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

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Omnivore61 wrote:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

This still doesn't account for my previous statement.

Lots of those items people wouldn't pick up anyways. And still, seeing several items drop, instead of 18 is just.... Ugh

Right, I understand that. You want to leave the door open to griefers because it is more convenient and pleasing to you. You should have that option.

Um..

Blue rings and belts many people wouldn't even pick up. Ever.

Many people would also leave crafting gear behind. Stuff that I need, but you don't. Therefore. Not griefing.

And again, seeing 3 items drop from a boss, or even 1 from a rare mob. Often 0 from magic. I can only.imagine the amount of, "drop rates too low" threads that will ensue.

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braddrac wrote:

I've read it somewhere before, but the best solution I can think of is simply allowing the party leader to set the looting options, either true FFA, FFA with a short timer, FFA with a longer timer or (possibly) instanced. Please everyone without damaging anyone's experience, and it shouldn't be too hard to implement. Just my 2c.

It won't please everyone as you are still changing the game to something it isn't in order to please a group of people that should move on to a different product. Catering to such people isn't healthy.

At least not unless you want to achieve nothing but make a crap ton of money, which GGG has repeatedly said isn't there intention and they seem genuine about it.

Note: I am not implying that switching is a guaranteed way for them to make money. Merely made the assertion that if that is your goal then you would indeed try to please the mainstream crowd as much as possible to the detriment of your original vision with there still being no guarantee of success.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

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killbilly wrote:

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fevgatos wrote:

10 minutes ago I realized yet another bad thing about FFA

I joined a "no ninja" party. I was about 10 levels lower than anyone else. Suddenly, a unique Bow dropped. Obviously, I ninjaed it instantly. Know why? Cause im the biggest griefer in the universe. I LOVE griefing people. I love to make them feel frustrated over a game. I love making them want to kill me but knowing that hey can't do cause they are a bunch of noobs. Then, the player who's bow "belonged" to said

-hm,, kissofdeathh, the bow you picked up...

And suddenly it struck me how much of an idiot I am. No, I didn't have a sudden revelation. I still love to grief people. BUT, it struck me how much of a carebear I am for picking up his loot. This poor fella, even though he was 10 levels ahead of me could do absolutely nothing about me griefing him. In a real hardcore enviroment he would kill me and put my name on his alliance killboard. I would be forced to reroll a new character. But NO, I was protected in a big bubble by the game mechanics that are supposed to catter for the hardcores. I was as far away from being a hardcore as I could. I felt like the biggest carebear to ever walk this planet.

I was doing what I swore to never do in my life, either in a game or in real life. Griefing people that can in no means fight me back because the mechanics protect me. It's like going to a zoo and throwing rocks to a caged lion. How hardcore would that make you? Would you continue to feel hardcore and throw rocks to that lion if he wasnt in a cage? I bet my ass not.

Obviously, I gave him back his bow, apologizing, saying it was a missclick.

Then another thing struck me.
Someone that ninja loots everything is either in a win or a tie situation. There are either other ninja looters in his party, so he ties, or there are no other ninja looters and he wins.
A non ninjaer is either in a lose situation if pitted against other ninja looters or in a tie situation when pitted with other non ninjas.
And the funny thing is, he can do nothing about it because the game mechanics of this so called hardcored game protect the people that non stop grief him. Hillarious

haha awesome post ;p that shows the very core problem of the FFA mechanism

It shows a problem with the current implementation of FFA Loot. FFA Loot is still the best thing for this game, just that the current FFA loot system is not as well designed as it could be. Instanced Loot is and always will be, a far worse system.

Provide us the facts why ffa iz better please.. You can claim whatever you want but without facts it is a blatant claim

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

It isn't your loot, especially not because it has your name on it. It is the parties loot.

The name tag on the loot was an incredibly bad decision from GGG that has done nothing but obfuscate how FFA loot is meant to work.

If the sole reason an item dropped is because you are in that particular istance then it IS your loot. The fact that everyone is allowed to pick it up in an FFA enviroment doesn't change even a tiny bit the fact that it is your loot indeed.

The fact that you can come by and grab 50$ out of my desk doesn't make those 50$ yours. You are saying that, since it's not in your pocket then it's not yours. That's retarded. Being in a possesion of something DOESN'T make it yours. Not being in a possesion of something doesn't mean that it's not yours either.

Regarding the party's loot. Exactly my point. The party's loot is dependant on the member of the parties. When X item dropped its because one out of your 5 partymembers is actually in the party. If he wasn't, that item wouldn't drop. That doesn't make that item his possesion in an FFA, but it certainly makes it his no matter what.

Not that it fucking matters anyways. It's pretty obvious that having loot options in every game that has a partying option in it is MANDATORY. Even more hardcore games like Lineage had it. They dont water down the experience, they just make the party work better and instead of everyone running around like an idiot picking stuff with his name on it, they are given to him so he can actually play the game instead of clicking shiny things on the ground that even a blind dog could manage to.

Ill try to make it even more easy for you. Let's disregard people with bad connections and bad PC's, cause they are not in a position to talk about balance, no game company should have to balance a game based on bad computers. So, we are left with people with 100fps and 50 pings. ( lets disregard people with broken mouses as well). With the current system, EVERYONE, NO MATTER WHAT, can fucking click at least ONCE his loot in a 5 second time window. If he can't, he shouldn't playing videogames, so let's keep those people out of this discussion too. So all in all, we can safely conclude that right now the system IS instanced. But it's a BAD instance, cause again, instead of fighting mobs, you run around like a retard picking loot, while everyone else runs around and waits for timers to pick everyone else's loot. If everyone has an FFA mentality, NO ONE WOULD BE HITTING MOBS AT ALL. So, even though the loot is divided like it would in an instanced loot system (so no gains for the "wannabe" hardcore community) it makes the gameplay majorly suck ass for those who DON'T want to run around like retards, who want to have a game where the atmosphere that the game trys to create (surviving at all costs) doesn't get destroyed by people camping scrolls of wisdom for 5 seconds when a horde of brain eating zombies are approaching. It slows down the game, destroys any realism, destroys any atmosphere, forces people to play in a way that they dont want to or be punished otherwise, promotes ONE way griefing (throwing rocks at a caged lion) when in reality the loot is divided in an instanced manner!!

As I said before, if FFA would reward skill then by all means, lets hang onto it. If it promoted reactions / consequences, then by so be it, lets keep it. Currently, it does neither. Even an untrained dog could be taught to click loot with his name on it, it doesn't take even the slitghest bit of skill. And it doesn't promote hardcore play, since there's no consequences for freely picking up loot.
So it doesn't serve ANYTHING right now. Loot is distributed instanced but with an added "feature" that destroys what ever good this game has on it.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

It won't please everyone as you are still changing the game to something it isn't in order to please a group of people that should move on to a different product. Catering to such people isn't healthy.

At least not unless you want to achieve nothing but make a crap ton of money, which GGG has repeatedly said isn't there intention and they seem genuine about it.

Note: I am not implying that switching is a guaranteed way for them to make money. Merely made the assertion that if that is your goal then you would indeed try to please the mainstream crowd as much as possible to the detriment of your original vision with there still being no guarantee of success.

There's no facts here. It is purely your opinion that making the changing isn't 'healthy'. It is wrong that changing it would achieve 'nothing'. It would certainly appease a number of players, myself included. And the game has been changing since it's first Alpha, it is not yet cast in stone what the game is and isn't.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

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fevgatos wrote:

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

It shows a problem with the current implementation of FFA Loot. FFA Loot is still the best thing for this game, just that the current FFA loot system is not as well designed as it could be. Instanced Loot is and always will be, a far worse system.

But you do realize that the "default" league will always be FFA in a protected enviroment right? Which automatically means that actually FFA in a NON pvp league is the worst thing ever. Timers are not making things better. Yes, timers make sure that if you are not a total retarded you have time to pick your loot, but it doesnt improve the gameplay, it makes it worse, cause you HAVE to stop having fun (aka killing mobs) so you can run around like a retard in the middle of the combat picking your loot, while everyone else does the exact same, but not only with his loot but with everyone else's loot as well.

Like I said, the current system isn't the right system, but neither is instanced loot.

The only benefit the timer created was an improved chance to see what has dropped before it was picked up. It didn't contribute in any other positive way. It was still just as hard as it was before to get good loot before someone else picked it up, unless you're melee.

I am unsure how to implement the loot system but I do know that neither the current nor the proposed alternative are the correct solution.

I am still against having Player Killing.

Instanced loot is a lesser evil looting mechanism. If you are against pking in open world then you do not want true cut throat feeling and you like ffa only for the false feel of competition and as a easy way to grief people

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

It won't please everyone as you are still changing the game to something it isn't in order to please a group of people that should move on to a different product. Catering to such people isn't healthy.

At least not unless you want to achieve nothing but make a crap ton of money, which GGG has repeatedly said isn't there intention and they seem genuine about it.

Note: I am not implying that switching is a guaranteed way for them to make money. Merely made the assertion that if that is your goal then you would indeed try to please the mainstream crowd as much as possible to the detriment of your original vision with there still being no guarantee of success.

Mainstream here is used in the wrong context. Bieber is mainstream while his music sucks ass. Queens are mainstream but they are music geniuses. Mainstream doesn't always mean casualising. In this context, instanced loot isn't the bieber of the gaming genre, its the Queens. Just saying...

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

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fevgatos wrote:

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

Like I said, the current system isn't the right system, but neither is instanced loot.

The only benefit the timer created was an improved chance to see what has dropped before it was picked up. It didn't contribute in any other positive way. It was still just as hard as it was before to get good loot before someone else picked it up, unless you're melee.

I am unsure how to implement the loot system but I do know that neither the current nor the proposed alternative are the correct solution.

I disagree. A 5 seconds timer is WAY more than enough to actually pick your loot up, considering you want to let your party fight on their own (and note here that everyone else will do the same). Mechanics wise, it did its job, everyone picks "their" loot with 90% success rate. But gameplay wise it did it even worse, since everyone focuses on loot. This is a lose lose situation. You dont get more loot by focusing on it cause everyone does the same. Actually, you get even less loot and xp exactly because instead of focusing on what gives you loot and xp (killing mobs) you focus on harvesting that loot. At the same time you are sucking the fun out of everyone who doesnt want to focus on picking loot, since he HAS to or become undergeared and unable to proceed to the game any further. That would be awesome if picking loot was a skill based mechanic. Currently its not. My dog can pick loot as efficinetly as I do, it doesn't take einstein to do it.

So all in all, yes you dont have a better alternative. I do. Its blatantly obvious that in a PVE game anything outside instanced loot is retarded.

It isn't your loot, especially not because it has your name on it. It is the parties loot.

The name tag on the loot was an incredibly bad decision from GGG that has done nothing but obfuscate how FFA loot is meant to work.

Yet one more time

FFA brought timers not the other way around.. Saying that timers are the worst thing in ffa is silly... Cause without timers a bigger player base is blocked from looting (ranged, bad connection, lower end pcs etc)

Instanced loot makes the game more realistic? Lol. You've got.to be kidding me.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Instanced loot makes the game more realistic? Lol. You've got.to be kidding me.

No, its as realistic as the current FFA is.

Why don't you try just a little tiny bit and give me a reason on how CURRENT FFA is even remotely good?

Btw, I don't promote instanced. I promote a true cutthroat feeling consequenced based multiplayer game. Since this is not it, and it's clearly PVE, im proposing a loot method that allows me to pick my loot AFTER I'm done killing mobs. Be it timer only after every enemy is dead or whatever else any one can come up with. Though that wouldn't prevent loot campers from camping your loot in case you dont manage to pick it up in time, but at least it would give me an enjoyable PVE experience

How is this any better than an xp mechanism that only rewards players that last hit the mobs? It would be fucking awful in a PVE game, since NO ONE WOULD BE PVEing, they would afk till the mob gets in 10% hp. It would drive everyone to solo or friends party. And no, that's NOT a solution. Actually, it SHOULDN'T be a solution. If the dev's want you to play in a particular fashion (ffa for example) then it would be forbidden to either solo or have friends party. It's exactly the same as "no respecs in this game, only orbs of regret" but as long as you are ONLY playing solo or with friends you can respec your hero! WOW BRILLIANCE.