A detailed look at Looting and Respecs

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Worldbreaker wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

It would also be more than not playing at all, and that is equally irrelevant. What are you getting at?

The point is a player playing solo with no risk of losing items should be on the same field as someone in a party with no risk of losing anything. Also taking into account someone in a party is killing monsters faster than that solo player, it leaves him at a disadvantage. If both players are of equal skill there is an imbalance.

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Sickness wrote:

Instanced loot and FFA loot are balanced enough. You get slightly less [white]stuff in instanced loot, but I don't think anyone really minds.
It's really just a matter of playstyles, but your OP is trying to make it look like players in instanced loot have an advantage over FFA looters that needs to be made up for. It is simply not true.

Instanced loot players have an advantage in playstyle vs FFA as they have no risk of losing anything that drops to them. They would also have a large advantage over solo players as far as content farming.

This could be balanced easier if say a party of 2, if monsters had double hp and did double the damage and a party of 3 they had triple the hp and did triple the damage. That would of course be ridiculous as a party of 6 tanks would be one shot.

You are mixing things up. I'm not talking about solo VS group balance. That is a different discussion and have nothing to do with FFA vs instanced.


For the third time: FFA players have the advantage that they have a chance of getting more than their 1/n share.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

There is still risk involved. You have to be on your toes and have to pay attention to drops rather than casually moving along picking up your items at a steady pace. If there is a risk you have to play a different way than if there wasn't.

Yeah, there is a gameplay difference. So what? That is not an advantage to either side.

I see your Point, that you sould be balanced the loot.

Thats are not the Problem right now. I think.

The Point right now, that people feels disappointed when some other grab they named Loot.

First issue are for me, remove the name.

But whit the current System you have always some greedy players, what can you make against this situation? I do not know.

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Sickness wrote:

You are mixing things up. I'm not talking about solo VS group balance. That is a different discussion and have nothing to do with FFA vs instanced.

It is the same discussion. Solo players would be forced to play in a group environment to reap the benefits for 0 risk. Otherwise they are left at a disadvantage playing alone.

You cannot balance FFA vs Instanced Loot as they are 2 very different methods of playing. It would need to be balanced with all other aspects that give you no risk to lose your items.

What would make solo vs group balance a different discussion? They are playing the same game, in the same league, if they have the same skills/abilities if they were identical across the board, they should not be penalized in ANY way for choosing to play alone. Especially if you are in a group plowing things over, casually walking around gathering your loot. Currently the trade off for higher drop rates is that anyone can pick up the items in a group which results in loot tension and people in a frenzy when an item drops.


Even if the risk were even on an FFA party, the fact is you still have the risk to lose it, risk is still there. It doesn't go away even if it is even.

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PAX_ wrote:

I see your Point, that you sould be balanced the loot.

Thats are not the Problem right now. I think.

The Point right now, that people feels disappointed when some other grab they named Loot.

First issue are for me, remove the name.

But whit the current System you have always some greedy players, what can you make against this situation? I do not know.

The problem is PAX, the system wasn't meant to name your loot and make it yours. If that was the intention no one else would be able to pick it up after the timer runs out. If GGG truely believed that was yours there would be no timer at all, you would just be able to snag it.

Yes, some players are greedy and that is a risk you take in a FFA party.

I 100% agree with removing the name as a temporary fix, but the underlying problem remains of people snagging everything and would still lead to the same complaints.

The only way to remove the greedy players aspect in a public party would be instanced looting. Which as I said would have to be balanced with solo players.

Am I the only one confused by the "more loot in group play" assumption here?

The way I understand it, in a full group mobs will drop 300% the loot they normally would, not each member of the group gets 300% drop rate, that would be insane. I believe it's 50% drop rate per person. While solo, you get 100%.

Am I misunderstanding something?

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Bones40 wrote:

Am I misunderstanding something?

300% Itemquantity, that means, even more white, but are a hughes number of item, so you have more Chance to find a good one or that what you need.





I see also, the way going to instanced looting.

You can make the timer 10 times more, but what are with the items in boxes out of sight or Items not in the screen, you mabe will see the last second befor they grabbed, and the postings in the forum going on.

I see no point in "FFA are balanced in maybe you loose your Loot"

Thats balance means, the only benefit Player are the ninja. The others fighting against Mobs, meanwile the Ninja make no dmg or tank nothing, he make what Ninjas do, loot.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

It is the same discussion. Solo players would be forced to play in a group environment to reap the benefits for 0 risk. Otherwise they are left at a disadvantage playing alone.

Based on your faulty assumption that instanced loot is an advantage over FFA.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

You cannot balance FFA vs Instanced Loot as they are 2 very different methods of playing. It would need to be balanced with all other aspects that give you no risk to lose your items.

Ofcourse you can. They are balanced by default. It's only a playstyle difference, except a slight advantage to FFA (read my first post).

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Worldbreaker wrote:

What would make solo vs group balance a different discussion? They are playing the same game, in the same league, if they have the same skills/abilities if they were identical across the board, they should not be penalized in ANY way for choosing to play alone.

If they are penalised for playing alone when there is instanced loot for multiplayer then they are penalised for playing alone when there is only FFA.

FFA only vs instanced (loot options), all else equal.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Especially if you are in a group plowing things over, casually walking around gathering your loot. Currently the trade off for higher drop rates is that anyone can pick up the items in a group which results in loot tension and people in a frenzy when an item drops.


Even if the risk were even on an FFA party, the fact is you still have the risk to lose it, risk is still there. It doesn't go away even if it is even.

What part of "The risk of getting less loot is out-weighed by the chance of getting more loot" don't you understand?

Worldbreaker,

It seems as though you're really concerned that solo play has the same chance at getting loot as multi player because if not the solo player is forced to party. So we can assume that you believe a player will play in manner which yields the most loot regardless if they enjoy it.

Let's apply that to D2 style FFA loot. If multi player actually results in more loot being dropped(assumption BTW) then the best style of gameplay would be to roll a tanky melee character stand in the middle of the mobs clicking every so often and just wait for loot to drop and immediately pick it up.

That's the problem with traditional FFA style loot as was evidenced by 14 years of D2. When Baal was about to die everyone just huddled around him and stopped dpsing jusccct waiting for him to die. It was stupid. It inherently puts ranged at a disadvantage and promotes not carrying your weight as a melee. Now let's assume they take the name off the timer and everyone has time to get to the drop after all the mobs are dead. Everyone spam clicks and the person with the best ping wins everytime. That's the game play you strive for?

The only way you promote everyone doing there job and killing g the mobs as quickly as possible is to make fighting for loot a non issue. Either with longer timers then they have now or completely instanced loot.

Tldr: you're never going have a FFA style system that also promotes actual teamwork at the same time because being a good teammate is not conducive to getting the most loot.

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Sickness wrote:

No. If you play with instanced loot you have a disadvantage compared to FFA loot.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/45121/page/9#p903086

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Zakaluka wrote:

I did explain it.

You get +250% quant in a full party. That is, you get 3.5x more white items.
It's very unlikely that others in your party will give a second glance to the same 3- and 4-link white items you'll be interested in.
In a full party with FFA loot, you're way more likely to get the craftable whites you want, with good socket configurations.

You will progress faster item-wise in a FFA party.

There are other factors to note, which zak doesn't mention in this quote (although he may have in his original post), which is fine, as his point is very much true. FFA gives you a bigger opportunity for finding the items you want to craft. You will also see 3.5x more magic/rare/unique items, which in a friendly party where gear is split up by need, this is a HUGE advantage.

BUT, you'll also see 3.5x the orbs, which get split 6 ways. So in order to craft those white items you'll see so much more of, you'll need orbs that you get far less often because you're sharing more than your solo share.

BUT, things will die faster as the effective HP of mobs is lower per party member compared to the dps of an individual. An average DPS user in a full party has to do ~58.3% of the damage to bring down the same mob as he would solo, assuming all of the party members are hitting that same mob. He'll see more loot and see it more quickly, but he'll also get assigned less loot per mob, the two work in a bit of a balance, but ultimately it's a punishment having FFA loot.

Along the lines of that punishment, white items are the most common drop in the game. Anything you can do to bump up rarity/orbs will progress your gear faster. Playing in a party *may* bump up your chance to get the item you need in the rarity you want it, if your teammates are friendly and share the drop you need with you, but nearly every member of every party values the currency you'll need to craft that gear (alchemy, chaos, jeweler's, fusings) and splitting 3.5x more currency 6 ways is a punishment, no matter how you look at it.

I'd love to see loot options. Let my party be FFA and work out items/orbs on our own. I'd also love to see loot drop assignments (including in instanced loot) being biased based on how much damage a user does to a particular mob. If you're not doing damage, you're not getting items.

Those are my thoughts.