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

After having some time in the beta to play, and re-reading Chris's idea, I have some new feedback for this idea.

1. All white-items being FFA.
This really is a bad idea, maybe it's because we're still early in beta, but it seems that most the good items people get are from searching long and hard for a High quality perfectly socketed white item, then it's rolled using either the Alchemy orb or Orb of Chance in hopes of getting the perfect item.

2. The timer system will just add unneccessary and unwanted confusion.
As I had hoped, this game is quick paced. However, some groups of monsters can take anywhere from 3-30 seconds to kill. If an item drops from the first monster, it will either be a FFA drop by the time the group kills everything, or people will stop fighting to run up and loot it before they finish killing which hurts your group as well.

3. Splitting different leagues into different loot methods.
I honestly have no idea how many people plan to play this game, but between Hardcore, Softcore, Cut-throat, and any other leagues you have planned you are going to be making the playerbase dangerously spread-out to the point it might kill your chances at succeeding. If you want to allow the option for different loot methods, make it up to the Party leader, and make it so that once the loot method is selected, it cannot be changed unless the party disbands. (So a leader doesn't change it to FFA right before killing a boss and not tell anyone.)

4. I have said it before, so I will say it again. FFA systems destroy communities. People will hide in private games to farm items. I still would prefer the system where everyone only sees their own drops, and these drops are based off their own item find stats. But if this is too "Carebear", I think best alternative option is to have round robin loot based off each color of items. For example, we kill monster A. 2 rares and a white drop. So Player A gets a rare, Player B gets a rare and player A gets a white. However the next monster we kill also drops 2 rares and a white. Now player C gets a rare, Player A gets a rare and Player B gets the white. I believe this is fair in the sence that everyone should get an equal amount of items in terms of quantity and quality with there only being a 1 item difference at most.

I personally love how much GGG takes into consideration the feelings of the gamers and aims for a middle ground that pleases the gamers, but retains their own ideal methods that were intended and created by the creators.

That being said, I vote that WHITE items and maybe even Magic items are FREE-FOR-ALL

Rare+ items have a 5 sec countdown timer, or something. Basically it requires the users to pay attention, but it gives a caster/ranged player time to react and get to the area so each player is hovering and ready to click-n-grab.

Latency in the end may still be a factor, but this eliminates the class issue,which is important.

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insidethesun wrote:

I personally love how much GGG takes into consideration the feelings of the gamers and aims for a middle ground that pleases the gamers, but retains their own ideal methods that were intended and created by the creators.

That being said, I vote that WHITE items and maybe even Magic items are FREE-FOR-ALL

Rare+ items have a 5 sec countdown timer, or something. Basically it requires the users to pay attention, but it gives a caster/ranged player time to react and get to the area so each player is hovering and ready to click-n-grab.

Latency in the end may still be a factor, but this eliminates the class issue,which is important.

Here's why I think White FFA is a bad idea.

Everyone will be grabbing every item that drops in hopes of it being valuable, they will pick it up, open their inventory and analyze if it's any good. Then if not, they will drop it. The next person will most likely try and pick it up to see if they can use it. After one or two people check it out, it will probably be deemed useless and the party will move on. For a game that's meant to be about non-stop action, a 5 second break every time a few items drop will slow the game horribly.

I know when I'm playing, I won't bother to pick the item up. I mouse over it and make a 1/2 second decision on if it's any good. But when you are racing to get the item, no one will do this and pick it up first. It's the whole shoot first ask questions later mentality.

Let parties choose! Take advantage of the fact that each party can have its own instance. Free for all can be an option, but so could something like the following:

High value items (again, party could choose what this means) go to a communal temporary stash that acts as a sort of "shop" for the members.

You would gain currency by dealing out damage to mobs or perhaps also from getting the equivalent of a "like" from party members (if you save their butt, for example). It could also be time based, where you get points just for being in the party X amount of time... it could be chosen by the party members on creation depending on the already existing levels of mutual trust.

High value items would then be bid on by party members using this "currency".

From the videos I have watched the items are very easy to distinguish. It seemed all items that were dropped were visible te entire time, but there was a toggle that could turn off showing white items unless you held down alt.

In a FFA loot situation I imagine most people would have the white item toggle turned off. So there shouldn't be the case of people frantically grabbing every item available. I like the idea of a short cooldown to run in and grab the item before it's up for grabs.

Regardless of having a cooldown or not or even just having items drop for one person only, people will still run in immediately to grab their shinies, even in the middle of a big fight, at least this way the ranged get a chance.

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Moonshine211 wrote:

From the videos I have watched the items are very easy to distinguish. It seemed all items that were dropped were visible te entire time, but there was a toggle that could turn off showing white items unless you held down alt.

In a FFA loot situation I imagine most people would have the white item toggle turned off. So there shouldn't be the case of people frantically grabbing every item available. I like the idea of a short cooldown to run in and grab the item before it's up for grabs.

Regardless of having a cooldown or not or even just having items drop for one person only, people will still run in immediately to grab their shinies, even in the middle of a big fight, at least this way the ranged get a chance.

White items are almost as useful as yellows, as you can craft yourself some bad ass items. White items are much easier to get to higher quality, which is a big bonus. You use a few stones on it to get it 20% quality, and then use an orb to roll it into a rare item. This is generally easier than finding a rare with the socket layout that you want.

im sorry but this sound like a terrible idea if you have a ranged character and your path get's blocket for whatever reason and when you get there someone take the drop just because you have a ranged character and not a melee one.

Also this gives hack developers a very annoying advantage with auto pickit and dropnotify messeges very easy to develop.

It appears as though you all have put quite a good deal of thought into the looting for this game. I like what I have read and look forward to experiencing it 1st hand.

The OP has some great ideas. Anything is better then a straight up free for all.

I think this would work well with a timing of around 5 seconds, although it would reduce the cut throat feel quite a bit.