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

Free for All loot systems of any kind just don't work. For the nice co-operative people that is. It will work for everyone else.

There is a reason it is called cut throat , I guess. They don't actually want us playing well with others. They want us to slit there throats at the best opportunity. If we can't kill them we will just have to take there loot.

Of course , we can always trade it back to them. If they really need it that badly. At ridiculous rates , of course.

We really need to see how the new system works out. GGG is making changes. I think it's pretty clear at this point that FFA is a bankrupt system in the eyes of most players.

Though if anyone wants to continue discussing FFA, gonna repost something I just put in the loot thread in beta feedback.

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Lebowitz wrote:

There is a reason it is called cut throat , I guess. They don't actually want us playing well with others. They want us to slit there throats at the best opportunity. If we can't kill them we will just have to take there loot.

If the idea is that people party to compete for loot, because competing for loot is enjoyable, then GGG has a real problem on their hands, because almost nobody plays that way.

You'd think people who are taking the trouble to play a beta and grind up to 60+ would be pretty hardcore right? Well, so far basically none of those people I've met partied to compete for loot. They partied because they wanted to cooperate with people.

Obviously people who want to compete for loot exist. But from what I observe, they are such a tiny slice of the population that catering exclusively to them in the "default" game mode makes no sense.

FFA loot was part of d2 and it did suck. Better to have some sort of assigned loot system (like the timer idea alot, great idea to allow others to get it if its something you dont want.)

I don't much like having to stop fighting all the time just to check what's on the ground. Having a nice allocation buffer time to get to an item and pick it up would be nice. But I don't think it should be too short.
It is especially annoying when you party with someone that lets you do most of the killing while they take all the loot. This happened to me in Diablo2 all the time.
And while you may say "don't group with them then," a lot of the time this happens when you are playing with friends.
While you may also think finding new friends is an option, I think that if ANYONE has the opportunity to take the loot, they will do so regardless. And because of this, you have to constantly stop fighting to check what has dropped, after every enemy you kill for the best chances at the loot. This just constantly halts play and makes the game overall more time consuming and more boring. Or you can play solo, which just isn't nearly as fun.

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aimlessgun wrote:

If the idea is that people party to compete for loot, because competing for loot is enjoyable, then GGG has a real problem on their hands, because almost nobody plays that way.

I don't think anyone is trying to imply that people would party simply to compete for loot. It just happens to be one of the aspects of partying, like harder mobs and longer times between flask refills.

Any FFA based loot system will simply lead to solo loot runs, the same as D2. The only builds in D2 that were good were ones that could solo for the best loot, and the same thing will happen in PoE .

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gcaliber wrote:

The only builds in D2 that were good were ones that could solo for the best loot, and the same thing will happen in PoE .

How would individual loot possibly make that situation any better? It would actually make it worse, because you could farm much more effectively by simultaneously running two characters: one for killing, one for loot bonuses. You wouldn't have the challenge of soloing with loot-bonus gear like you would in a FFA system where the killer's stats determine the drops.

Heyas - love the look and idea of this game so far. How about a queue along the edge of the UI to manage the drops. The current item's detail is shown automatically so players can keep fighting and just glance over to see what's next. When it's timer expires, a random keyboard character is shown there that you quickly press to go for the item. (or any other minigame-type input you want) The wrong keypress locks you out for 0.5 seconds while the right keypress has the client calculate local time between key availability and keypress. Local calculation eliminates the latency issue. Not having to walk to a drop location resolves the ranged/location issues. Having it be a random key rather than clicking helps reduce the use of hacks such as spam-click drivers. Still it will be a contest and you'll have to pay attention and be quick.

It would be nice if afterward it listed who won and also who went for it - for groups trying to play nice this helps. There were great suggestions in this thread that could apply here too like dealing with surplus items (that no one goes for), or having items only appear in your queue if you did >x% damage or whatever measurement of contribution you think makes sense.

I think it's a nice compromise of the two, and origional as far as I can tell...or at least I've never played a game with a similiar loot system. I'd prefer free for all, as this best represents the cut-throat "the way things really are" feel we all experience in everyday life. My 2 cents...heh

Curious... why can't there be a /roll function for rare items? You're going to have those d-bags who stop fighting to scoop up items and hurt the rest of the team. Why not just random roll like every other game? It's not a perfect system but it's fair.