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

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TheSwampDog wrote:

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.

Although it will certainly please a lot of players, it will also piss off a lot of players. Specifically the crowed the game is originally geared towards will be pissed. And again, the game is not designed for the mainstream crowed.

@Killbilly
FFA is better but it does indeed need a way to punish ninja looters. Player Killing is an excellent way of achieving this but I personally do not like such a mechanic. I can not think of anything other then Player Killing though and thus have no solution that would suite myself personally.

All I know is that I will hate Instanced Loot.

@Fevgatos
If you spot a $50 note fluttering in the breeze and no one else seems to have lost that money, does it belong to you? Or the first person to run up and grab it?

Again the Player Label on the loot makes that last point hard to imagine as it makes it seem like it is originally yours (Your desk in your example) when in actuality it is no ones specifically. It is free game.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

Spoiler

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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.

This isn't a game breaker for me, I still think it's a fantastic game, and I just dropped some money on microtransactions to prove it. The loot mechanics as they are clearly aren't working too well, even the developers seem to be aware of it. By giving each party the option to choose how they want their loot to be distributed without having to worry about griefers, everyone can play how they think they game should be. Noone's playing experience is negatively affected. You aren't changing the game itself, just giving more options as to how its experienced. This isn't a matter of catering to a group, the enormous majority of players have an issue with it. Addressing the issue is responding to feedback, something any responsible company should do.

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fevgatos wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

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fevgatos wrote:

"free respecs, instanced loot" crowd.

Those two things have nothing to do with eachother.

They do. Since most of the instanced loot crowd says FFA is bad cause they get ninjaed (which means they have a brain disorder and should go play an even easier game with even higher than a 5 second reaction time) then they both make the game easier. There is your connection

nope you are tottaly wrong about this one...
Instanced Loot is NOT making the game any easier (or harder in FFA). This is a misunderstanding

loot comes AFTER you kill a npc thus your claim is irrelevant to the game difficulty

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

@Fevgatos
If you spot a $50 note fluttering in the breeze and no one else seems to have lost that money, does it belong to you? Or the first person to run up and grab it?

Again the Player Label on the loot makes that last point hard to imagine as it makes it seem like it is originally yours (Your desk in your example) when in actuality it is no ones specifically. It is free game.

The thing is that those 50$ exist because I am in your party. It's plain obvious that since each party member increases the number of loot, then that loot is there because party members are there. So yeah, its "theirs". Timers have nothing to do with it and I didn't use timers to prove anything. But it is only obvious that , the same way a party shares xp, so should be drops in a PVE game. Anything else is rubbish. Its the "reasonable" way. Why isn't xp handed in the same FFA way, so only the one that lands last hit gets it?

Btw, I came to conclude that we both agree current FFA is not good. Currently, its an instanced loot dressed in a wannabe hardcore FFA mantle.

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killbilly wrote:

nope you are tottaly wrong about this one...
Instanced Loot is NOT making the game any easier (or harder in FFA). This is a misunderstanding

loot comes AFTER you kill a npc thus your claim is irrelevant to the game difficulty

There's the brain disorder. Try to read more carefully next time before you reply to someone.

IF YOU ARE GETTING NINJAED BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CLICK AN ITEM DURING THOSE 5 SECONDS THEN OBVIOUSLY INSTANCED LOOT MAKES THE GAME EASIER FOR YOU. No buts no whys. Its a fact.

I didn't say FFA makes the game harder. The only thing FFA does in a PVE game is sucking away the enjoyment ouf of random parties.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

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TheSwampDog wrote:

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.

Although it will certainly please a lot of players, it will also piss off a lot of players. Specifically the crowed the game is originally geared towards will be pissed. And again, the game is not designed for the mainstream crowed.

@Killbilly
FFA is better but it does indeed need a way to punish ninja looters. Player Killing is an excellent way of achieving this but I personally do not like such a mechanic. I can not think of anything other then Player Killing though and thus have no solution that would suite myself personally.

All I know is that I will hate Instanced Loot.

@Fevgatos
If you spot a $50 note fluttering in the breeze and no one else seems to have lost that money, does it belong to you? Or the first person to run up and grab it?

Again the Player Label on the loot makes that last point hard to imagine as it makes it seem like it is originally yours (Your desk in your example) when in actuality it is no ones specifically. It is free game.

you misuderstand the FFA mechanism....in the FFA world the faster takes the loot..this is the very essence of FFA, the core of it if you want...this means that FFA promotes Ninja/Grief you know why ? because in it's core it doesnt' recognise ANY entitlment in ANY item just the faster...
Yes Instanced loot as we all acnwoledged is NOT the perfect looting mechanism (what is perfect tho)...the questions are

a) Do you use sthing that other game/studio invented and build it afterward to make it better
b) do nothing, instead use a system that is invented around 10 years before (D2-FFA) and dismiss the evolution of the genre

and also guys please stop acting like the timers are the problem with the FFA....the FFA brought the Timers...

I have two suggestions for this. Seeing how many "No Ninja" parties there are in the game, and some players not wanting their loot taken or take what doesn't belong to them, I think there should be honestly atleast an OPTION in the party creation to entitle items to players permanently, but every loot that dropped would still be displayed with the name of the player that it was entitled to, so there will be parties with FFA and parties with no FFA. My 2nd suggestion is to keep the name of the player under that item to even after the time limit to clear up confusions, It would help in "No Ninja" parties since sometimes players missed the loot then another player comes up and ask "Who does this belong to?" and then no one would know.

I personally don't like the feel of the adrenaline rush when an item that has my name of it drops, especially when it's 2 in the morning with the adrenaline rush when you're about to die.

For everyone who is too bored to read countless pages, I'll sum it up

FFA in a PVE game has no place. FFA should ALWAYS come with consequences on the "I pick everything up" players. Currently, it puts them in a protective bubble, aka. carebearing. It's exactly like throwing rocks to a caged lion, no more no less.

With the current timer, FFA is actually instanced, cause everyone without brain damage can pick his gear during those 5 seconds. Problem is, that's exactly what sucking away any form of enjoyment. Instead of focusing on the fun parts we must stop doing those fun things and start clicking the ground for loot. It's not a skill based mechanic, so it doesn't warrant a grow some skills and do it yourself hardcore mentality. It doesnt come with any consequence (someone killing your for the gear you just looted) so again, it doesnt have any form of hardcore into it. Anyone can do it, and if everyone actually does it, the loot becames instanced, but with the added "feature" of everyone camping the items with the timer. That's a burden, it slows down the game, it frustrates the fuck out of everyone, it removes any kind of atmosphere while it is supposed to be in place exactly for the opposite reason. So, instead of FFA OR instanced, we currently have a system that takes the WORSE out of both mechanisms and puts them together.

Wow fevgatos, really? You need a brain to pick up items? I bet kripp and the other 2 sorry sobs that died while looting were regular einsteins in your book right? Whatever makes you feel good, man.

3 top players got killed by corpse explosion used on a boss because they all hurried on top of it to loot... I bet they feel so good right now. Totally cutthroat.

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fevgatos wrote:

With the current timer, FFA is actually instanced, cause everyone without brain damage can pick his gear during those 5 seconds. Problem is, that's exactly what sucking away any form of enjoyment. Instead of focusing on the fun parts we must stop doing those fun things and start clicking the ground for loot. It's not a skill based mechanic, so it doesn't warrant a grow some skills and do it yourself hardcore mentality. It doesnt come with any consequence (someone killing your for the gear you just looted) so again, it doesnt have any form of hardcore into it. Anyone can do it, and if everyone actually does it, the loot becames instanced, but with the added "feature" of everyone camping the items with the timer. That's a burden, it slows down the game, it frustrates the fuck out of everyone, it removes any kind of atmosphere while it is supposed to be in place exactly for the opposite reason. So, instead of FFA OR instanced, we currently have a system that takes the WORSE out of both mechanisms and puts them together.

This is why i cant understand anyone even the devs when they talk about instanced loot as something evil.
d3 has instanced loot and is a bad arpg, but that does not mean that no good arpg can also have instanced loot.
in fact path of exile is a very good arpg, but it would be infinite times more enjoyable with instanced loot, because i have soo many more people to play with and not only myself.