Lets talk loot

Yes!!!

Please no schematics and/or having to collect components to get the best gear. I would like to be able to obtain the best gear from quest rewards, drops, and vendors.

2 and 6: Odd to combine these two but I absolutley loved Inquisition's crafting system.  Yes it was a bit annoying to gain the appropriate crafting materials and spend the time grinding...especially with the FTMs!, but in the end it was usually worth it and it had the effect of making the weapons your own.  You had ownership of them, they were crafted to the specifications of what you considered important and the effect was often super powerful.  And transmog...well I do like the idea in Odyssey it solves the issue of 'ugly gear, great stats' and that can be important for RP...but at the end it often does seem a little uimmersive to actually do it.  The gear is the gear.  But I would combine the two ideas.  Not have transmog but that every single piece of gear in the game has its own scematic (maybe lootable when you obtain said gear) which you can then craft that gear with the stats you want.  Of course the other option would be to give you control of the upgrades.  

3.  Not that influential.  I hate looter shooters and there were times when even gear just having a level blocked things.  Now I know things IRL can be of differing quality but not sure it quite works like tat either.  What should matter is your skill with the gear not the gear itself. It looks like from what I have seen from Vahalla they have entirely removed gear levels period.  


8.  All of the above?  I made the comment in the wishlist thread that I hope for more varried rewards for quests.  Not just gold and XP but actually things like skills or gears.  While I am not sure gating it behind difficulty would be good but putting that stuff in the world via quest or enemies could be good.  

As my contribution to this conversation.  I hate how most inventory systems, when you include them handle themselves.  Granted there is some movement on these things of late but the idea of collecting hoards of the same weapons off dead bodies and stuffing it in your pack to where you had twenty bows in the thing that you would just have to sell or dismantle is...not fun, its not immersive...and it may even be a waste of resources.  Every piece of gear that you get in the game should be unique and not looted from the corpses of the fallen.  Andromeda was off to a good start on this, weapons could only be available on your ship or the forward bases and not in the field as it were...and Assassins Creed Vahalla seems to take the idea way in the direction that I am thinking, a quantum leap even.  Coupled with my idea with the schematics, heck maybe you never actually loot anything but collect its schematics so you can craft it, and I think you'd be off to a good start.   

First of all, I hope that they will move away from the diabloesque loot in DAI whose where your armour's main purpose seemed to be to give you stat points instead of protecting you from damage. Your protagonist should have stats, your armour should have an armour rating and maaaybe an enchantment. It should not give you a strength boost unless it's Astartes power armour or some such. (If this post is boring it's because I wrote it from work. My Dazzling Keyboard of Razor Wit is at home.)

1) Primitive, normal (no particular attribute), masterwork (with potentially special non-magical properties like "causes bleeding" etc), artifact (enchanted with magical powers like flaming blade). The first three tiers simply apply modifiers according to the skill they were made with, the last one is for magical weapons.

2) Why not? It would be an optional feature, so if you don't like it, don't use it, otherwise go to town!

3) Medium. The protagonist's attributes and skills should still be the primary base for the character's power in combat, good equipment should just be the thing that gives a (maybe decisive) edge. Equipment / loot should come with potential disadvantages, like heavy armour making it harder for a character to dodge and so on, so equipment choice never becomes a no brainer outside of "your class can't use that duh".

4) Outstanding items should be the result of appropriately difficult quests or loot from special (possibly hidden far from the main story path) enemies.

5) Merchants should mostly carry cheap primitive gear and moderately priced normal stuff. Masterworks should be really rare and expensive, and artifacts are quest/boss encounter rewards.

6) Schematics should follow the same rule as merchants under 5). A Golden Nug shouldn't be necessary since that only compensated for DAI's flawed schematic loot algorithm.

7) Since artifacts would be almost exclusively acquired by gameplay, I'd say yes.

8) see 5), so yes again.

I agree. It may be a controversial opinion but honestly I wouldn't mind if they just dropped the crafting system and only allowed aesthetic changes or minor modifications to pre-existing items (like extra arrows, coated weapons etc). Legendary weapons/armour with unique stats and abilities would be items you can only obtain by completing certain story objectives or choices made.

I figured I'd take some time to answer some of my own questions.

To Question 1: I think having five rarities is good enough, with - really - there being only four since the fifth rarity would be more for unique set pieces. Anymore than that and it starts to get absurd.

To Question 2: I really enjoyed the ability to transfer the visual affect of one armor piece to another in Assassins Creed: Odyssey. I think having this option bolsters the character creation and personality aspects of the main character you want to make. Aesthetics are just as important as the decisions you make in the game, so being able to look like what you want goes hand-in-hand in keeping your character unique.

To Question 3: I actually don't want loot to be significantly impactful in your play experience. To some degree, I wouldn't even mind if some armors/weapons were excluded if your attributes weren't high enough in order to wear said armor pieces. Character attributes and the skills you pick should be the deciding factor in your effectiveness as a player. Seeing how character attributes really haven't had a significant enough impact since DA:O, I think its time for those to have more sway over how we build our character. In a sense, I agree with Gileadan about armor/weapons not giving you additional attribute points. Unique effects or bonuses to melee/block/health/etc. are fine though. One thing I will say, is that I hope we see significant improvement in the amount of options we have available to us in the skill-tree system, as well as not having skill trees be wholly locked off if you picked a starting class. If I want to be a two-handed battlemage, I'd like that option.

To Question 4: I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to better gear being locked behind higher difficulties, but I think a better alternative would be to improve the Trials system they introduced at the end of Inquisitions life cycle. They're essentially acting as modifiers, and maybe having a certain number on at a given time activates and increases the chances of you getting a really high-quality piece of gear. You could have a score level associated with the each Trial modifier, with the difficulty you play on adding a multiplier to said scores. The higher the score, the more likely a piece of gear can drop, or having access to certain gear pieces once you've passed a certain score level.

To Question 5: I think merchants should only be there to give you consumables, materials, and basic schematics. Maybe some rarer merchants could sell one-time unique schematics at a higher price.

To Question 6: I'm torn when it comes to schematics and crafting in games like these. On the one hand, killing an enemy and having a good piece of gear drop from them can really get your serotonin levels going. Crafting also comes with the danger of invalidating the gear you get out in the wild (playspace). This was one of the biggest issues with Skyrims crafting system, as you basically could just take the enchantment off of any piece of enchanted gear, then put it onto weapons you crafted that could have their damage further increased to absurdity. On the flip side, crafting offers a greater degree of customization to the weapons you have, and if it is also supporting with a personalization feature akin to reskinning/coloring, then it too can improve the character identity aspect of the game. I guess you could kill high level enemies for schematics, and crafting of said schematics -as well as improving them - would require materials that could also be obtained by killing enemies; or through store purchase.

To Questions 7 & 8: This ties into my previous point. I like getting stuff of value from a really challenging foe. I also like being able to build my own weapons. Maybe a good compromise would be to have certain weapons dropped in the play space having a unique modifier that can't be crafted or obtained anywhere else? I'm still conflicted on this.

I want
More unique loot in unique locations.

Yes I want the unique shield to be as good as my crafted. Give me the schematic when I find a unique item. Remove the 10 copies of tier 1 scout armor etc

Bring back treasure chests etc instead of having the dragon drop a unique dagger and be way more creative. Remember in dai when you found the elven vial with the specialization and trapped chests etc

I think four levels is good, but each item; say Common Leather Greaves, as an example should be part of a craftable or lootable set that provides a distinct bonus for having the set equipped.  Of course, that bonus grows in value as you move up through the rarity level.


100% yes.  It is, by far, my biggest complaint about DAI's equipment and crafting, in particular.  My favourite look for daggers, for instance, appears to cap out at Tier 2.


Difficult to answer.  I wouldn't want progression (in this case, meaning progression through the story) to be dependent on how good my gear is, or worse, on finding/crafting particular gear.  If people aren't bothered by min/maxing their equipment, they should be able to move happily through the story without worrying about whether or not to use the +1 to Damage Sword or the +5% Chance to hit Axe.  Likewise, people who do enjoy that stuff should be able to wring benefits (both visual and gameplay) from doing so.


Not for me.  In fact, I'd rather the Trials yielded different benefits entirely, but concede that may fall into the "unpopular" opinion category.


Are we talking inventory capacity here?  Or just the general ability to purchase anything from vendors?  If inventory; yes.  I hate inventory management.  If there must be a hard limit, let it be huge.  If just general purchasing ability of rare/unique/legendary...no.  Some, sure - but others should need to be found or looted or crafted only as well.


Yes, and yes.  I'd like some items to be craft only and have either the option of upgrading equipment - similar to Odyssey or 'levelling up' a schematic.  Meaning, if I find a schematic I like that offers bonuses/buffs that suit me, I shouldn't have to leave it behind because it is a Level 7 schematic and my PC is Level 12.


Some can, sure.  Some people swear by the Aerondight sword in TW3.  I wouldn't want it to be a hard and fast 'rule' for everything, though.


Specific enemies/areas, yes - for some items/schematics.  Preferably the higher quality, of course.

Gotcha - sorry, just re-read the question and you clearly stated "currency".

I think it would depend on the type of game DA4 ends up being.  If it is more condensed with a specific story set up for multiple playthroughs, then yes, limit it.  If it is more sprawling where people - it is hoped - continue to engage after completing the main story, wandering around tidying up side missions, dailys/weeklys etc, then I think trying to limit that is a bit pointless and probably counter-productive.

On 4, I absolutely hate that...get a high level piece of gear and be all excited only to receive a note when you try to don it: requires level XX. That's stupid to me...why can't my level 3 rogue use that level 20 dagger? I could see certain situations where lack of strength to proficiently use a higher tier weapon (due to weight) or lack of magic to safely use a high level staff, but level restrictions never made much sense to me.

On 8, generally yes...but with enemies as whole I'd like a system that provides greater rewards based on the differential between your composite party level and enemy(ies) level + any special abilities to ensure you're rewarded with good loot and to encourage players to take more risk. More risk, more reward (and more fun). Bioware has never done loot well...partly because they've traditionally hid the best weapons/armor behind pay walls.

For #3, I'd like it to have very little influence. I don't really have any strong opinions on the others.

On a related note, I would like these things:
1. Large and/or unlimited inventory space
2. Ability to pick up all loot in a certain area rather than individually OR at minimum a faster loot picking animation (DAI's is ridiculously slow)

There is a lot of good premises in here and I do think an ME 2 style system would really work out well.  Not really an inventory system though per se though.  

Two quibbles though:

1.  I can gurantee you after numerous playthroughs in Inquisition that you won't ever really outlevel any of your crafted gear.  Honestly there are very few pieces of gear the game provides that are over leveled of what you can craft.  

2.  I do express some minor confusion on this point becausegetting the gear mats you wanted, the base materials, was a breeze and a half.  And you knew exactly which mats corresponded to which stats easily enough and there was schematics which could give you a wide variety of effects.  Now there was a lot of grinding with the Fade Touched stuff (which is something they should look at in the future) because of the rng aspect of it but...adapt?  I may not have found exactly what I wanted with them all the time but there was still good effects, which I kind of realized the FTMs were a bit redundant and the main coup of the gear was the base gear himself.  

If you decide to give it another try the Emprise Du Lion is where I pretty much farm all my tier 3 mats.  Of course the Frostback Basin is great too and you can get Snouefleur skin in massive quanties in the Exalted Plains.  

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My God I am giving advice on this subject on a video game