Looting -- The official thread for discussing the loot system. Updated 18th March, 2013.
" You read what you wanted to read there. Its not that I am too lazy to type during combat. Its that its a bad idea. My character stops moving and I am no longer helping to kill things, it makes me look bad and if what I am typing isn't really important then its just holding me back from the game. I like voice chat a lot more, I wish PoE had an integrated voice chat so that its much easier for all players to shoot the breeze while they play the game. This is a video game, if players aren't having fun then they either have to ask for a change or leave the game. The looting was that big of an issue for players. Luckily single player kept some people around who would have left. " A lot of what your insinuating here is such a gross misrepresentation of the other side. You think the problem is interacting with other players? You think people don't want to pay attention to the game? You think people who don't like FFA would be fine just doing nothing? If your convinced of that stuff then theres no point in arguing with you, same as Vooodu. You don't appear to be even trying to listen to what the other side has to say so there is no point in trying to argue with you at all. Standard Forever
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"You can't consistently implement a core difference-in-kind mechanic if you allow players to turn it on and off. I guess you could inconsistently apply it; but that's like inconsistently applying the Standard death penalty by making it optional, or inconsistently applying the requirement that sockets be linked in order to support each other. You don't take a mechanic you actually care about and give it an off button; if you do, it's a clear message that the developer isn't emotionally invested in it, and that it can safely be skipped. That severely limits the possibilities. A good loot tension mechanic deserves GGG's full, unreserved sanction. But enough of that, and onto the atrocity of trying to claim that option-lovers subsume our entire position platform. First: you cannot simultaneously believe "altering loot tension to give a competitive edge to an otherwise co-op mode presents some very interesting design opportunities" and "There is no reason to force multiplayer and single player to be different in that way." You'd probably focus on the word force -- I get it, you like options. But there is still a reason to do so, a reason that would, in your pluralist dystopia, compete with several other reasons. In order to truly believe in options, you need to believe that the options are balanced against each other, that they are all valid on their own mutually exclusive merits. But that's not the case here; advocates of the current PA system are in fact only rarely true believers in options, and instead use "options" as a blanket dismissal for suggestions they find critical. Second: You cannot simultaneously believe "Party play should always make the content easier and/or more rewarding" and "Party play should make the content equally hard and rewarding." The truth is that making party play no more rewarding than solo (especially with maps) would utterly destroy PA partying, since it would enjoy no significant advantage over solo. Although I disagree with them, I can at least respect the current breed of PA supporters. I cannot, however, look at one who pretends to agree with SA principles and not smirk -- his true intent is not to agree, but to undermine. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 19, 2013, 12:11:35 AM
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I think a big part of this whole thing lies in the question "Is this game built for competition?". I would say that it was not and the competition was always optional. I think the FFA supporters feel like the game has always been about competition which is why they hate options, because it changes what they feel was an integral part of the game. If a game really is built for competition then it wouldn't really make sense to make the competition optional.
For me FFA isn't still around because we are all still pretending that this entire game is built for competition. Its around to make the players happy who enjoy it. The ones who hate timers and want all loot to instantly be available to all the players in the group. The change to options makes sense for guys like me because I never saw the game as built for competition. People ALREADY avoided the competition through single player and playing with friends which already undermined the forced competition of FFA in public games. IMO adding options made the game more consistent. I would agree with a lot of what Scrotie says if PoE was some kind of MMO that always forced players to be around other players. Single player would not be an option in that game. That game would be completely built around competition and therefore some variant of FFA would make more sense (preferably with a hostility button as well). Standard Forever Last edited by iamstryker#5952 on Jun 19, 2013, 12:22:47 AM
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" Why do you think I'm talking about this mythical "other side"? I'm talking about the human psyche in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_effort Good game design would strive to curb this and promote other kinds of behavior more conductive to developing various positive qualities in the players, individually and as a whole. |
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"I definitely think you're starting to understand me better. There's only two small points in there I disagree with; however, like a lot of core premises, changing it changes a lot of the logic around it. Yes, PoE allows you to be a loner if you so choose to be; it doesn't force you to be around other players. But that doesn't mean that the default mode of the game is cooperation; you can't cooperate with yourself (minions excluded). To be fair, it doesn't mean that the default mode of the game is competition, either. This means multiplayer, while still subject to the thematic world-building you refer to, is its own entity separate from single player... or perhaps single-player is what happens when you take the yin and yang of cooperation and competition and compress them until, like antimatter canceling matter, there's nothing left. Thus a more balanced version of short-allocation (or perhaps FFA) loot is building around the theme of simultaneously cooperation and competition; it's not like FFA loot is PvP, there's still teamwork going on there, or there would be if the system actually worked. But loot options are like giving the player an option between three separate worlds, one of which utterly fails to include the coop/comp duality in any form whatsoever. It's not cooperation vs competition. It's (cooperation vs competition) vs (competition+cooperation). It's about taking loot options and making them more than an options switch, and making them something your character actually plays out through his choices and the choices of others. I understand the previous SA system didn't quite implement that fully; I don't think that means it deserved to be replaced the way it was. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 19, 2013, 3:20:24 AM
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I dont like SA/FFA when I am playing my squishy toons.
I absolutely having a blast with SA and especially FFA when I am on my melee tank. Funny thing is a group leader created maps with FFA and some of them KICK me for being a "loot whore". Talk about SA/FFA supporters being "tough guy" always cracks me up. Get good at clicking (like me), a precision gaming mouse (like me), a good latency (<40ms like me), a freaking durable melee spec that doesnt use uninterruptable attacks like cyclone and leap slam, stack as much as run speed and have haste on while be quick on quicksilver flask in case you need it. Join a FFA game, and watch people rage quit all over. FFA/SA is extremely biased towards tanky melees, people coming up with the bullcrap saying its fair is delusional. It's only fair if everyone is playing super tank toon all in same group all stand melee right on top of the packs thats about to die and all have 50% run speed always on with a +30% speed quicksilver flask or 2. The real hardcore PoE players and the elites sit in town and zoning in and out of their hideouts trading items. Noobs that don't know how to play PoE correctly, kill monsters for items. It's pure fact, it will never change. Welcome to PoE. Last edited by Pewzor#2343 on Jun 19, 2013, 3:20:45 AM
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" Which is the point I was trying to make. If you think that we like loot options because we want to get loot with the least possible effort then you simply don't understand. Standard Forever
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"I can understand how you could like loot options for a reason other than getting loot with the least possible effort (although I believe the vast majority like it for precisely that reason). I don't understand how that can simultaneously co-exist with "Which is the point I was trying to make." Are you saying that FFA is the path of least effort? When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 19, 2013, 3:30:42 AM
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" To say it with your words " |
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" I said that becuase he is proving my point that he doesn't get it. Standard Forever
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