Joyful co-op, or a loot race?

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cronus wrote:

if not i just go farm elsewhere. easy as it is.

This is not co-op.

What's wrong with admitting that FFA is anti-co-op?

Everyone arguing for FFA will eventually interject with "then go farm by yourself" or "kick them" or some similar nugget of wisdom. I've heard all the fallacious arguments purporting to support the view that FFA encourages teamwork. On paper, perhaps, this may be true. In practice not so much.

Once public the issue will be exacerbated.

The timed loot is a gimp. It slows gameplay and injects a sense of ownership on drops which may or may not be honoured by the other party members. If anything it is worse than FFA because folks will get more upset if someone else collects an allocated drop.

Instanced loot is the only rational solution. There is no sense of loss attached to something you never see. FFA hardcore leet loot-ninja manly-men may disagree because in their view *everything* belongs to them but that's their problem.

Use groups for grinding XP, if you get loot also its just a bonus.

Use solo for grinding loot, the XP you get is just a bonus.


Works for me.

As far as i'm concirned, it's a diablo clone, and in diablo esque games the loot is first come first serve. In D2 players used to pride themselves on being able to grab stuff in mid air.

Though admittedly, you had to learn that because the teleport loot bots would instantly pick up anything that hit the ground. I feel the ownership time is a nice compromise.

But the principle should stay the same. First come, first serve (i should mention that i mostly play ranged). Just be near to the drops you expect to happen. This is not a holy trinity game, you can just walk away from a pack of mobs and let the rest of the party deal with it.

As far as etiquette goes, that's not entirely lost. Blue items i don't bother with but any yellow or above i identify and link in party. If i don't want it (AKA sell trash, which this game has a lot of) and somebody else does i'll just drop it, no charge.

For very good items i'm willing to interrupt my run and trade on the spot. Even if you did most of the work and i grabbed an item exclusive to you after the time expired. Since in the end, i turned out to be the smart one (and don't gimme that look. It's a loot based game, so the loot is the game. If it was stats/level i'd go for the kills).

But i'm not going to just share because it's "the right thing to do". The right thing to do with this kind of loot system is to pick up everything you can as fast as you can and train yourself to do so. If everybody is fast, everybody will get an equal share. If you're not fast enough, get faster! As i said, the exlusion time is already a nice compromise for the casual age. Beyond that it should be just good ol' fashioned L2P.

As I think back, actually this is not that bad, because it gives me a reason to add "friends" with the style that I want to play.

However, I still want to have some party rules displayed or being set when a new player joins. I don't want to go over all the rules again, but I don't want 1 player to mess up the whole experience.

Loot that is FFA ist nothing i consider fun.
I simply wont party with anyone i dont know or at least chatted with for some time so i feel to know how they think and act.
I just feel in need of some "honor" when i play with others. Otherwise it wont be fun for me and id feel sad and / or angry over childish "MY LOOT" ninjas ^^

D.

Again, there is no way to please everyone with a single loot system. They just need options for the party leader to set. Full FFA, Current FFA, and completely assigned loot. On the party board, it should show what loot system the group is using. If there are multiple people in the party, changing the loot system type must be done with a vote so the party leader can't just change it if they see something on the ground they want.

I for one have always loved FFA loot. You win some, you lose some, but that snatch and grab at the end of a boss fight has always been fun to me.

Yes pleaaaaaaaaaase make an option to choose the loot system.
I know it most liekley is VERY difficult to program something like that. But it would make this game a real coop game for me ^^.

Man, the looting issue is still my biggest problem with this game.
First off, I've been around in PoE since the beta started, I've started playing this genre online since -97 Diablo 1.
Threw a few years in to Diablo 2 etc... With that said I think I have enough experience with the gametype to have a "valuable" opinion on the subject. Not that everybody's opinion isnt a precious gem we should all cherish.

The way I see it, the "competetive", more like archaic, looting system doesnt contribute anything to the game.
It offers nothing. It isnt a "notable feature" of any sort.

It does deliver one thing. These threads, this "controversy". It takes away a lot from players who enjoy playing with other people.

Personally, I've not played in a public group once in my time of playing PoE and I will not until they fix this shit. Yes, FIX it, I believe its an issue that needs to be fixed / killed. Thats just my subjective take on it.

Back to the point, objectively it really doesnt add anything, it just takes away from people and ultimately the "cut-throat" looting system WILL affect the health of the game playerbase wise because many "social" players (hate that term) will not be able to enjoy this game since your co-op patner is the firs and foremost enemy of your character's progression because the other guy is trying to take your shit.

The same goes for private groups. FFA loot interferes with the flow of the game REGARDLESS if you have a "tight knit" group of people to play with. We've encountered this every time we play, we have to stop and "sort" the drops, frequently, therefore interfering with our gameplay.

Fixing it does pose a problem however. Were the dev team to code up a completely new looting system, preferably the one where loot is "instanced", as in each player sees their own drops... Doing that would probably delay Open Beta even further, which I really dont want.
Secondly it would also inflate the item/orb market which I wouldnt really mind, but it would devalue orbs quite considerably in the long run Im sure.

Instead I would propose keeping the current drop system but just permanently assigning drops to an individual but with some sort of algorithm where one guy doesnt get 3 exalted's in a row and his co-player none. To keep it somewhat "fair".

Ofcourse there are some of the more "hardcore" (or so they'd like to think) people who are completely against any sort of loot controlling mechanic, but to those people I say, get serious and think about the big picture. Just because you'd rather play by yourself shouldnt mean everybody else should, because it just might be if people cant have a decent co-op session without it being a constant "who loots first"-race you might just end up playing the game by yourself and the 5 other "hardcore" people. Who clicks a drop first shouldnt be a factor in the game's difficulty/player's personal ingame progression.

Apologies for bad grammar/wall of text/swearing. Im just getting way tired of beating on this dead horse..

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Marxis wrote:

If its to be like this, Its probably a good idea to make friends and only play with them, or just gear solo so you don't have to worry about loot.

Agree. But thats kind of a bummer IMO.

Derpfoot, i'm curious as to why you think more orbs would magically appear and inflate the market just because of instanced loot. I would think the game generates a drop from a mob, and picks who it goes to. This happens already with the timer. Why would that change?