Permanent allocation not permanent at all?

Why is it that at least 1/3 of the time permanent allocation isn't permanent at all? Instead the loot becomes obtainable by anyone in the party after 3 seconds, same as short allocation. Just had someone in a party snatch a divine orb right under my nose when it was allocated to me because I wasn't able to reach it in time (being a ranged character), which is not THAT big of a deal but still kind of pisses me off.

You only thought it was allocated to you since it's supposed to be. It was unallocated the whole time. Usually I only see stuff unallocated when it comes from an object destroyed by a spell or it falls far enough away from the players that it's unassigned (killing stuff offscreen). Used to see it all the time with the dual spark totem build when that was popular.

I see everything greyed out (allocated to someone else) becoming full colour within 3 seconds, so that means it's short allocation when it's clearly assigned to permanent. Also I'm pretty sure stuff like currency are allocated. The only stuff not allocated are low level whites and blues...

I've had problems with this too, but off-screen kills could maybe be an explanation in those cases. (Someone was using Tornado Shot.) But probably not, as we were both down in the same Tora mission den, which shouldn't be large enough that we were far enough off-screen to not count as eligible for drops. I'll try to pay closer attention to that in the future.

Certain conditions (related to Masters quests I think) can cause a zone to be created with Short Allocation even when you have PA as your default.

The bug has been around so long, I'd guess the devs don't really care to fix it since they really feel SA is the way the game is designed around.

The only case I know of of Permanent Allocation not sticking would be:
1) You opened a map/daily mission and before entering made a party. This instance will be in SA.

2) Someone has SA as default, made an instance and join your party. Their existing instance will be SA.

Also, PA isn't exactly permanent, but more of SA with a 5-min timer on the loot.

And there's also #3, someone dropped item from their inventory to troll you.

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Obscurin wrote:

1) You opened a map/daily mission and before entering made a party. This instance will be in SA.

This seems even more likely than the off-screen killing. It's probably what happened that time I remember, and I can see how it could happen about as often as I experience trouble with allocation.

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Obscurin wrote:

Also, PA isn't exactly permanent, but more of SA with a 5-min timer on the loot.

Not so sure about this one though. Some Zana maps take longer than five minutes and in my experience items such as scrolls and such only become free for all when a player leaves the area. But I could be wrong. I guess I'll try to look out for that instead of off-screen killing. :-)

It's true that PA is has a 5 minute timer. The first time I saw it was when somebody else's mal became unallocated in front of my eyes. And those are always permanent allocation.

Toggling on your overlay map and checking the allocation in the upper right might make it easier to diagnose a problem. If the area is listed as perm and is acting like short, there is something wrong.

Maps are set at whatever allocation the lab they are created in is set. If the eternal or crumbled labs are short, so will be any maps that open from them, regardless of what your default allocation is set at.

Slightly offtopic, but by the way:

If you try to pick up an item, but your inventory was full, the item will drop on the floor unallocated immediatelly.

Is PA actually just 5 minutes? My own experience has shown it's LARGELY indefinite... Though it's worth noting that (partly off-topic) the instant anyone LEAVES that instance, anything allocated to them becomes FFA immediately; that's something I know happens, as I'd THOROUGHLY tested it.

Besides that, the fact that PoE is pretty poor on when to recognize it should make the instance PA... It's been a constant pain in my side as well.

It'd be kind of funny if GGG intended "SA" to be "the way it's meant to be played," as virtually EVERYONE I know prefers PA. Really, they ought to just make that the default standard setting.