xaltotun

Join Date 05/2009

Great Game But One Issue Remains.........

I have been enjoying FE and the LH beta. LH is very stable and shows great gameplay improvement over FE.

At this point I can see only one change that is needed to add significantly to the enjoyment of the game:

The loot from battles with creatures does not scale at all with the level of difficulty of the creature or mob of creatures that is defeated. In my most recent 0.91 game I received the same low level item from defeating a full scale dragon that I had earlier received from defeating a small group of bandits.

This significantly reduces the strong positive feeling that should be received from winning a major victory. If you defeat a dragon the loot should be significant and memorable: some good magic armor or weapon that will have an impact on future battles - not trinket copy number 5.

I have seen this issue mentioned before but it does not appear to have been addressed. I suggest it deserves some work to make this terrific game even better.

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the loot distribution code might be a bit buggy i think.

i remember a particular instance where i managed to kill a dragon in the first attempt (with no reloads) and it dropped a purple item (a super powered towershield with a built in teleport spell or whatever) i lost all my trained units in that fight and one of my heroes also fell and got a weakness for it. so i tried it again (reload) and beat the same dragon, this time with no dead champ and no losses, and this time it only dropped like 14 gildar and nothing else.

i don't know if that's a bug, or just coincidence or maybe even intentional, but in my experience, reloading a tough battle can result in "downgrading" the loot.

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cardinaldirection

Join Date 08/2012

+18

Quoting Azunai_,

reply 1

i don't know if that's a bug, or just coincidence or maybe even intentional, but in my experience, reloading a tough battle can result in "downgrading" the loot.

^This is why I only play FE iron man in short spurts.

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yeah it's usually more fun to accept losses and rebuild what you have lost after a disastrous failure. just wanted to point out that in my experience, reloading can also have an effect on the loot/reward for a battle.

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parrottmath

Join Date 03/2008

+206

The item giving is not bugged, it is just not set to give useful items. For example, an Ashwake dragon treasure code is

         <Treasure>
            <Liklihood>65</Liklihood>
            <GameModifier>
                <ModType>Resource</ModType>
                <Title></Title>
                <Attribute>Gold</Attribute>
                <BoolVal1></BoolVal1>
                <Value>20</Value>
            </GameModifier>
        </Treasure>
        <Treasure>
             <Liklihood>35</Liklihood>
            <GameModifier>
                <ModType>GiveItem</ModType>
                <Title></Title>
                <Attribute></Attribute>
                <BoolVal1></BoolVal1>
                <Value></Value>
            </GameModifier>
        </Treasure>

It basically says killing the dragon will give you gold 65% of the time, but the other 35% of the time you will get an item.

But notice this vs. the Air Elemental Lair Treasure

        <Treasure>
            <Title>Lair Cleared</Title>
            <Desc>Hidden amongst the stones you find an item. (+1 Fame)</Desc>
            <Liklihood>100</Liklihood>
            <SFX>Goodie_Stones_01</SFX>
            <GameModifier>
                <ModType>GiveItem</ModType>
                <StrVal>Uncommon</StrVal>
            </GameModifier>
            <GameModifier>
                <ModType>Resource</ModType>
                <Attribute>Fame</Attribute>
                <Value>1</Value>
            </GameModifier>
        </Treasure>

Notice that they both give an Item. But this time it is an uncommon item, while the above specifies no rarity. This is the "flaw" you are seeing with loot in general. You are correct that loot doesn't scale with level of the monster, but one can set it up to scale with level of the lair. If you want better treasures for more difficult monsters, you need to just edit the code here and fix it up for youself. But I do agree that Dragons should offer better loot than just common. It probably should be "Uncommon" loot.

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Thanks parrotmath! Now if the devs don't fix this we can do it ourselves when v1.0 comes out

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Lord Reliant

Join Date 03/2006

+39

Parrottmath, I know you're always busy working on some sweet improvement to LH. Any chance you'd be willing to examine the item drops for re-balancing? I'm sure it would help Derek and Co. out. Sure seems like you shouldn't get 16 gildar for killing a Dragon!

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Dragon loot should be rare, if it can't be based on the actual difficulty of the fight relative to your army.

Dammit Jim, they're Dragons.

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yeah i don't think it would hurt the game at all if dragons were set to always drop something good. doesn't really need to be dependent on the relative difficulty. even late in the game when you can kill them casually, the loot may still be useful (after all, if you can kill dragons easily, your champions probably need some good items to keep up with trained units). there aren't that many dragons around in my games. maybe half a dozen on a large map or something. won't break the game if those fights give a proper reward.

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DerekPaxton

Join Date 03/2003

+309

Yeah, I've gone through all the monsters that had a chance to give a random item (of any type) and set them to give a random item of a particular type (based on the monsters strength). So yes, all dragons give rare items now.

Thanks for the feedback, that was great advice!

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cardinaldirection

Join Date 08/2012

+18

Quoting Derek Paxton,

reply 9

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Lord Reliant

Join Date 03/2006

+39

Awesome, Derek!

This should also help champions feel more champion-ish if they get sweet rewards for difficult tasks! That's what sets them apart from regular units and why they should be used.

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Great move.

I know I've said this ad nauseum already and repeated it at every release but I honestly think the main thing the FE/LH franchise needs is a dedicated period of a month or more just fixing bugs and polishing things. I don't mean to be rude but it honestly reflects the fact that this hasn't been prioritised earlier that years after WoM was released and patched, after FE was released and patched, and late in the beta of LH we still had a situation where dragons gave boring items as rewards.

Polish this game, then polish it some more, then perhaps spend another few weeks doing some polishing and THEN you might have a true masterpiece!

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