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

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Plastic_Cup wrote:

3. THE FACTS: Non-FFA Hurts End Game
- End Game is designed around the FFA system in that maps are based a number of preset
rules.
a. Maps are dropped as if only one person is present in the instance.

b. Maps can never drop under different rules without consequences, this has been
proven.

c. Map affixes often grant loot bonuses that would be multiplied by the killing persons
loot bonuses and party bonuses in an instanced loot scenario, causing metric shit
tons of extra items that would not have been created otherwise.

d. Instanced loot in maps with no party bonuses would break a critical part of resource
gathering in groups.

I'm not really following your map argument. Can you restate it please? Instanced looting could work exactly like if you extended the timer infinitely. The devs could work around the issues that you mentioned. Instanced never has to have more loot than any other system.

Nevertheless no one would have to play instanced and no one would force you to play. As long as its fair to all players by not providing more loot than the other systems then I don't see why its a problem.

I'm sure someone else already said it, but I don't see what the problem with the "need or greed" system is.

Granted I haven't played many online RPGs since Diablo 2 but I thought it was a fair system in Star Trek Online.

It is exactly as expected and what we said would happen. Thread after thread after thread asking for longer timers and a non competitive loot system.

Please GGG if this game is ONLY for hardcore players then release a statement just telling players to deal with it or leave. Don't string people along for months taking in all of the complaints to ultimately do nothing about it.

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iamstryker wrote:

It is exactly as expected and what we said would happen. Thread after thread after thread asking for longer timers and a non competitive loot system.

Please GGG if this game is ONLY for hardcore players then release a statement just telling players to deal with it or leave. Don't string people along for months taking in all of the complaints to ultimately do nothing about it.

I think it's not that simple... They know..if they really want be profitable company, they have to somehow lure and keep even more casual players. I think best possible solution for NOW would be, if they would just add option for instanced loot. FFA loot is just making too much competition in cooperative gameplay for many players.

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TheSwampDog wrote:

FFA loot is a form of PvP; players are competing against each other.

Some people prefer a pure PvE experience.

It's more than just loot. I don't want to see any party members looting while monsters rage. That's putting themself above the group. That's selfish.

FACT: I CANNOT have more fun in an FFA system than not. I'm not new to gaming. Neither are other players. We know what we enjoy.

There's no argument you can provide that will convince us that we're wrong, and that we'd actually prefer FFA.

It comes down to this: keeping the current system favors those who like it, and deters those who don't. Offering a non-FFA option does NOT hurt the game at all.


BTW; I've been playing for nearly a year, and none of the non-FFA arguments you make are sensible nor true.

You pretty much said it all.
No matter what you say, you can't make me like the current FFA loot.
Played in 1 random party so far. Never again. It is way too stressful and makes people rage or flame or almost universally useless as they're ignoring the actual fight and focusing on what dropped where.

Disappointed.

Give us some options. The game is good but I don't expect to be playing it for much longer as soloing will get boring really quickly. Oh well.

Do you have any idea how much bullshit a player has to go through if they want to manage manual loot rules in a party with random people? It's virtually impossible since many people do not even communicate, and even if you manage to communicate your rules there will always be the risk that if a truly epic item drops later on - anyone could turn out to be a ninja looter (even amongst friends this might happen). This is adding a totally unnecessary drama aspect to the game.

Good friends, playing amongst themselves will probably not be affected by the loot system either way, as they will probably trade a good bow to their archer friend, while they in turn will trade melee hammers to their marauder friend, etc. The people that are affected by the loot system are people who want to team up with random strangers in the game.


Here are my arguments for why having no loot timers at all is bad (that is, if you ultimately care about loot - which everyone does):
1) you cannot play if you don't know that you have a LOT of free space in your inventory.
2) You should probably use autohotkey so you can spam the ground with 1000 clicks per second when the boss dies.
3) You can never play ranged characters, or if you do, you cannot utilize their inherent advantage of being ranged, since you have to run up to the enemy before it dies.
4) It's an added stressor.
5) It gives players that are supposedly fighting together as a team reason to hate the shit out of each other.
6) It's just another incentive to have really low ping as I suspect that will help in snatching items. (Players with low ping have obvious advantages in every way possible so I wonder if it's very nice to shit on them in this regard as well.)


It's RNG, the thing about chaos is that it is fair. Just like its fair that one guy gets uber loot in his singleplayer game, while another person doesn't, even though they did pretty much the same thing. If you have a problem with RNG in this game, mate, I think you are screwed.

Removing the loot system because it doesn't give the correct category of items to the right people is not a solution - 2 wrong's doesn't make a right. It's especially not right when the potential for the developers to *improve* this system is right in front of them by a couple of algorithms.

Here's a relatively simple solution that might make everyone happy though: Give the party leader the option to choose how loot is distributed - this option exists in almost every mmorpg to date, for a pretty good reason. (I know this game isn't an mmorpg, but that doesn't exclude the option of borrowing this feature.)

Here is what it all comes down to in reality:
There are already incentives to not play in a party, because they might hold you back by just slacking too much, etc. But its a lot more fun to play multiplayer games *with* other people(in general), its the intended part of it being multiplayer. Gaming companies should be doing everything they can in order to make it smooth and accessible for players to join up with random strangers and be able to play games without too much trouble. If you make it so that players in general feel threatened by playing multiplayer this game will not last long for those players, it will be a similar fiasco as diablo 3 where it was much more lucrative to solo for most people.

Yeah, I still want at least an option for FFA loot. When you have a group, it can be a pain in the ass to wait on timers for shit others don't want.

There were multiple threads deleted on the main forum yesterday on this subject. In fact the 2 busiest threads. Many logical arguments were made for a dropdown menu option at party creation. They were met for the most part with rude narcissistic replies from the other side. One of the mods even likened the requests to "someone coming and shitting in your house". There is clearly something major wrong with the Philosophy at GGG. I admire the desire to create an updated D2 style experience. Ninja looting was aberrant behavior in D2 and Blizzard attempted to mitigate it several times. One attempt was to nerf sorc teleporting. Also it is clear that the controlling voices at GGG and on the forums must be primarily PVP and or ninja looters themselves. why else would one consider it a feature? The insistence on injecting PVP elements into PVE is bad for the game and reflects poorly on GGG.
GGG continues to re-iterate that POE is a "hardcore game for hardcore gamers". How that translates to rude behavior ie ninja looting being a game feature is beyond me. No one on the side of a drop down option has asked for ninja looting to be removed from the game only the option to not have it in a pug they create. I realize you cant please all the people all they time To blatantly "piss in the face" of legitimate community requests is rude and bad business however. Lets not forget when GGG put POE out for public consumption they also put it out for public input. I re-iterate no one is asking for game changing mechanics. Only the option to not have bad loot etiquette in a pug party they create. Here is the definition of etiquette for those unfamiliar.

et·i·quette
/ˈetikit/
Noun
The customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.

hardcore gaming has nothing to do with ffa.
one can be hardcore while liking/wanting options etc.

Peopled that like ffa loot are neither hard core nor skillfully. I can't read 300 pages but I am sure there are logical persons here that have clarify it already. FFA looting requires no skill at all.
About ggg wanting only hard core gamers and such I call bs if you don't quote a dev post that says that. Ggg I'd a company and needs the money to keep the bills payed end of story.
Also, fact is that the only thing d3 did right was the instanced loot now you can put your heads whenever you like but If instanced loot was discovered first from ggg then all of you would praise ggg as gods of innovation, cause d3 have It first doesn't make it bad system.

Now ffa lovers get your facts straight and provide us a valid reason why ffa is better (and stop talking bs that ffa iz for proz, go away etc)

And tl:dr when I gave ggg 20$ for the crimson effects I didn't see a message to 'pro only game do you wish to proceed?' did I?