in and hit the roughly 37% chance that the purple stays purple when turned in, then get handed the result with only a 33% chance that it is actually something for the class you play. P.S. the game has no mechanic to trade items between players, so you are stuck with it.

According to Bungie's ass brained devs, this was because it gave the Cryptarch NPC "a personality" during playtesting.


Edit: oh, and one more thing! The items, when awarded, are just a shell of what they are capable of ntil you wear them and earn metric assloads of experience, thus progressively unlocking abilities for the gear (better defense value/increased light, a stat that determines your character level over 20, special abilities, etc.

Trouble is the last 3 upgrades on the item take 6 of an item called an ascendant shard (for armor) or ascendant energy (for weapons) which are rare to the point of unattainable for 99% of the game's population and the only way to reliably attain them is to destroy purple gear, which might give you two.

I feel I should also point out that to bring a set of armor to full upgraded status requires 72 of these.

Hahaha, good one, friendo! Really funny joke there, I can honestly tell you.

To be honest, I almost fell for that one! But at the end there it just wasn't plausible, though.

But honestly, what's it really like?

 

[Random Argument Man]

I don't think this is a joke. My parents did buy me socks instead of a N64. They thought that prank would be cute. I still hate having socks for christmas.

I'm not joking here. Having socks for Christmas is the ultimate insult for me.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Soooo, does anyone else realize that another "loot cave" was found on Earth?

Yep, not 24 hours after the nerf, someone else found a similar loot cave in the rocket yard on Earth. Apparently, this one is easier to solo, as the enemies come towards you rather than run away from you.

OT: Sad as it is, I could totally see that comic scenario happening IRL. Also, funny as hell.

 

[gamegod25]

Could somebody explain what the loot system is like?

Upon killing any enemy there is a slight chance that an item called an engram will drop in the form of a colored orb. Standard MMO colors apply, green common, blue rare, purple legendary. The engram in your inventory has an indicator as to which item slot the result will fit into. Picture of a gun, glove, boot etc.

The engram is taken back to the central hub of the game called the tower and turned in to an NPC called The Cryptarch. He takes the engram and wipes his... I mean, hands you the resulting randomly generated loot. The trouble is, after hours of tedious grind when you finally get a purple drop, the purple drop has a bout a 60% chance of not being purple at all, but blue. On the rare chance that the drop is, praise the random number generator Jesus, a purple; one of a couple things happen.

One, the item was a weapon of one of the three types ( Primary, Secondary, Heavy) and is then converted into a random weapon type within those categories. For example, a primary weapon randomly generates as either an auto rifle, pulse rifle, scout rifle, or hand cannon.

Two, the item was a piece of armor. In which case you are handed a purple piece of armor that can be for any class in the game, not just yours. So you got lucky enough for a drop, got extremely lucky enough for that drop to be purple, turned it in and hit the roughly 37% chance that the purple stays purple when turned in, then get handed the result with only a 33% chance that it is actually something for the class you play. P.S. the game has no mechanic to trade items between players, so you are stuck with it.

According to Bungie's ass brained devs, this was because it gave the Cryptarch NPC "a personality" during playtesting.


Edit: oh, and one more thing! The items, when awarded, are just a shell of what they are capable of ntil you wear them and earn metric assloads of experience, thus progressively unlocking abilities for the gear (better defense value/increased light, a stat that determines your character level over 20, special abilities, etc.

Trouble is the last 3 upgrades on the item take 6 of an item called an ascendant shard (for armor) or ascendant energy (for weapons) which are rare to the point of unattainable for 99% of the game's population and the only way to reliably attain them is to destroy purple gear, which might give you two.

I feel I should also point out that to bring a set of armor to full upgraded status requires 72 of these.

Hahaha, good one, friendo! Really funny joke there, I can honestly tell you.

To be honest, I almost fell for that one! But at the end there it just wasn't plausible, though.

But honestly, what's it really like?

No, that's exactly what it's like. Can't say about the exact percentages but...yeah the chances of getting anything good is pretty deplorable. Hell I'm drowning in weapon parts and hadronic essence (upgrade materials you get for scrapping useless guns and armor) from all the trash loot I get. And there is no vendor I can turn them into for more rep with a faction or anything, they are just piling up in my inventory uselessly.

Out of the hundreds of green/blues and dozen purples I've turned in, think I've gotten 1 exotic (and trust me that was a one in a billion chance, I felt like I'd won the actual lottery), three purple guns, and everything else has been generic trash blues and greens or (rarely) motes of light and strange coins which are a kind of currency. That all might not sound bad but when you consider how many engrams it took to get there it's like buying out every toy in a cheap mall vending machines just to get the one good thing in there you actually wanted. Yeah it's doable but it ain't fun.

Edit: Oh btw I've put an embarrassing amount of time into the game and tried to farm for engrams a few times. Your casual player won't stand a chance aside from pure blind luck.

 

[Nurb]

I don't see how a dev team with a BlizzAck publisher can include heavy MMO elements and screw up the loot system where very difficult missions/enemies don't have proper rewards.

 

[NortherWolf]

Quoted for Science!

Wha? I don't even?
That's the worst Cthulhudamned loot system I've ever heard about.
Who the hell thinks all those variables were a good thing for a game? Especially when there's no trade?
I'm glad these jokers did not get to continue making Halo, not sure about their mental health.

 

[Sanunes]

Yeah, it seems like they started with the borderlands 1 "everything is straight-up random, good luck!" principle, then started adding mechanics to make it _harder_ to get a set of acceptable gear together.

Not really confidence-inspiring, but then it sounds like the game's pretty bad all-around so that's not terribly surprising. Though the loot system and the enemy AI making Quake look like Deep Blue appear to be the stand-out ridiculously bad parts, with no one having expected the plot to be any good to begin with.

Actually it reminds me a lot more of Classic Diablo 3 for you would get items that were labeled for another class at legendary level and not be able to use them or even worse get one for your class and have useless stats on them. They fixed it greatly with the expansion. That is what I really don't understand about Destiny if they were adding MMO elements wouldn't you think they would call up a designer at Blizzard and ask what they learned from World of Warcraft of Diablo 3. I don't expect it to be the same, but maybe learn about what players like and dislike about loot systems and even quest systems. As I posted elsewhere I didn't buy Destiny I am just playing another person's copy, but it feels like they took some of the worst elements of Classic World of Warcraft and Classic Diablo 3 and figured people would enjoy what they disliked back then.

 

[major_chaos]

Well, the main reason for the hate-on seems to be eloquently (or rather the opposite) described in this movie:

So... They didn't like the story? whop-de-do, half the games out there have excuse plots lingering in the background and nothing more. At least Destiny's excuse plot had a element of hope, a sense of a quest to push back the dark, rather than the modern story driven game obsession with being "GRIMDARK". That's not to say I don't think they could have done way more with the great foundation they have, but I think the complaints are massively overblown due to hype backlash.

 

[Sanunes]

Well, the main reason for the hate-on seems to be eloquently (or rather the opposite) described in this movie:

So... They didn't like the story? whop-de-do, half the games out there have excuse plots lingering in the background and nothing more. At least Destiny's excuse plot had a element of hope, a sense of a quest to push back the dark, rather than the modern story driven game obsession with being "GRIMDARK". That's not to say I don't think they could have done way more with the great foundation they have, but I think the complaints are massively overblown due to hype backlash.

I think the story they have in the game is passable like many other games (such as you mention), I think the problem is the presentation of the story they do have. Peter Dinklage sounds like he is either duct taped to a chair or they recorded his lines when he had a head cold and since he is the primary source of lore in the game it hurts coupled with having the grimoire outside of the game entirely doesn't help matters.

My experience is there are a lot of little to moderate issues with the game that just pile on to make a bunch of small problems become big. I think I could live with the problems if they didn't make Vault of Glass the most interesting part of the game, but also the most restricted part to get to.

At the very least I am pretty sure Bungie is listening to what people are saying, for their next patch seems to be addressing the Engram issue. This line of the short patch notes is my favorite...

Cayde-6 took the Cryptarch aside and showed him a sack of doorknobs. He decoded that mystery pretty quickly.

 

[hazydawn]

Is it coincidence that this reminds me of Attack on Titan? I'm totally wasted 6:40am+drunk
probs the part about "it was at that moment that I..."

Edit: Didn't even get the quote right

 

[Eric the Orange]

As a long time WoW player, I have to ask;

Why the fuck do people think they're entitled to loot? Or good loot? Destiny is an MMO - you play for weeks or months in an MMO before getting what you want or need, much less the Best in Slot Item.

Yet Destiny has been out for less than 3 weeks and people already want to be Level 20+10, complete with Best in Slot Items? HA!

Well I stopped playing around Frozen Throne, so things could be different now. But from what I remember The loot system in WoW isn't really like that in destiny. The loot system in destiny is more like Diablo 3 or Borderlands 2.

In WoW you mainly got sure upgrades while leveling through quest rewards, very rarely would they drop from random mobs. for high end gear you would either do PvP and get sure points that would exchange for gear or dungeon bosses that would give KIND OF random gear. In that a Boss would ALWAYS drop a few good items, they may not be good for you but they would probably be good for someone in your group.

Also loot in WoW has fixed stats. A drop of a specific item from a boss will always be the same. Where as Destiny uses a random stat generator it's unlikely that any two items are the same.

Where as in Destiny everything is random. You get your upgrades throughout the game from random drops. Which would be fine if the drop rate of useful items was better. As it is you can be easily under equipped in some areas until you get lucky enough for a good drop in the right area. As for end game farming, Doing the equivalent of a WoW dungeon it's entirely probable that no one gets anything useful. This is because everyone gets separate loot, and their is no trading. So even if someone else in your group needs what you got and you need what they got their is no way to give them to each other.

 

[VanQ]

Could somebody explain what the loot system is like?

Upon killing any enemy there is a slight chance that an item called an engram will drop in the form of a colored orb. Standard MMO colors apply, green common, blue rare, purple legendary. The engram in your inventory has an indicator as to which item slot the result will fit into. Picture of a gun, glove, boot etc.

The engram is taken back to the central hub of the game called the tower and turned in to an NPC called The Cryptarch. He takes the engram and wipes his... I mean, hands you the resulting randomly generated loot. The trouble is, after hours of tedious grind when you finally get a purple drop, the purple drop has a bout a 60% chance of not being purple at all, but blue. On the rare chance that the drop is, praise the random number generator Jesus, a purple; one of a couple things happen.

One, the item was a weapon of one of the three types ( Primary, Secondary, Heavy) and is then converted into a random weapon type within those categories. For example, a primary weapon randomly generates as either an auto rifle, pulse rifle, scout rifle, or hand cannon.

Two, the item was a piece of armor. In which case you are handed a purple piece of armor that can be for any class in the game, not just yours. So you got lucky enough for a drop, got extremely lucky enough for that drop to be purple, turned it in and hit the roughly 37% chance that the purple stays purple when turned in, then get handed the result with only a 33% chance that it is actually something for the class you play. P.S. the game has no mechanic to trade items between players, so you are stuck with it.

According to Bungie's ass brained devs, this was because it gave the Cryptarch NPC "a personality" during playtesting.


Edit: oh, and one more thing! The items, when awarded, are just a shell of what they are capable of ntil you wear them and earn metric assloads of experience, thus progressively unlocking abilities for the gear (better defense value/increased light, a stat that determines your character level over 20, special abilities, etc.

Trouble is the last 3 upgrades on the item take 6 of an item called an ascendant shard (for armor) or ascendant energy (for weapons) which are rare to the point of unattainable for 99% of the game's population and the only way to reliably attain them is to destroy purple gear, which might give you two.

I feel I should also point out that to bring a set of armor to full upgraded status requires 72 of these.

Holy shit. I don't think I've ever read a more poorly design loot system in my life. Somebody sat down in a board room full of designers and every single one of them agreed that that would be a good idea. I'd rather kill myself than play an MMO with such an extraordinarily shitty loot system. And I raided in Vanilla WoW!

 

[Aerosteam]

Shoulda made the box purple and the socks green.

 

[EternallyBored]

As a long time WoW player, I have to ask;

Why the fuck do people think they're entitled to loot? Or good loot? Destiny is an MMO - you play for weeks or months in an MMO before getting what you want or need, much less the Best in Slot Item.

Yet Destiny has been out for less than 3 weeks and people already want to be Level 20+10, complete with Best in Slot Items? HA!

Well I stopped playing around Frozen Throne, so things could be different now. But from what I remember The loot system in WoW isn't really like that in destiny. The loot system in destiny is more like Diablo 3 or Borderlands 2.

In WoW you mainly got sure upgrades while leveling through quest rewards, very rarely would they drop from random mobs. for high end gear you would either do PvP and get sure points that would exchange for gear or dungeon bosses that would give KIND OF random gear. In that a Boss would ALWAYS drop a few good items, they may not be good for you but they would probably be good for someone in your group.

Also loot in WoW has fixed stats. A drop of a specific item from a boss will always be the same. Where as Destiny uses a random stat generator it's unlikely that any two items are the same.

Where as in Destiny everything is random. You get your upgrades throughout the game from random drops. Which would be fine if the drop rate of useful items was better. As it is you can be easily under equipped in some areas until you get lucky enough for a good drop in the right area. As for end game farming, Doing the equivalent of a WoW dungeon it's entirely probable that no one gets anything useful. This is because everyone gets separate loot, and their is no trading. So even if someone else in your group needs what you got and you need what they got their is no way to give them to each other.

There's also the fact that an enemy's level does not effect the quality of loot it drops. So if you kill a level one mook at level 20 and get a legendary engram, it will give you a lvl 16-20 item, if its actually legendary then it is pretty much a guaranteed level 20 item, and killing a level 25 strike (dungeon) boss and getting a legendary engram will give you the same level items.

This makes it far more useful to attack mass amounts of low level enemies over engaging the bosses. The end of a strike gives you an additional reward on the final score screen, but that's random too, and I've seen players with 3 times the number of kills and zero deaths compared to the rest of their team get totally screwed out of a final reward.

Things like the raid bosses or nighfall dungeon rewards are much better odds at getting great items, but those require you to at least already have a couple of legendary items to even have a high enough light level to do them, so the primary issue exists with the level 20-26 range where you are stuck with crappy strike team lists and the weekly strike being the best chance at getting legendaries outside of farming.

The way the loot system works basically rewards killing the lowest level enemies in the game over and over again until you get high enough to do raids, and the social features of the game lack matchmaking for raids and weekly strikes, so you have to either have 2-5 other friends on hand, or be willing to use a separate site to get people to add you to their friends list and invite you to a fireteam.

It's a really bizarre fucked up system that bares very little resemblance to WoW, unless they changed WoW to make it more time efficient to get max level epics by farming the enemies outside of the lvl 1 starting zone.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

According to the daily update that Bungie puts out on it's news section, the next patch that goes live next week will revamp the engram system. Basically, you get a blue engram, you get a rare item or a legendary item. You get a purple engram, you get a legendary or an exotic item.

Sauce: http://www.bungie.net/7_102-Patch-Preview/en/News/News?aid=12202

 

[tzimize]

hahahaha, lukes face when he relates the story is just precious. Great strip, I havent even played Destiny, but I've played a game or two with garbage loot systems before

 

[Requia]

As a long time WoW player, I have to ask;

Why the fuck do people think they're entitled to loot? Or good loot? Destiny is an MMO - you play for weeks or months in an MMO before getting what you want or need, much less the Best in Slot Item.

Yet Destiny has been out for less than 3 weeks and people already want to be Level 20+10, complete with Best in Slot Items? HA!

because WoW is shit and everything that imitates it needs to burn.