Looting -- The official thread for discussing the loot system. Updated 18th March, 2013.

The whole FFA looting will just make me play alone. You play for hours, even days looking for rare items, rare orbs, and when you finally get it, you risk it being taken by a friend. That doesn't sound fun to me at all.

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GrimDawn wrote:

The whole FFA looting will just make me play alone. You play for hours, even days looking for rare items, rare orbs, and when you finally get it, you risk it being taken by a friend. That doesn't sound fun to me at all.

If they just take your shit first chance they get, why are you playing with them?

Don't forget that it's you who chooses who you're playing with.
Just play with some REAL friends and that won't be an issue as you'll just share all resources anyway.

The player that does the last hit should be able to see any loot 3-5 seconds before anyone else in the party, so if the killer doesn't want the loot, other people can still pick it up without 'stealing' it from the player that killed the monster. alternatively, the player that does the most damage to the monster would the one to get the drop instead.

I really like the method that Chris proposed. Still gives it a mad dash for epic loot feel but is also fair to all members.

Im sure there will be circumstances where it will suck, like you are stuck behind and elite boss and cant get to your item. But I dont think everyone is as evil as we think. I know i wouldn't steal loot that would really help someone else.

Personally i wouldn't be opposed to individual loot, but without the lockout timer i would probably grow to hate playing online with anyone but my friends.

I don't like the idea of free for all loot. I think the fact that you see a rare item drop but can't grab it because it is allocated to someone else. It's kinda of a tease more than anything. I would like to see a loot system where each player gets their own drops determined by there Increased item quality %. I think it would promote group play since every one would be getting a piece of the loot instead of just spam clicking your screen to make sure you get every thing that dropped

I like the idea of the person that deals the most damage sees the loot, but then the game has to track who does damage to which creature. With multiple people and a mob, that's a lot of extra numbers to track.

Letting the person who dealt the killing blow see the loot first seems like a much easier method to implement.

I like this better than random allocation by the way.

chris' idea/suggestion seems to be very good indeed!
only problem would be, that normal (white) items COULD be 5 linked armour/weapons(or even the ultra rare/godlike 6linked) wich are VERY valuable atm...

the idea of giving/spawning the loot to the player who dealt the killingblow/most dmg is useless, since it would disrupt the flow of the game(a ranged might wait and time the last attack...a melee might drag mobs to the casters, making them ineffective/ even try to kill each other with mobs and so on)
also individual looting seems stupid to me, since it is a big part of the fun, to see the good item dropping...it would be just like in a singleplayer game(eg mass effect)
where you see at the end of combat what you got in a list...(what did you get?-a gem and some rares- yeah me too lets go on)

but i like ffa the best: to have a healthy community, where players share their loot!
i mean: just dont play with those who insist on "stealing" all the good stuff!---nvm, just a dream.
and also, when you play 5 players chaos/maelstrom- and people have like 150% inc quantity...well, the whole screen is filled with loot^^

but still, we would have to see how it works in"reality".gg

Disclaimer: I have not yet gotten a beta key, so no PoE hands on experience.


The proposed Loot system is interesting, but personally I am not a fan of FFA looting. It led to people using third party hacks in D2, and it's never been a fun mechanic, to be honest. It just encourages people to stop fighting(stop helping the team) to go pick up the Uber Axe of whatever.

A Looting period would not help this at all, but make it even MORE imperative for the chosen player to go run to the item IMMEDIATELY, as others have said, resulting in his/her death possibly for a squishy ranged character.


I hate to say it, but after playing the D3 beta, the one thing I REALLY agree with is their separate looting scheme. It's fair, it encourages teamplay, in that no one will stop midfight to try to steal loot, and it promotes(in my opinion) a better sense of teamwork than a FFA/cutthroat style of looting.

All that said, I'd like to try your system in the beta to get a better idea of how long/short the loot period is, but my gut instinct is that separate allocated(no time period) loot is far better for teamplay.


I guess it comes down to how you want the game to be, as developers: more group/team oriented, or more of a straight up competition? I personally like grouping in these types of games, almost always with friends where FFA won't matter, but when I do pub groups, it just becomes a chore to fight over loot.

Seems to be a lot of mixed opinions on how looting should be done, so it might be a good idea for the developers to take as many of those possible into account, in different order and depending on which ladder people are on. Full open looting could be a hardcore/cutthroat thing, and other modes could have a delay based on factors like:

1. Rarity, giving people who put more effort into killing something the priority. Since there's not really much of a currency system, rare items are probably going to be the most important bartering factor in trades between players. So this will likely need to be the biggest factor in determining who gets dibs on things, and how long those last.

2. Weapons/skills pertaining to a character's primary stat(s), so that people who actually need something will be more likely to able to get it. This should be based on how well someone is at meeting/exceeding an item's current requirements, like stats, level, etc. I'll let the developers decide how much to proportion something like this, since I don't even know where to begin.

3. Who got the last hit in, giving them a slight bonus to their priority, so people who have trouble killing things won't be completely left out if they keep in mind how close something is to dying. Might annoy people who put a lot of effort into killing something though, so this shouldn't be a strong consideration on "less ruthless" ladders. Might make a nice "edge" if 2 or more people are about equal in damage dealt to something though, especially on said competitive ladders if they DO decide to include a brief delay.

4. Proximity from the slain monster, so ranged attackers won't get left out for having to attack from a distance. Sure, they're safer from certain kinds of monsters this way, but that doesn't mean they deserve to have less of a share of the loot, especially if they did most of the damage. This factor should take place AFTER the other checks, but still play enough of a role so someone doesn't get left out of getting something they might want/need.

5. What things someone actually has equipped. Someone with a bow might want a better bow, but not a worse one. Someone with a skill might want multiple copies of a skill to apply multiple support skills to it, or similar skills/support skills to apply different types of attributes depending on the situation at hand. This kind of thing might be difficult to make a consideration for, as there are numerous weapon/skill attributes to account for, so it may be more trouble than it's worth to implement. Still something might be worth taking a look at after more important things are taken care of.

There's probably other important things I missed, since I only briefly glanced at the thread, and these points have probably all been covered by now, but maybe a bloated post like this one may make people look over these and see what they think about what needs to be done, or give the developers another chance to catch something they may have missed.

I am completely OK with having a window of exclusivity, perhaps it should be over 1 second but just about anything is better than FFA.