A detailed look at Looting and Respecs

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Already answered. Best explanation of my answer is, if I am in a party an for some reason it takes me 5 seconds to move I just lost every item drop. In instanced I can do whatever I want. I could clear a whole map and go back to grab my things. The risk is not always even, and like I said, the risk is still there even if it is even risk. If I bet $50 a coin would land on heads, even though the option is even, I still risked losing it, it is still there regardless if I played twice.

It's only a playstyle difference. You don't get loot penalties when playing with trusted friends, so why should you with instanced loot?

The coin toss does not illustrate the issue. It's a zero sum game, you have a risk of getting less loot and you have a chance of getting more loot. If there were options then only people who liked FFA loot would play it, and they are not risk averse.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Balancing a more difficult "spam-click" playstyle vs a laidback playstyle, the balance shouldn't be that you get more white items.

Oh please, instanced loot isn't a laidback playstyle. It's hard to take you serious when you say biased shit like that.

And again, private versus public parties would need balance aswell if this is going to make any sense.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

FFA you are playing against monsters and other players for loot. Instanced you are playing only against monsters. Solo playing you only are playing against the monsters. You can't balance something unfairly by saying FFA and Instanced are equal.

They have the equal amount of loot, so single player is not penalised by instanced loot any more than it is by FFA loot.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

You cannot honestly say that they are equal in skill, if they were equal we wouldn't be discussing Instanced Loot in the first place. FFA players are offered the bonus to Item Quantity because now another aspect has been thrown into the game, PvP. You are competing with others for loot while cooperatively taking down mobs.

No you don't get the item quantity bonus as a compensation for the PvP. If there wasn't a item quantity bonus you would get so little loot per player that partying would be avoided by pretty much everyone.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Instanced Loot removes the PvP portion and allows you to play in a Solo looting environment. Solo players should not receive a disadvantage on loot drops when someone is playing THE SAME WAY THEY ARE. FFA is far from the same way. Play the solo game in a FFA party and you will receive nothing. Play the solo game in an instanced party and receive everything.

You still get more loot per person in single player.

Playstyle differences does not mean that there should be different rewards from it. Should bad builds get a loot bonus?

FFA and instanced loot still have the same amount of loot per hour, THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.
That one is harder or risky or whatever doesn't matter when it's exactly that that made you play it in the first place.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

If FFA and instanced looting were equal which is the argument to change it, why change it in the first place? Keep in mind your answer because if FFA has a drawback that nullifies the equal statement.

Because it's a playstyle that I don't enjoy very much. It has nothing to do with getting more loot or making the game easier. Only different ideas of what's fun.

OP I think you ignored the fact that there is also no draw backs to playing in a private party with friends. You have all of the benefits without any draw back of fighting over loot. Its not the same as public games at all. So no I don't agree that the game would be absurdly easier or anything like that. Fighting over loot is an artifical workaround to making the game harder. If they want the game to be more difficult in a party then just do that. Make the monsters have more damage and life. That should be the one and only required drawback to partying.

Partying should be ENCOURAGED by the game.

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Sickness wrote:

It's only a playstyle difference. You don't get loot penalties when playing with trusted friends, so why should you with instanced loot?

That is assuming all FFA parties would be with trusted friends, also if you play instanced loot with trusted friends they would say "Here's a Rare Bow man". The friends argument can go both ways.

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Sickness wrote:

The coin toss does not illustrate the issue. It's a zero sum game, you have a risk of getting less loot and you have a chance of getting more loot. If there were options then only people who liked FFA loot would play it, and they are not risk averse.

How doesn't it? Even if you say the risk is 0 sum it isn't equal. The reason that many want instanced is due to people ninja'ing and "stealing" what they gave up in the first place. How can you say there is no risk because it is equal risk? You are pretty much saying, FFA loot is in a good place because the risk is even. Why even discuss Instanced then? There is ZERO NONE NADA RISK for loot in an instanced game.

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Sickness wrote:

Oh please, instanced loot isn't a laidback playstyle. It's hard to take you serious when you say biased shit like that.

Yet you are defending instanced loot to the death trying to defy logic with statements rather than information or reasons why that make sense (bias?). You keep denying that there is no risk in FFA yet wish for another option. Just say the reason, "I want my own loot and don't want to worry about other people taking it" or an even better and probably BEST excuse "I want to kill the mob before I pick up my loot". I don't understand how I am biased when I support a balanced instanced implementation. I would even play it when I don't feel like risking loot to be picked up by others. Which is "more laidback" than FFA where as soon as something drops even if the mob is still alive people will dive for it.

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Sickness wrote:

No you don't get the item quantity bonus as a compensation for the PvP. If there wasn't a item quantity bonus you would get so little loot per player that partying would be avoided by pretty much everyone.

Best argument by far, congratulations! This would still be arguable by the fact that instanced loot still offers the same benefits as FFA, which is more dependant on your ability whether that be spam clicking, paying attention etc. Again there is a reason you don't want to be stuck in a FFA system, there are CONS to it, how can you get rid of them and expect nothing to change, no risk all reward?

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Sickness wrote:

You still get more loot per person in single player.

Playstyle differences does not mean that there should be different rewards from it. Should bad builds get a loot bonus?

Single player should get more loot period per person. They have it the hardest of all. No group diversity and monsters have more HP per person.

Except you are still under the impression instanced loot has no benefit. If there was no benefit there wouldn't be thousands of posts bitching about people losing items and that is why they are anti-FFA. They want NO RISK. Ok well even if it a 0 sum risk, then what is the problem with FFA? <- Quit dodging this...

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Sickness wrote:

FFA and instanced loot still have the same amount of loot per hour, THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.
That one is harder or risky or whatever doesn't matter when it's exactly that that made you play it in the first place.

If something is harder it should reap more reward, otherwise what the hell is the point? You play Cruel to unlock Merciless not go back to Cruel or Normal. Do you farm Normal maps when you are level 62? This right here, makes it hard to take you seriously. You are saying, "even if it is easier it should have the same reward as something hard". Not everyone is a fan of communism.

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iamstryker wrote:

OP I think you ignored the fact that there is also no draw backs to playing in a private party with friends. You have all of the benefits without any draw back of fighting over loot. Its not the same as public games at all. So no I don't agree that the game would be absurdly easier or anything like that. Fighting over loot is an artifical workaround to making the game harder. If they want the game to be more difficult in a party then just do that. Make the monsters have more damage and life. That should be the one and only required drawback to partying.

Partying should be ENCOURAGED by the game.

Just the man I wanted to see in here, I like your arguments as most of the time they have logic unless someone gives you the solid "no you're dumb", then you become a monster, like me. =D

Although I answered this same argument in my reply to Sickness I feel you deserve another. There is no drawbacks in a private friends only FFA group, but there is also no drawbacks at all in a private friends only Instanced group, other than the drop rate.

ex. friend 1 has a rare bow drop in his instance, you are a ranger. "Hey man I found you this bow!"

Then you may say, well FFA wouldn't have a loot penalty but Instanced would. You have the same opportunity to play a friends only FFA group. The reason (I think) you don't want to accept this is because you may not have friends. Not you specifically, but it would be the case for most complaining. Whether you choose to or not, those others that made a private FFA game went through the trouble to assemble a group of honest gamers, there is nothing saying you can't too. If you want to forgo the work of putting one together then instanced loot would be available at a decreased rate.

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iamstryker wrote:

If they want the game to be more difficult in a party then just do that. Make the monsters have more damage and life. That should be the one and only required drawback to partying.

This would only work if they implemented Instanced Loot and got rid of FFA all together as FFA still has the risk of you losing every item. Even if you have the same "chance" to get items as everyone else, it is still chance, it is still risk. If I am not on my A game I will miss out on every single good item in a public group. The fix for this would be to remove FFA, which goes against GGG's design and would piss a lot of people off.

So now it would be either:

Remove FFA looting
Balanced Instanced Looting

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Again there is a reason you don't want to be stuck in a FFA system, there are CONS to it, how can you get rid of them and expect nothing to change, no risk all reward?

Why do people keep saying stuff like this? As many of us have stated over and over we are fine with in game cons. Make the enemies tougher! Don't just artifically make the game more difficult by pitting us against eachother.

The game is dominated by single player and private parties in which the FFA "drawbacks" matter little to nothing at all. So whats the big deal?

Losing items is frustrating but most of us could ninja loot if we wanted to. We don't enjoy that playstyle. It really is that simple.

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iamstryker wrote:

Why do people keep saying stuff like this? As many of us have stated over and over we are fine with in game cons. Make the enemies tougher! Don't just artifically make the game more difficult by pitting us against eachother.

The game is dominated by single player and private parties in which the FFA "drawbacks" matter little to nothing at all. So whats the big deal?

Losing items is frustrating but most of us could ninja loot if we wanted to. We don't enjoy that playstyle. It really is that simple.

I stated the one con that would need to be in place for instanced looting to be balanced, with examples why, then you defend the fact loot % would need to be less. You still plow through mobs faster than a solo player and have no risk of your items being taken by someone else, there are still benefits to party play, albeit loot per hour would be the same as playing solo. I gave examples, there is social interaction, you may have built a character dependant on having another player fill a role or you are simply stuck. You still get more XP, and still move through the content faster.

There are many public FFA parties, it isn't dominated by private parties. If you don't want to find your own party and instead want to be in a group with random people who have no opportunity to take item. Public parties for instanced looting are a lot easier to assemble then a group for a share loot FFA party. If something is harder to do it isn't balanced with something easier.

If you choose not to take public loot after the timer that is your choice. You are the one removing the equal risk from yourself. If you make a system unbalanced it shouldn't be the developers problem.

The benefits to partying in this game are FAR too many. I agree that partying should be encouraged, but playing solo vs playing party is 10 x harder (or full party play is 100% faceroll) and many times less rewarding.

This is the basis they need to work on, right from the start: balance the tremendously imbalanced difference between party play and solo play. I dont care if its the loot, the timers or the instanced loot but having the harder way also being the less rewarding way is just... bad design. And this needs to be approached on the party play side of things.Make the goddamn mobs at least present half a challenge.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

That is assuming all FFA parties would be with trusted friends, also if you play instanced loot with trusted friends they would say "Here's a Rare Bow man". The friends argument can go both ways.

No it's not. What I was saying was that you can RIGHT NOW play with friends and eliminate the risk without any penalty whatsoever.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

How doesn't it? Even if you say the risk is 0 sum it isn't equal. The reason that many want instanced is due to people ninja'ing and "stealing" what they gave up in the first place. How can you say there is no risk because it is equal risk? You are pretty much saying, FFA loot is in a good place because the risk is even. Why even discuss Instanced then? There is ZERO NONE NADA RISK for loot in an instanced game.

I can't speak for anyone else. I want instanced loot because I don't like the FFA playstyle, not because I want more loot.

Also, you ignored the part about risk aversion. To the people who will most likely play FFA the risk/reward is purely a benefit!

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Yet you are defending instanced loot to the death trying to defy logic with statements rather than information or reasons why that make sense (bias?).

Just because something doesn't make sense to you...

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Worldbreaker wrote:

You keep denying that there is no risk in FFA yet wish for another option. Just say the reason, "I want my own loot and don't want to worry about other people taking it" or an even better and probably BEST excuse "I want to kill the mob before I pick up my loot". I don't understand how I am biased when I support a balanced instanced implementation. I would even play it when I don't feel like risking loot to be picked up by others. Which is "more laidback" than FFA where as soon as something drops even if the mob is still alive people will dive for it.

Are you not reading? I am not denying that there is risk, I am saying that the risk is not a good reason to put a penalty on instanced loot.

I don't have to say why I want instanced loot to point out the flaw in having a loot penalty for it.

"A difficult "spam-click" playstyle vs a laidback playstyle" is a very biased misrepresentation.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Best argument by far, congratulations! This would still be arguable by the fact that instanced loot still offers the same benefits as FFA, which is more dependant on your ability whether that be spam clicking, paying attention etc. Again there is a reason you don't want to be stuck in a FFA system, there are CONS to it, how can you get rid of them and expect nothing to change, no risk all reward?

If FFA just had a risk of having items randomly disapearing and no chance to get extra loot yourself then you would have a point. But right now you are only missing the point.

The con is that FFA is not as enjoyable as instanced loot for me. Just because something is less dependant on your ability to do certain things and more fun doesn't mean it should get a penalty. It's all about different playstyles. Should more loot drop in HC? Should you get a penalty for playing with friends?

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Worldbreaker wrote:

Except you are still under the impression instanced loot has no benefit. If there was no benefit there wouldn't be thousands of posts bitching about people losing items and that is why they are anti-FFA. They want NO RISK. Ok well even if it a 0 sum risk, then what is the problem with FFA? <- Quit dodging this...

I am not dodging that. I have said that the problem with FFA is just that it's a playstyle that I don't enjoy as much.

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Worldbreaker wrote:

If something is harder it should reap more reward, otherwise what the hell is the point? You play Cruel to unlock Merciless not go back to Cruel or Normal. Do you farm Normal maps when you are level 62? This right here, makes it hard to take you seriously. You are saying, "even if it is easier it should have the same reward as something hard". Not everyone is a fan of communism.

But the difference in difficulty is miniscule if it's there at all. The game itself does not become harder with FFA loot.
Every argument you can make to show that it is harder can just be countered with the simple fact that you can play with friends and practically have instanced loot, without penalty!

So in the end the idea that instanced loot must have a penalty is quite silly.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

^ Is incorrect

Is not incorrect and how nice of you to explain yourself. You've shown what a valuable member of this discussion you truly are.

The discussion is a matter of party loot philosophy, hence the absence of numbers and math. GGG has tried to design a system where playing in a party isn't worse than playing solo and also that it's rewarding in itself. My explanation above explains the system at base: the scaling of the QUANTITY of items in a party is a necessity to compensate for the number of people in it. It's not done necessarily to boost the fun of parties or somehow reward them; it's done so that it's not worse than soloing. The fun is boosted by your increased variety of items and therefore loot opportunities are boosted. It's not quantity that parties receive over solo'ers, it's quality. This is fact. The OP made some good points about the quantity of items and I wanted to point out the subtlety that some of you are arguing against, framing the % boost in quantity as some grouping bonus/reward. It's compensation to ensure fairness, even if it increases fun for groups.

There's a difference between mechanics which are designed to reward and those designed to not detract from other experiences. It's like the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. Subtle, but there nonetheless.