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

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Raapys wrote:

It's simple. Remove the loot timer. Assign all rare or 5l/6l or currency or map items a group member's name. If someone else picks up that item, the 'victim' gets an option to activate pvp versus the offender. If he fights him and wins, the offending player dies, loses XP as usual, and drops the item he 'stole'. If the offender kills the victim, he gets to keep the item himself. It's perfect.

So every 2 seconds a duel would happen?


Ok, Derp. Il go make a full out PVP character with temporal chains, freeze and totems.

Il just hang out taking everything... Taunting everyone.


I won't even kill anything either. Il just take eveything i can and hope someone tries hostile me so i can totally wreck them even more.


Sounds like a PKrs wet dream. Please tell me more.

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Vooodu wrote:

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Raapys wrote:

It's simple. Remove the loot timer. Assign all rare or 5l/6l or currency or map items a group member's name. If someone else picks up that item, the 'victim' gets an option to activate pvp versus the offender. If he fights him and wins, the offending player dies, loses XP as usual, and drops the item he 'stole'. If the offender kills the victim, he gets to keep the item himself. It's perfect.

So every 2 seconds a duel would happen?


Ok, Derp. Il go make a full out PVP character with temporal chains, freeze and totems.

Il just hang out taking everything... Taunting everyone.


I won't even kill anything either. Il just take eveything i can and hope someone tries hostile me so i can totally wreck them even more.


Sounds like a PKrs wet dream. Please tell me more.

So what? Their mistake if they can't beat you. All up to them whether they want to fight you over it or not. Besides, you'll have earned it if you do kill them.

And there's nothing to prevent them from getting the items the normal way, by picking it up before you.

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Vooodu wrote:

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Raapys wrote:

It's simple. Remove the loot timer. Assign all rare or 5l/6l or currency or map items a group member's name. If someone else picks up that item, the 'victim' gets an option to activate pvp versus the offender. If he fights him and wins, the offending player dies, loses XP as usual, and drops the item he 'stole'. If the offender kills the victim, he gets to keep the item himself. It's perfect.

So every 2 seconds a duel would happen?


Ok, Derp. Il go make a full out PVP character with temporal chains, freeze and totems.

Il just hang out taking everything... Taunting everyone.


I won't even kill anything either. Il just take eveything i can and hope someone tries hostile me so i can totally wreck them even more.


Sounds like a PKrs wet dream. Please tell me more.

Because 1 person can wipe out a whole party.. Yeah.

And if he can then clearly he deserves the loot since hes carrying you all.

Anyway

I make FFa map parties.

It only goes l2n once I have assured everyone im playing with is good and wont just do l2m until a GG item drops.

I met someone a week and a half ago, we met in maps and he was the only competent player so we added each other, played for a week straight. First map run we did when I met him kaoms heart dropped to someone else.

Ten days later of running maps with him and his buddies a lioneyes glare drops, I already had one, he kicks me and another kid from party for his own selfish greed.

Those are the exact type of players I never want to run into again.

Make LOOT FFA, no loot options, weall play the same game soo..

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Chris wrote:

We initially announced that looting is free-for-all in Path of Exile. Players would be able to see and pick up any items that dropped.

It's important to us that Path of Exile has a cut-throat feel where players are not only competing against monsters, but also their fellow players. We do not feel it is an option to arbitrarily hide items from players who have not been allocated them.

As we saw here and here, many players really objected to this.

Several legitimate problems with free-for-all looting were raised:
- Ranged players are unable to get to the items in time.
- Items might just get scooped up by one player with substantially lower latency than the other players.

just make loot drop at the players' feet instead of where the monster dies at
fix desync and the second problem won't exist

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Chris wrote:

Over the past few months we've thought long and hard about this topic, and have come up with a system that we feel captures the cut-throat feel that we're trying to go for, but helps mitigate the valid complaints.

We're proposing the following system:
- All white text items are free-for-all.
- All magic/rare/unique/currency/gem items are allocated to a nearby player for a very small amount of time.
- All players can see the item, and a countdown of how much time remains until it's available to anyone is shown.
- The allocation time is intended to be very small (enough time to compensate for a little latency, reaction time and travel distance). We're thinking a base time of something in the order of 1 second when standing next to the item.
- The time would be increased by the time it takes for the character to run to the item. An item allocated to a ranged player might unallocate after two seconds, for example.
- It's important that the time is low enough that the player can only get the item if they are paying attention and make an effort to immediately grab it.
- The allocation times can be lower or non-existent in hardcore or cut-throat leagues.

all white, magic and rare (EXCEPT for 5l/6l) should be ffa
uniques and 5L/6L should have a flat 3 second loot timer (allocation for the person who it dropped for)

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Chris wrote:

Players who wanted an allocated looting system will hopefully be happy that this system mitigates item loss due to latency and travel distance.

Players who wanted a free-for-all looting system will hopefully be pleased - with this system they can take any item they want if the allocated player is not paying attention to the drops.

This is a concept based on feedback only. It's not locked in stone, but we like the direction it's going in.

What do you guys think about this suggestion? Please don't just post "allocated sucks", or "I won't play if it's free-for-all".

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Deux wrote:

Make LOOT FFA, no loot options, weall play the same game soo..

Could do that, and alienate others from enjoying the game as much as you. To be quite honest game development isn't about making a game that one person or one type of person would want. I'm not saying you should create a game that EVERYONE would like, but you try to include a wider audience as much as possible without sacrificing vision.

To further back up my point a bit:

Dark Souls and Demon Souls were seen as games that had a very select audience in mind. In Dark Souls 2 there are plans to add difficulty selection. It's a hot issue because it will no longer be the vision that Dark Souls used to be, but then again the difficulty is STILL THERE. I believe it is a smart decision to include a wider audience for 2 reasons:

1. wider audience brings more players for further support/development for future products/services
2. wider audience brings more players so that multiplayer has a chance of lasting longer.

Many fps games for example will die typically because the game wasn't too great, but they can also die due to a lack of players on the servers. If the game starts to die, then the game might follow as well. It's typically a bad sign for the developers.

Path of Exile is in a similar situation to where by adding default league you added a wider audience for additional players to enjoy the game. Hardcore might've been the original vision for the game, or maybe it really was default? idk? Similarly the looting system has been changed to accommodate those that lag or have an issue grabbing loot quick enough because they were far away.

Now the issue is that there aren't enough issues because too many people want different things from the loot system.

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Raapys wrote:

So what? Their mistake if they can't beat you. All up to them whether they want to fight you over it or not. Besides, you'll have earned it if you do kill them.

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Dude, i don't join public games to argue over random drops.. I join to level and arguing over drops is counter productive for me.


For me, i only earn exp. I find loot. Loot just happens.


Don't get me wrong, i would love a pk button. But not for fighting over loot. I just like picking fights with people don't like, and i enjoy it when they pick fights with me.

:D

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mibuwolf wrote:

To further back up my point a bit:

Dark Souls and Demon Souls were seen as games that had a very select audience in mind. In Dark Souls 2 there are plans to add difficulty selection. It's a hot issue because it will no longer be the vision that Dark Souls used to be, but then again the difficulty is STILL THERE. I believe it is a smart decision to include a wider audience for 2 reasons:

1. wider audience brings more players for further support/development for future products/services
2. wider audience brings more players so that multiplayer has a chance of lasting longer.

I disagree with this. DS and DkS are two of my very favourite games. IMO what would happen with a lower difficulty is that many players would opt to take the path of least resistance and ultimately have a much less rewarding experience for it. The first time they died to a difficult boss some people would switch over to easy, steamroll the game, and then forget about it.

I like DS precisely because it didn't allow me to control everything and push it around.

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Devilnaut wrote:

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mibuwolf wrote:

To further back up my point a bit:

Dark Souls and Demon Souls were seen as games that had a very select audience in mind. In Dark Souls 2 there are plans to add difficulty selection. It's a hot issue because it will no longer be the vision that Dark Souls used to be, but then again the difficulty is STILL THERE. I believe it is a smart decision to include a wider audience for 2 reasons:

1. wider audience brings more players for further support/development for future products/services
2. wider audience brings more players so that multiplayer has a chance of lasting longer.

I disagree with this. DS and DkS are two of my very favourite games. IMO what would happen with a lower difficulty is that many players would opt to take the path of least resistance and ultimately have a much less rewarding experience for it. The first time they died to a difficult boss some people would switch over to easy, steamroll the game, and then forget about it.

I like DS precisely because it didn't allow me to control everything and push it around.

So you would too? Sorry, but this is why I have trouble understanding the Pro-FFA/No-options side. Just because the game can be easier, how does that detract from your experience? I play almost all my games on the hardest setting now, even if I wait for the second playthrough (story, learning game mechanics etc the first time). Doesn't mean I'm not tempted, but I ultimately know I'll have enjoyed the game more if I beat it at it's most punishing. DMC springs to mind where this is true (the old ones, can't speak to the new).

In case you missed it my question is thus: How/Why does having different loot options detract from your experience? What I keep getting is: Because then I and everyone else will only play the "easier" way. Because we have no self control.

The way I see it is those who enjoy FFA will continue to play that way. I see almost no reason why they/you would stop unless there is inherently something wrong with FFA. Sure it'll be the most ruthless/cutthroat people playing, but isn't that the point? Isn't that what you want? To be constantly competing to the best of your ability for the best drops? Unless your thrill comes from grabbing things from people who aren't paying attention and will cry when you do. Of course, then your just a griefer and I could give a damn what you think. Just my two cents.

I have posted in this thread frequently. Like many fellow posters I am not doing this to make the game ‘easy’ or to ‘whine’. I am doing this because I want this game to be successful. I understand the reasoning behind FFA mechanics but as we have seen it fails in a real world application.

The Timer Allocation system is their idea and they have a right to be protective of it. I respect them for creating quality game that is very fun to play. But I feel that they could have done better with communication regarding the current system. In this instance they fell victim to the IKEA effect. They saw the positives while glossing over the flaws.

Remember they have stated multiple times that they are working on this issue. We need to step back and stop attacking each other over a system that is going to be changed soon.

TLDR: Devs are changing the system, stop feeding the trolls.