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

Farming merc ledge earlier today.
Decided to make public party and set FFA.
People join, can't keep up, get no loot, leave.
How hard is it to just keep up with the player that's killing all the mobs? Thing is, if one straggler survives from a pack by being outside of my AoE or something, I'll just leave it and move on. You know, efficient farming. But they fall behind mopping up strays. And they take longer to kill that 1 stray that it takes me to kill the whole next pack, so they just fall further and further behind.

So from my experience, a lot of people don't like FFA farming, because they don't know how to farm.

[edit] CI discharge OP!

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

They should.

How crazy it was for me to decide what I like. Please tell me how to enjoy the game. I obviously have no idea what I am doing, I really need your help.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The correct solution was (and is) a Reddit-style player rating system to punish ninjas.

Punish them for what? Playing FFA the way that its intended??

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iamstryker wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

EDIT: 'Illusion of choice' may be one of the most infuriating phrases in existence. Everytime I hear it I just think of JW and his arrogant ass telling everyone that D2 was actually crap and their memories of the game were pure nostalgia...

Quoted for taking the words right out of my mouth

Problem is that 'Illusion of choice' comment by Lord Jay Wilson was used in describing skill points and stat allocation. Not loot.

At the end of the day. The greatest ARPG of all time did not have loot options nor did it care about how people got their loot.

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iamstryker wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The correct solution was (and is) a Reddit-style player rating system to punish ninjas.

Punish them for what? Playing FFA the way that its intended??

I agree...lol.

You can't punish a player for playing legit.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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iamstryker wrote:

Instanced players don't give a crap about any so called narrative mechanic.

They should.

Why? Because you do?

It's not even clear that FFA loot somehow gives a better narrative then instanced loot. That is just your opinion.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

It isn't; it's just as imbalanced as it once was. The correct solution was (and is) a Reddit-style player rating system to punish ninjas.

That would be ridiculously bad. Groups of friends "uping" eachother. "WTB up for alch" etc.
And it makes absoultely no sense at all to promote ninjas just so that we can collectively punish them.

Ninjas isn't even the worst thing about FFA loot for many of us, it's the way it shifts focus from combat to looting. And no narrative mechanic will ever make up for how much more enjoyable it is to play with instanced loot.

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Sickness wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

It isn't; it's just as imbalanced as it once was. The correct solution was (and is) a Reddit-style player rating system to punish ninjas.

That would be ridiculously bad. Groups of friends "uping" eachother. "WTB up for alch" etc.
And it makes absoultely no sense at all to promote ninjas just so that we can collectively punish them.

Ninjas isn't even the worst thing about FFA loot for many of us, it's the way it shifts focus from combat to looting. And no narrative mechanic will ever make up for how much more enjoyable it is to play with instanced loot.

So you're telling me that a totally un-enforceable trade with people you know to be disreputable is going to be common practice?

That's not to say nothing like that would ever happen -- I'm sure there would be "thieves guilds" or some similar, with methods for somewhat artificial reputation augmentation. And that's actually pretty cool, when you think about it. But it's very unlikely that the "good" players would be helping the ninjas -- it would more likely be ninjas helping ninjas.

In terms of the whole "I'm too one-track mind to handle combat and looting at the same time" thing -- play solo, or play with friends, or (maybe) play with reputaable players.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

So you're telling me that a totally un-enforceable trade with people you know to be disreputable is going to be common practice?

That's not to say nothing like that would ever happen -- I'm sure there would be "thieves guilds" or some similar, with methods for somewhat artificial reputation augmentation. And that's actually pretty cool, when you think about it. But it's very unlikely that the "good" players would be helping the ninjas -- it would more likely be ninjas helping ninjas.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. It would most certainly happen. A rating system would be close to meaningless, and I don't even see the point of having it in the first place when loot options is simply better.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

In terms of the whole "I'm too one-track mind to handle combat and looting at the same time" thing -- play solo, or play with friends, or (maybe) play with reputaable players.

Wow, you are really ignorant. It's not about being able to handle combat and looting at the same time. It's about where the acutal focus is. The focus/energy you spend on looting in the middle of a combat detracts from the actual combat, even if you can handle it's still alot less enjoyable.


The bottom line is, with loot options everybody wins. Your "losing narrative mechanic" argument is ridiculous, and so is your rating idea.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

It isn't; it's just as imbalanced as it once was. The correct solution was (and is) a Reddit-style player rating system to punish ninjas.

That would be ridiculously bad. Groups of friends "uping" eachother. "WTB up for alch" etc.
And it makes absoultely no sense at all to promote ninjas just so that we can collectively punish them.

Ninjas isn't even the worst thing about FFA loot for many of us, it's the way it shifts focus from combat to looting. And no narrative mechanic will ever make up for how much more enjoyable it is to play with instanced loot.

So you're telling me that a totally un-enforceable trade with people you know to be disreputable is going to be common practice?

That's not to say nothing like that would ever happen -- I'm sure there would be "thieves guilds" or some similar, with methods for somewhat artificial reputation augmentation. And that's actually pretty cool, when you think about it. But it's very unlikely that the "good" players would be helping the ninjas -- it would more likely be ninjas helping ninjas.

In terms of the whole "I'm too one-track mind to handle combat and looting at the same time" thing -- play solo, or play with friends, or (maybe) play with reputaable players.

I feel you typically have very intelligent opinions and I tend to agree with you on many discussions, but this is definitely an area where we would never see eye to eye.

A rating system seems like an ultimately terrible idea, while loot options are great for the gameplay experience, which is much much more important than narrative.

Agree to disagree I guess.

I cringe a little at the idea of "reputable" players. I would think these would be players who are either nice enough or don't care enough about the alch or chaos on the ground and just hand it over to the other player. They then build up a good reputation. However when the exalt, mirror, or rare unique drops they would do what nearly any player would do. Grab it and exit the game/ignore. So much for reputable.

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Sickness wrote:

Wow, you are really ignorant. It's not about being able to handle combat and looting at the same time. It's about where the acutal focus is. The focus/energy you spend on looting in the middle of a combat detracts from the actual combat, even if you can handle it's still alot less enjoyable.
.

Its kind of funny that you call someone ignorant while proving his point.


You say "Its not about handling combat and looting" And then follow it up with "It's about where the actual focus is.."

So, you pretty much proved his point.

People who played enough D2 have no issue with battles and looting. Its like chewing gum and walking. What you describe is people need to take a step, stop, chew and then take step again. Hey what ever... Handicapped people should be able to play the game too.



Personally, the allocated loot systems blows since its not instanced loot. Now people rage at others getting all the loot while they get nothing. Guess they can't cry about ninjas and cowboys anymore.

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Vooodu wrote:

Its kind of funny that you call someone ignorant while proving his point.


You say "Its not about handling combat and looting" And then follow it up with "It's about where the actual focus is.."

So, you pretty much proved his point.

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