6 réponses à ce sujet

[Aurigarion]

First of all, I want to say that I absolutely love Dragon Age; I just finished my third playthrough, and BioWare has lived up to all my expectations.  That said, however, I find the loot distribution in the game to be fairly disappointing.  

For example, I opened a locked chest in the final area and got an amazing Lesser Health Poultice.  The next locked chest had a Lesser Nature Salve, followed by two chests with a single Deep Mushroom each.  I then killed an elite miniboss, and he dropped 2 Greater Health Poultices.  Now, I realize that darkspawn probably don't walk around with pockets full of gems or legendary lost weapons, but as both a game designer and a player, when I kill an elite, unique enemy, I kind of expect to receive something more than just health potions.

Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, the locations of "epic" items are fixed: the Warden Commander armor is always in the same place; Lifegiver is always sold by the same merchant -- which makes sense.  What doesn't make sense is the lack of unique drops.  Mass Effect had the same issue (which BioWare has even acknowledged in their PR for ME2); enemies drop completely underwhelming items.  I'm not suggesting that all of the nice gear be moved to random drops, but if I venture deep into a fortress or an ancient ruin, and pick a locked chest or defeat a small dragon, it would be nice if I got something better than a Small Round Shield.

It's not that I'm dissatisfied with the gear my characters are using, either; it's suitably epic both in appearance and abilities.  However, I find myself going, "Ooh, a locked chest, 50 xp!" instead of, "Ooh, a locked chest, there might be something awesome inside!"  And it's not simply the poor quality of items in chests; at level 22, I was still finding dozens of tier 3 and 4 items, both on enemies and in containers.  I looted Fort Drakon from bottom to top, and not ONCE did I ever say "Wow, this item will be useful against the upcoming Archdemon fight."

Look at the recent popularity of Torchlight, for example: part of its appeal is that when you kill an elite enemy, it drops ridiculous items.  They may not be as good as what you're currently using; they may not even be meant for your character at all -- but they're shiny and the stats are high, and finding them is part of the fun.  Again, I'm not saying every random Hurlock should drop an ancient Tevinter sword, but something better than a Spirit Shard would be nice every now and then.

Tangentially, I feel that part of the problem is tied to the tier system.  Yes, it makes level scaling possible, which presents the player with a great freedom of choice in the order to do the various quests...but it also means that choice ends up determining the quality of the items you receive.  I found myself torn about when to play Warden's Keep: on the one hand, I had gotten the star metal and wanted Starfang, but on the other hand, I knew that the Warden Commander armor would be at most tier 3.  By the end of the game, I was somewhat disappointed in its mediocrity.  It would be nice if there were a way to upgrade existing items; I would have happily spent gold or sacrificed a generic piece of Dragonbone chain mail to upgrade the Warden Commander set.  And, frankly, if there's a smith who can make an amazing sword out of a piece of metal he's never seen before, and do it in approximately five seconds, I see no reason he couldn't upgrade an armor set (or copy it and "replace" it with a higher-tier version).

Again, I'm not trying to whine about my gear; my characters are pretty damn awesome in what they have, and I'm happy with it.  I'm simply not happy with the growing feeling that I could play the game without looting 90% of the enemies and chests, and really not miss anything.

[ljgrimm]

I agree completely with the spirit of the post. One of the most enjoyable things about character development in games like this is finding items that can be fine tuned for your specific playing style. The other downside with the fixed unique items is that if you screw up on something (like I did with not using my dragon scale properly) there is no real chance to get some random unique item that can replace it. If the tiers of item drops were scaled up properly then that would solve one of the money complaints that people have because you would get more for your random loot drops. Something to consider, but overall the game is amazing. I am still on my first play through as I don't have much time, but I am enjoying it immensely.

[Dasim4]

Also disappointed with the majority of the loot. Sometimes you just want to open a chest and get something that actually looks like it was worth locking up.

[Dasim4]

Oops. Double post.

Modifié par Dasim4, 29 novembre 2009 - 04:30 .

[Ulrik the Slayer]

You'd think Elfroot to be worth it's weight in gold, seeing how many people actually decide to put it in a locked chest....

[Bane]

I agree as well. In one area I picked the lock on a door, defeated a few giant spiders and then picked the lock on the chest. What was so valuable that it needed all that protection? A Darkspawn Longsword.

Whoopty friggen doo.

[SinYang]

In complete agreement, I doubt it would hurt the game *too much*, including abit more loot rather than find another 10 grey iron gloves in chests.  what happened to torches anyway?