Hmmm .. I understand the Devs are worried about having too many weapons and armor available if they become loot. However fken has a point that enemies who wear armor and use weapons should drop them., but damaged.
So I suggest that items such as weaponry or armor does get dropped but is nearly unuseable to the person that picks it up. With armor this is completely realistic as I don\'t go wearing armor made for someone else, someone shorter or taller than me. Most suits of armor are custom made to fit the person that buys them best. So if one should kill an armored oponent and obtain their armor even in a good state. That armor shouldn\'t be very comfortable and seriously reduced in effectivity. The same goes for dropped weaponry.
Then the second point is that if you die, your armor and weapons will always have taken a beating so they are damaged.
A more clear example maybe:
I spot a Rogue with a short sword and leather armor .. the rogue sees me and charges at me. We both fight to the death but my dual falchions save the day. The rogue can\'t block all of my blows with his short sword and I slash easily through his armor several times, killing him. Now I loot his body so I get a purse with some tria inside, one battered short sword from blocking my blows and one suit of torn leather armor.
The short sword is still useful but I \'m lucky if it will survive a few more blows before it breaks completely. After that it \'s scrap metal. The leather armor is useless as it is too wide and short for my size and with those 3 large gaps it wouldn\'t provide much protection anymore either.
Conclusion I gained some trias, one short sword which does less damage than normal and will break after one or two fights and one leather armor which provides seriously reduced protection and will break soon as well.
Now most would probably throw the sword and armor away since it is useless and who would want to buy that anyway. I won\'t though.
I happen to have a decent knowledge of metalworking and melt the short sword into iron ore. Then I buy myself some more iron ore and forge it all into a new falchion.
Sadly I don\'t know much about crafting armor .. but I do know a friend who is rather skilled in that area so I bring the broken armor to him and ask him if he can fix it.
My friend tells me that this armor is ruined .. but he can recover a few pieces of leather from it, where he could make some boots with. Or if I got my hands on some more leather he could create me a brand new well fitting hard leather cuirass.
In other words armor and weapons that are dropped as loot shouldn\'t be directly useful but their materials can be recovered and they can even be reforged if you pay some additional trias and giving new materials to a skilled crafter. Or of course sold to any junk dealers around for basically nothing.
This will provide more variation in loot dropping, require the character to interract with various other players and give some more realistic options, as well as provide more materials for crafting in other ways than mining for example.