Adjusting Item Level Requirements

[Werehound Silverfang]

There are a significant number of items designed to be used by lower levels but because of the properties they have aren't usable until frustratingly later.

The idea is to restructure itemvalue.2da to bring some designed-lower-level items into use sooner--especially for Rare and UltraRare items that scale to 40 extremely quickly, even more so since randomization dropped. This will also allow set items to be used sooner than many randomized items, giving them a greater incentive to use them earlier on (pre-Immo).

Current ILR and Proposed Table:

Level	Max Item Value	Level	Max Item Value	After Change ->	Level	Max Item Value	Level	Max Item Value
1	1,000	21	250,000		1	2,500	21	375,000
2	1,500	22	500,000		2	4,000	22	600,000
3	2,500	23	750,000		3	6,000	23	825,000
4	3,500	24	1,000,000		4	8,500	24	1,075,000
5	5,000	25	1,200,000		5	11,500	25	1,350,000
6	6,500	26	1,400,000		6	15,000	26	1,650,000
7	9,000	27	1,600,000		7	19,000	27	2,000,000
8	12,000	28	1,800,000		8	23,500	28	2,350,000
9	15,000	29	2,000,000		9	28,500	29	2,700,000
10	19,500	30	2,200,000		10	35,000	30	3,050,000
11	25,000	31	2,400,000		11	50,000	31	3,400,000
12	30,000	32	2,600,000		12	60,000	32	3,750,000
13	35,000	33	2,800,000		13	70,000	33	4,100,000
14	40,000	34	3,000,000		14	80,000	34	4,500,000
15	50,000	35	3,200,000		15	90,000	35	4,900,000
16	65,000	36	3,400,000		16	100,000	36	5,300,000
17	75,000	37	3,600,000		17	125,000	37	5,700,000
18	90,000	38	3,800,000		18	150,000	38	6,100,000
19	110,000	39	4,000,000		19	175,000	39	6,500,000
20	130,000	40+	4,200,000		20	200,000	40+	7,000,000

The new table also provides a more gradual increase in character power from items because the significant jumps at levels 21 and 40 are distributed more in earlier levels.

Thoughts? Reactions?

[Paradoom]

In general I like that idea, since from my own experience I can tell, that I nearly never use any set drops at those levels except some hellstuff at level 40. But if those numbers will work in the favor of that idea I have no clue at all. Newer players might find that much more helpful I can imagine.

[chirality]

Why is it advantageous to allow set items to be used pre-immo? Using LL and hells set loot at 38 or 40 is already possible and allows extremely strong gear to be used before LLs. Dropping the bar even lower to true lowbie levels seems like a mistake.

Consider that shop gear is, as a rule, exorbitantly overpriced and extremely useless past very low levels (20s). If the issue is that lower-level pre-immos need better gear, I'd like to see some sort of solution derived from having better shop gear available for purchase and use from late 20s+. The difficulty of completing higher-level pre-immo areas is that shop gear isn't good enough, so we're forced to rely upon farming random loots (slow and painful, but rewarding) and/or use "recycled" high-level gear from LLs/hells that can be used at low levels.

At the moment as best I can tell, most set loot already IS usable at far lower level than LLs--due to the valuation.

I agree that the valuation is extremely skewed and problematic, but my thought was always that this was in turn due to the way properties are weighted.

My impression is that the level limits is certainly not right, but if item level is determined by item value, my thought is that it's in fact the way items are valued which is the ultimate issue here.

I would like to see level-appropriate loot become more easily-obtainable (regarding time investment) for 20+ play. I would rather see lowbie random loot tables to be tweaked a bit to provide better rares and URs (lowbie random gear can actually be very nice, but it really requires intense and devoted grinding to start collecting anything more than "lucky 1 nice item i popped"; same goes for weapons), as well as introducing truly effective gear at shops. If the best solution is to produce a massive item level restructuring then it's better than nothing, but having LL loot filter down to provide for lowbie toons seems to only make the overall situation worse for new players (completely reliant on handouts, both for cash to buy ridiculously-expensive-yet-crappy shop gear, as well as item hand-me-downs).

Again, the way that value is assigned to an item based on its properties is truly the crux in my opinion. But I'm not sure how doable it would be to fix that.

[Werehound Silverfang]

Aug 5, 2013 1:33:35 GMT chirality said:

I would like to see level-appropriate loot become more easily-obtainable (regarding time investment) for 20+ play. I would rather see lowbie random loot tables to be tweaked a bit to provide better rares and URs (lowbie random gear can actually be very nice, but it really requires intense and devoted grinding to start collecting anything more than "lucky 1 nice item i popped"; same goes for weapons), as well as introducing truly effective gear at shops. If the best solution is to produce a massive item level restructuring then it's better than nothing, but having LL loot filter down to provide for lowbie toons seems to only make the overall situation worse for new players (completely reliant on handouts, both for cash to buy ridiculously-expensive-yet-crappy shop gear, as well as item hand-me-downs).

The idea isn't for Hell and LL gear for pre-immos as a good deal of that requires Immortal tag to use. (Arms of the Cinderscale, etc. don't I know.). The change is to change how items around the 5-25 mark are really high-ILR for items in HG; the scale is so quick after that. This change effectively mimics how different items are valued (properties and powers and their respective costs are lowered).

[chirality]

Ok.

[Werehound Silverfang]

Bump.

[desocupado]

Seems ok - basically every item drops 2/3 levels.

[FunkySwerve]

Hey Were, been a while. I'm not keen on sweeping changes without more specific ideas about what will change by how much. Plus, while I'd have to check, I think we can just tweak targeted items by applying value props, which would be a far more targeted approach, with a lot fewer potential unintended consequences.

Funky

[Werehound Silverfang]

I truly think this can provide a large QoL change for newer players. The change is incredibly minimal, but most effective at lowest levels, and better introduces players to the high-magic system that is HG PoA.


Any chance this could be revisited if just for pre-epic (1-20) levels? Perhaps it could be deployed on development server for testing, have players get a better feeling? 

There are a significant number of items designed to be used by lower levels but because of the cost of the properties they have aren't usable until frustratingly later-- e.g. Cleric's Coil +1 being usable at level 7 will become usable at level 4 (level 1 spell slots and 1 wis); Boots of Haste become usable at level 8 instead of 11.

Current ILR and Proposed Table:

Level	Max Item Value	After Change ->	Level	Max Item Value
1	1,000		1	2,500
2	1,500		2	4,000
3	2,500		3	6,000
4	3,500		4	8,500
5	5,000		5	11,500
6	6,500		6	15,000
7	9,000		7	19,000
8	12,000		8	23,500
9	15,000		9	28,500
10	19,500		10	35,000
11	25,000		11	45,000
12	30,000		12	55,000
13	35,000		13	65,000
14	40,000		14	75,000
15	50,000		15	85,000
16	65,000		16	100,000
17	75,000		17	125,000
18	90,000		18	150,000
19	110,000		19	175,000
20	130,000		20	200,000

[FunkySwerve]

I like the idea in principle, but I have the same problem as before. I also don't think that testing on dev is likely to bring out many problem cases. I might try to do an itemvalue dump for people to review and flag problem items at some point, though.

Funky

[Werehound Silverfang]

I'll be the first to volunteer to help.

I never did fully setup my development environment, and I think my only copy of the mod may be on the HDD I told you I'm waiting on (makes it near 2012-2013).

[FunkySwerve]

After discussing with Acaos, we are doing the 1-20 edits. The higher ones would need a stronger rationale - it's just way too unclear the effect that would have.

I will also try to do an itemvalue dump if people want to sift through it to advocate for 21-40, since I have to do another datamining operation anyhow.

Funky

[sabregirl]

Great news Funky! This change is probably one of the best quality of life changes for new players I can think of. I doubt changing 20+ is really needed as 1-20 is really the biggest problem. Having leveled MANY characters from 1-40 and beyond, the worst range for gear is 1-20. About lvl 24-26 random loot/gear starts catching up to what is needed. I have a big stockpile of lowbie gear in that range. There's lots of good random loot out there for earlier levels, you simply can't use it at a useful level. You're stuck with using expensive store bought gear rather than the random loot that's available. People get so used to buying gear, it's often hard for new players to make the transition from using store bought gear to random loot which is pretty much the only good gear past lvl 20ish.

After doing some checking, lvl 20 weapons would be usable at lvl 17 which is nice but not too overpowered. Lvl 29 weapons will still be usable at lvl 29.
Lvl 9 haste bracers will be usable at lvl 6 as will a nice random shield -Warrior's wall +2 with 5/ to bludg and pierce.
Tsaido's mental fortress (mind immune ring) will be usable at lvl 5 instead of lvl 8.

The message to new players should be, hunt for gear in loot piles. Save your money for heals and rezes!



-S

[Acaos]

Just wanted to note that we have hot-patched in the change for levels 1-20 and it will be seen on freshly-rebooted servers.

WARNING: If you equip an item which you could not previously have equipped on a rebooted server, and then attempt to log in to a server which has not yet been rebooted with this hotpatch, you will NOT be able to log in and your character may be locked out until the server you attempted to log in to has been rebooted, due to Bioware antiexploits.

Acaos