OG Heroics Loot Drops

ono said:

First of all, I would like to apologize for any mispellings, incorrect names or confused text, as I didnt had the time to revise it and wrote it in a hurry between work and other real life stuff.

Observation 1: As professions and gear are at the current state of the game/server, a few of these heroic instances are actually soloable by multiboxing or done with very few players multiboxing or not. So, have to take in mind a few favored groups might farm them, making the better loot extremely common, or actually harming groups from being formed, as they'll want less people to run these so they can sell the loot.

So maybe loot chance is not such a great idea, but maybe running X ammount of times for collections and increased token drop chance, so you can buy the stuff off vendors, would be the best approach to making interest in OGs better? Not sure. Something to be discussed by more adept and inteligent players than I.

Observation 2: I suggested a chance to drop aurilian crystals, but those could be any other type of consumables, such as the ones from world bosses or eisley cantina vendor, which I'm not very knowledgeable of. I just find that aurilian crystals are very rarely bought, as they consume tokens which arent really cost effective nor most will take the trouble to grind tokens just to get them. Feels like those items are very underused due to their cost effectiveness.

My take on how OGs should be, in general:
- Should be seen as content you could do on a daily basis, preferrably with a full group of at the keyboard players, without punishment to the ammount of hours you devote doing them.
- Should have relevant loot for a varied ammount of content, so it people have reasons to run it, as in, choose to run them with the ammount of playtime they have in a day.
- Should not, however, replace content already in the game that requires groups, such as Mustafar. Replacing solo afk junk farming? Sure. Replacing people wanting to run Droid Army and HK-47 for junk? No. The general philosophy is to be another daily group content that can be done, but not kill other group content.

OG heroics is still content most new players to the server or at least new chars absolutely have to run to remain competitive. They're also the best way to find heroic earrings, something most people on the server, I believe, need it constantly. So I do believe the loot on heroics need to be updated so it comes back as something people could/should run on the daily.

Also, this update should follow a QoL update on heroics that makes them shorter. People who are on the server for a long time, or just playing SWG for a long, feel kinda bored by doing OGs. Plus, they can take up to two hours with some groups. A lot of people dont have much time to play, as MMO player bases get older and older, with more real life stuff getting on the way.

The interest is kinda low to many, while another good portion of the population need them very badly and can't fill groups. I, for instance, have three characters as Medics just so I can try finding group more easily so I can finish my 10s, get heroic jewelry and get a synapse and biological focus crystal on each - and it has been very, very, VERY hard to. Often, staff has to go on runs just to help the server population get OG tokens. I don't think that's fun for them and games should be fun.

So I do believe making the loot better and the duration to complete them all shorter a very good update that could renew interest not only in OGs, but in the game/server for many players.

1. The OG deco: They don't need to be removed, but lower chances or the ammount of NPCs/loot boxes that give the EK, ISD, Am, IG and TK deco. Most people delete those, at this point. But make it less common, don't make it uncommon enough for it to be rare again. Maybe pick na specific boss/mob where they have a higher chance? Let them be common, just not everywhere and from most heroic boxes you open. Even stat loot would be more useful than them at this point in the game. I have an idea for the decoration items, below.

2. Junk loot: Much like the Mustafar instances Droid Army and HK-47, maybe pick a stack of 3 or 4 specific types of junk loot, so heroics become something people can farm so they have stacks of junk loot to grind powerbits - but not varied enough to abolish the need to explore to find different junk for different combinations to make modifiers, and not too many types, so it doesnt occupy more than 3 or 4 inventory slots. Make them something most mobs will drop adjunct to something else, often, so each full run gives you at least 15 of each or more.

3. Statted loot, multi stats and 23+: Maybe also explore the possibility of making statted loot useful for Reverse Engineering something that drops more often from heroic mobs? Not only the Champion jewelry could drop from non-bosses, but multistatted and 23+ could drop more often? Would be a good incentive to run OGs. They already drop these, just make Champion jewelry dropable from non-bosses and the other types of stat loot more common.

4. Tokens. Consider making tokens also have a chance to be looted, or maybe given when you complete the daily quests an X ammount of times. (not sure if this is already implemented). I think many NGE servers currently have ways of increasing the ammount of tokens you receive. Here, we have speed runs, but many players don't really have access to those due to player association/time/skill/gear constraints. Explore new ways of increased token gain, by blunt grind or RNG, would be nice.

5. Augmentations in OGs are mostly trash, while the ones in Legendaries are often the capped values from live. Consider improving augmentations from OGs and making them a common mon drop and not boss drop, or removing them completely - as it is, they're mostly trash to be deleted and a huge disapointment when bosses drop them.

6. Not sure on how the rare loot system/boxes work here. Do they drop in OGs? that would be nice.

7. OGs is probably the content most people repeated the most during their SWG lives. Maybe consider placing new stuff on them, such as collections (repeatable or not) and rewards? Something like, when you kill 100 ammount of a mob, you get a new title (not repeatable) and 100.000 credits (repeatable) and the collection resets for the credits. Maybe not just title and credits, but items, too? Such as the common deco no one wants to loot, anymore? Transforming the decorations into items everyone will get, through slayer/grinding collections, seems like a cool alternative to getting them out of the way on loot tables and making them remain relatively common. A few examples of collection ideas:

7.1. Every time you kill 300 Flesh Eaters (it's the mob most get access to) at TK, you get 200.000 credits, a title and tusken vents.

7.2 Every time you kill 1000 any tuskens at TK, you get a title, 200.000 credits and tusken shelves.

7.3 Every time you kill 100 droidekas at IG, you'll get title, credits and an IG wall lamp.

And so on. With this, you get a credit incentive to run OGs, as the payout for all the collections would be considerable. Decorations would be common but not on the way of better loot and new titles are always very fun.

8. Make the stuff that drops from events something that you also buy with OG tokens, such as the Morkugai shadow scroll, Muhr talisman, geonosian speeder and such. (sorry if they are already implemented in another gameplay I'm not aware of).

9. Specific loot for the instances:

9.1. Axkva Min:
- Any of the bosses have a low chance to drop 4/5 sith holocrons, waistpack and meditative, so running this instance would be an option outside of grinding nightsisters on the open world.
- Only Nandina can drop the beret, low chance.
- Only Kimaru can drop aurilian crystals, on a random chance of the lowliest ones to the better ones (she'll have a chance of dropping better crystals than other mobs from other instances, but also lowlier ones like the ones found in other instances).
- Only Suin Chalo can drop the Nightsister's Energy lance.
- Axkva has a very low chance to drop the Sith Speeder.

9.2. IG-88:
- The bomber droids have an increased drop on junk and statted loot.
- The droidekas have a low chance of dropping aurilian crystals.
- The flamer droids have a low chance of dropping the geonosian speeder and a new flamethrower schematic that allows grenades to be used without swapping weapons, when using grenadier, (similar in stats to the repeater on the legends server), but not locked to acid.
- IG-88 has the same chance of dropping the IG head, a lower chance of dropping a yt-2400 house, and an even lower chance of dropping a new painting based on the Shadows of the Empire game for the Nintendo 64, where IG-88 is the villain. Make it a rare and prized decoration item.

9.3. Tusken Army:
- the Warlords on phase 2 have a very low chance of dropping rare collection pieces, such as the Dooku or house storage ones. Many others in the game I cant or dont need to recall right now, but we can work on a list. Not enough to prevent players from going outside into the world to farm collections and explore, but enough to reward those with less play time and in need of a dopamine surge during OGs.
- the gold elites during clearing phase can have a low chance to drop aurilian crystals.
- Extremely absurdly rare maybe Exar Kun Mural level chance that the Tusken King will drop a Synapse Crystal.

9.4. Exar Kun:
- A rare chance of each boss dropping rare collections pieces.
- Cultists at first boss and the static spawns before the fourth boss have a low chance of dropping aurilian crystals.

9.5. ISD:
- Every gold elite has a low chance of dropping aurilian crystals.
- the Squadleader on second phase has a very low chance of dropping some rare ship schematic.
- Extremely absurdly rare maybe Exar Kun Mural level chance that the last boss will drop a Biological Focus Crystal.


If putting so much into OGs seems like detrimental to other aspects of the game, I apologize for not planning well enough, but remember the philosophy here is to be a huge incentive to: GROUP gameplay, AT THE KEYBOARD gameplay and cram as much as possible under a few hours of weekly gameplay, as many get turned off from the game because they can't play many hours per week, can't afk or bot content often or at all.


Edit 1:
A few suggestions to cut heroic completion time:

ISD:
- Remove the space travel to ISD. I know it's awesome and it can be less incentive for people to invest in grinding space and buying space parts, but very few people on this server grind to ace, and many actually couldn't afford buying POBs and equipping them because it's so expensive for new players.
Also, I have a bug where I can't actually invite people to my POB if I'm dual logging an alt, which means I would have to grind ace and buy/equip a POB for every character I would want to fly to ISD. I wouldn't mind doing this, as I enjoy playing the game and finding stuff to do in it, but it can be a turn off to many. Yachting takes too long. Not to mention the times people got stuck at Ord Mantell space.
- Make the wait time after the conversation to unlock the elevator, faster. No reason it can't be instantly unlocked, story or mechanic wise.

TK:
- Increase expert spawns in tusken army. Want to make it harder? Increase the number gold elite spawns, too. We don't mind hard, we mind wasting time.

EK:
- Make half the cultists spawn during the first boss of EK at once, thus taking two waves to kill them all. Seems extreme? Then make just 4 waves at the most. Again: We don't mind hard, we mind wasting time.
- Make the 3rd boss on EK take twice as much damage. Really, that phase is just a time sink. It presents zero challenge to groups as professions currently are. I've healed that with Katarn armor and no jewelry, so I do believe very few groups considering the level of skill and gear with this server, will have issue with that fight being hard. Really, it's just a time sink.

IG:
- Remove the shields IG uses. Again, no challenge, just time sink.

AM:
- Is there a way to shorten Axkva's dialogue at the and? Sometimes it feels the dialogue takes longer than the entire instance.


Edit 2:
I haven't included any BM related loot/reward because I don't know much of BM on this server. But anything regarding rare DNA drops, stuff for creature engineering, etc. I'm all in favor of. I love BM, but didn't get to know/do much of it on Beyond yet.

Edit 3:
I apologize for any redudant suggestion. I'm newish to Beyond and don't know many of the new exclusive items and ways to obtain it. Sorry in advance!

Click to expand...

ono said:

First of all, I would like to apologize for any mispellings, incorrect names or confused text, as I didnt had the time to revise it and wrote it in a hurry between work and other real life stuff.

Observation 1: As professions and gear are at the current state of the game/server, a few of these heroic instances are actually soloable by multiboxing or done with very few players multiboxing or not. So, have to take in mind a few favored groups might farm them, making the better loot extremely common, or actually harming groups from being formed, as they'll want less people to run these so they can sell the loot.

So maybe loot chance is not such a great idea, but maybe running X ammount of times for collections and increased token drop chance, so you can buy the stuff off vendors, would be the best approach to making interest in OGs better? Not sure. Something to be discussed by more adept and inteligent players than I.

Observation 2: I suggested a chance to drop aurilian crystals, but those could be any other type of consumables, such as the ones from world bosses or eisley cantina vendor, which I'm not very knowledgeable of. I just find that aurilian crystals are very rarely bought, as they consume tokens which arent really cost effective nor most will take the trouble to grind tokens just to get them. Feels like those items are very underused due to their cost effectiveness.

My take on how OGs should be, in general:
- Should be seen as content you could do on a daily basis, preferrably with a full group of at the keyboard players, without punishment to the ammount of hours you devote doing them.
- Should have relevant loot for a varied ammount of content, so it people have reasons to run it, as in, choose to run them with the ammount of playtime they have in a day.
- Should not, however, replace content already in the game that requires groups, such as Mustafar. Replacing solo afk junk farming? Sure. Replacing people wanting to run Droid Army and HK-47 for junk? No. The general philosophy is to be another daily group content that can be done, but not kill other group content.

OG heroics is still content most new players to the server or at least new chars absolutely have to run to remain competitive. They're also the best way to find heroic earrings, something most people on the server, I believe, need it constantly. So I do believe the loot on heroics need to be updated so it comes back as something people could/should run on the daily.

Also, this update should follow a QoL update on heroics that makes them shorter. People who are on the server for a long time, or just playing SWG for a long, feel kinda bored by doing OGs. Plus, they can take up to two hours with some groups. A lot of people dont have much time to play, as MMO player bases get older and older, with more real life stuff getting on the way.

The interest is kinda low to many, while another good portion of the population need them very badly and can't fill groups. I, for instance, have three characters as Medics just so I can try finding group more easily so I can finish my 10s, get heroic jewelry and get a synapse and biological focus crystal on each - and it has been very, very, VERY hard to. Often, staff has to go on runs just to help the server population get OG tokens. I don't think that's fun for them and games should be fun.

So I do believe making the loot better and the duration to complete them all shorter a very good update that could renew interest not only in OGs, but in the game/server for many players.

1. The OG deco: They don't need to be removed, but lower chances or the ammount of NPCs/loot boxes that give the EK, ISD, Am, IG and TK deco. Most people delete those, at this point. But make it less common, don't make it uncommon enough for it to be rare again. Maybe pick na specific boss/mob where they have a higher chance? Let them be common, just not everywhere and from most heroic boxes you open. Even stat loot would be more useful than them at this point in the game. I have an idea for the decoration items, below.

2. Junk loot: Much like the Mustafar instances Droid Army and HK-47, maybe pick a stack of 3 or 4 specific types of junk loot, so heroics become something people can farm so they have stacks of junk loot to grind powerbits - but not varied enough to abolish the need to explore to find different junk for different combinations to make modifiers, and not too many types, so it doesnt occupy more than 3 or 4 inventory slots. Make them something most mobs will drop adjunct to something else, often, so each full run gives you at least 15 of each or more.

3. Statted loot, multi stats and 23+: Maybe also explore the possibility of making statted loot useful for Reverse Engineering something that drops more often from heroic mobs? Not only the Champion jewelry could drop from non-bosses, but multistatted and 23+ could drop more often? Would be a good incentive to run OGs. They already drop these, just make Champion jewelry dropable from non-bosses and the other types of stat loot more common.

4. Tokens. Consider making tokens also have a chance to be looted, or maybe given when you complete the daily quests an X ammount of times. (not sure if this is already implemented). I think many NGE servers currently have ways of increasing the ammount of tokens you receive. Here, we have speed runs, but many players don't really have access to those due to player association/time/skill/gear constraints. Explore new ways of increased token gain, by blunt grind or RNG, would be nice.

5. Augmentations in OGs are mostly trash, while the ones in Legendaries are often the capped values from live. Consider improving augmentations from OGs and making them a common mon drop and not boss drop, or removing them completely - as it is, they're mostly trash to be deleted and a huge disapointment when bosses drop them.

6. Not sure on how the rare loot system/boxes work here. Do they drop in OGs? that would be nice.

7. OGs is probably the content most people repeated the most during their SWG lives. Maybe consider placing new stuff on them, such as collections (repeatable or not) and rewards? Something like, when you kill 100 ammount of a mob, you get a new title (not repeatable) and 100.000 credits (repeatable) and the collection resets for the credits. Maybe not just title and credits, but items, too? Such as the common deco no one wants to loot, anymore? Transforming the decorations into items everyone will get, through slayer/grinding collections, seems like a cool alternative to getting them out of the way on loot tables and making them remain relatively common. A few examples of collection ideas:

7.1. Every time you kill 300 Flesh Eaters (it's the mob most get access to) at TK, you get 200.000 credits, a title and tusken vents.

7.2 Every time you kill 1000 any tuskens at TK, you get a title, 200.000 credits and tusken shelves.

7.3 Every time you kill 100 droidekas at IG, you'll get title, credits and an IG wall lamp.

And so on. With this, you get a credit incentive to run OGs, as the payout for all the collections would be considerable. Decorations would be common but not on the way of better loot and new titles are always very fun.

8. Make the stuff that drops from events something that you also buy with OG tokens, such as the Morkugai shadow scroll, Muhr talisman, geonosian speeder and such. (sorry if they are already implemented in another gameplay I'm not aware of).

9. Specific loot for the instances:

9.1. Axkva Min:
- Any of the bosses have a low chance to drop 4/5 sith holocrons, waistpack and meditative, so running this instance would be an option outside of grinding nightsisters on the open world.
- Only Nandina can drop the beret, low chance.
- Only Kimaru can drop aurilian crystals, on a random chance of the lowliest ones to the better ones (she'll have a chance of dropping better crystals than other mobs from other instances, but also lowlier ones like the ones found in other instances).
- Only Suin Chalo can drop the Nightsister's Energy lance.
- Axkva has a very low chance to drop the Sith Speeder.

9.2. IG-88:
- The bomber droids have an increased drop on junk and statted loot.
- The droidekas have a low chance of dropping aurilian crystals.
- The flamer droids have a low chance of dropping the geonosian speeder and a new flamethrower schematic that allows grenades to be used without swapping weapons, when using grenadier, (similar in stats to the repeater on the legends server), but not locked to acid.
- IG-88 has the same chance of dropping the IG head, a lower chance of dropping a yt-2400 house, and an even lower chance of dropping a new painting based on the Shadows of the Empire game for the Nintendo 64, where IG-88 is the villain. Make it a rare and prized decoration item.

9.3. Tusken Army:
- the Warlords on phase 2 have a very low chance of dropping rare collection pieces, such as the Dooku or house storage ones. Many others in the game I cant or dont need to recall right now, but we can work on a list. Not enough to prevent players from going outside into the world to farm collections and explore, but enough to reward those with less play time and in need of a dopamine surge during OGs.
- the gold elites during clearing phase can have a low chance to drop aurilian crystals.
- Extremely absurdly rare maybe Exar Kun Mural level chance that the Tusken King will drop a Synapse Crystal.

9.4. Exar Kun:
- A rare chance of each boss dropping rare collections pieces.
- Cultists at first boss and the static spawns before the fourth boss have a low chance of dropping aurilian crystals.

9.5. ISD:
- Every gold elite has a low chance of dropping aurilian crystals.
- the Squadleader on second phase has a very low chance of dropping some rare ship schematic.
- Extremely absurdly rare maybe Exar Kun Mural level chance that the last boss will drop a Biological Focus Crystal.


If putting so much into OGs seems like detrimental to other aspects of the game, I apologize for not planning well enough, but remember the philosophy here is to be a huge incentive to: GROUP gameplay, AT THE KEYBOARD gameplay and cram as much as possible under a few hours of weekly gameplay, as many get turned off from the game because they can't play many hours per week, can't afk or bot content often or at all.


Edit 1:
A few suggestions to cut heroic completion time:

ISD:
- Remove the space travel to ISD. I know it's awesome and it can be less incentive for people to invest in grinding space and buying space parts, but very few people on this server grind to ace, and many actually couldn't afford buying POBs and equipping them because it's so expensive for new players.
Also, I have a bug where I can't actually invite people to my POB if I'm dual logging an alt, which means I would have to grind ace and buy/equip a POB for every character I would want to fly to ISD. I wouldn't mind doing this, as I enjoy playing the game and finding stuff to do in it, but it can be a turn off to many. Yachting takes too long. Not to mention the times people got stuck at Ord Mantell space.
- Make the wait time after the conversation to unlock the elevator, faster. No reason it can't be instantly unlocked, story or mechanic wise.

TK:
- Increase expert spawns in tusken army. Want to make it harder? Increase the number gold elite spawns, too. We don't mind hard, we mind wasting time.

EK:
- Make half the cultists spawn during the first boss of EK at once, thus taking two waves to kill them all. Seems extreme? Then make just 4 waves at the most. Again: We don't mind hard, we mind wasting time.
- Make the 3rd boss on EK take twice as much damage. Really, that phase is just a time sink. It presents zero challenge to groups as professions currently are. I've healed that with Katarn armor and no jewelry, so I do believe very few groups considering the level of skill and gear with this server, will have issue with that fight being hard. Really, it's just a time sink.

IG:
- Remove the shields IG uses. Again, no challenge, just time sink.

AM:
- Is there a way to shorten Axkva's dialogue at the and? Sometimes it feels the dialogue takes longer than the entire instance.


Edit 2:
I haven't included any BM related loot/reward because I don't know much of BM on this server. But anything regarding rare DNA drops, stuff for creature engineering, etc. I'm all in favor of. I love BM, but didn't get to know/do much of it on Beyond yet.

Edit 3:
I apologize for any redudant suggestion. I'm newish to Beyond and don't know many of the new exclusive items and ways to obtain it. Sorry in advance!

Click to expand...