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

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Instanced loot slows down progression DRASTICALLY.

Here's why: With the current system, you see EVERYTHING. So, let's say you're looking for coral rings/leather belts. If you're the only person in the group doing so, any that are left behind you are free to grab and move on. Since you see everything that drops, and can pick up the remainder, it keeps the pace up as well. It allows you to find more upgrades->faster progression.

In an instanced loot system, with a full party, lets say a magic mob drop 10 items. You MAY only see 1-2 items. Instead of 10. What if a leather belt/coral ring dropped in another players instance? You effectively just lost a "freebie". That could've been an upgrade for you.

My team will often leave behind large items with a low-sale value (staves, 2h swords). So, if you're playing a character that uses one of those, and one drops in my instance, you just lost the possibility of an upgrade.

Now, you could say that you could ask teammates to pick up said items than drop them. However, this slows down gameplay if teammates have to do this every single time.

Like I said, think if you only saw 0-2 drops from a magic pack, 1 drop from a rare monster, and up to 3 from a unique/boss. Wouldn't this slow down your progression?

Solution for a instanced-loot-system:
HeY, all party members, i'm very fond of any rarity rings and belts so please will you pick them up for me? In return i'll do the same for your whatever loot-fondness you have.
It's the same time wasted picking them up, be that for you or for other team members. THE BEAUTY is that being instanced everybody will pick the loot after the killing, so no more time wasted on camp-looting like it is with the current system.
And in the end all it's required it's a "trade" (the old-closed-beta-style-drop-on-the-ground or thru the trade window).
Advantage: people in a party also communicate about their needs.

Dear Chris,

My father is an older gentlemen, but still enjoys gaming when he has the time. I told him about Path of Exile, but our schedules differ so much that we rarely get to play together and have grown apart in level in-game.

He has slower reaction times than most players, but still enjoys the game immensely due to the in-depth gameplay mechanics and theme of the game. He tends to group up in public parties due to not being in a 'gaming community' and doesn't have any real life acquaintances to enjoy the game with (aside from myself, and my brother who have conflicting schedules compared to his), he also has trouble dealing with zone resets and such when attempting to play on his own due to dying and AFKing.

I understand having a cut-throat loot system is fun for most players (myself included), but my father is of a different nature where he appreciates being able to play at his own pace.

Is it not an option to allow party leaders to toggle a 'friendly loot' system? A system that makes loot only available strictly to the player it is assigned to on drop, or at least increases the timer to a minute or two? Anything along these lines would be fantastic.

He has told me how he has lost two unique items that were assigned to him already while playing in public groups (both of which were expected to be "no ninjas allowed"); once was due to dying before he could pick it up due to it being surrounded by AOE mobs and the other from having too slow of a reaction time compared to the melee classes standing around it. It displeases me that he feels robbed of these intended 'rewarding experiences' when simply trying to play with others online.

I understand that you intended PoE to have a 'cut-throat' looting experience, but is having the option there for players that need more leeway not going to happen? I respect and appreciate your attempts at adding the short timer, but it just isn't enough for some of the people who love your game.

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fevgatos wrote:

Have you actually joined a high level instance with a 6 man party? Uniques and 4/5s gear drop like every minute. Literally.

lol????

No they don't.


And clearly.. You need help.


Seriously.

The only point you make is you have some serious issues. And really, im happy im not you.

Mobutu: You just proved my point. You've added an extra step thereby slowing down gameplay. Also, what if you had to announce what you were looking for in EVERY single party you joined. That in and of itself slows down gameplay.

Wrathmar: Actually, from past experience with Instanced. Again, just my opinion, I've found players tend to camp MORE. This is because they id each item, check it against what they're using, play some inventory tetris than move on.

Asph: I'm level 83 and I still ID quite a few blue items. So saying that it only matters from 1-10 is completely false. And no, good upgrades, although usually shared for (rare) jewelry, is usually not the case for things like shields and staves.

All I'm saying is that it slows down progression first, and (depending on the person) gameplay as well. Since certain white items (depending on ilvl) can be valuable to you, but completely worthless to others, those get passed up as well.

Also, what about low end currency? The transmutation orbs, augments, blacksmiths/scraps. I see these get left behind CONSTANTLY by others. I personally have no problem picking them up.

As i said before.

If GGG is going to cave into the complainers and make instanced loot

It should be a simple check box at the charatcer select screen. Which can only be toggled on and off at the character select screen.


With it checked ON you now only get loot based off single player rewards which only that player can see.. You will no longer get party rewards for loot. But you will stil get party EXP .


Simple as that really.

Epic Thread!

Perhaps the solution is to look at the game mechanics and see if there might be a way to improve the entire looting system.

Going back to classic D&D (the pen and paper stuff), looting only occurred AFTER the end of battle, the idea being you would loot the corpses after the battle throwing all the booty in a big pile.

Weapons and armor would drop off of creatures by virtue of them being physically stuck in the animals bodies and such. That's how a sword would drop from a giant beetle for example.


What if no loot would drop during the actual fight in an area (say a room or corridor) until it is cleared and then ALL the loot would pop in a glorious loot shower that everyone could participate in. You could even add a countdown timer so everyone could prepare for it.


If implementing a room/corridor system ends up being too hard to build, then mobs could be linked in a group and the loot could pop after the last linked mob was killed.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Again, just my opinion, I've found players tend to camp MORE. This is because they id each item, check it against what they're using, play some inventory tetris than move on.

My opinion/experience with D3 went the opposite. People would gogogo for the duration, then everyone would pop back into town after the boss and have jingle bell christmas time (refers to sound of everyone spamming ID on dozens of items). I went about 300 hours, mainly in PUGs, mainly in Inferno. I could see people who are new/casual being like that though.

I'm enjoying playing Path of Exile, it's a great game. If I had to pick one aspect of the game that is not as enjoyable as the others, it would be the loot system.

There are a couple of scenarios where I feel this system fails..

1. I am in a party and fighting a big boss. The boss has about 10 HP left and somehow kills me. Now I need the quest so I stay dead. The boss dies in the next second and 5 (yes I could not believe it) rare items pop down with my name. I can not get these items which is really annoying because they were meant for me since they had my name on them. I did my fair share of damage to the boss, so why am I not rewarded with those nice items?

2. I am happily playing along when a nice unique item (I only found 3 unique items ever so far). This is awesome but I am unable to pick this item up because it is down a ledge where I can not leap because I do not have that skill, so some other person picks it up. Again the loot system says here is an item for me but you will be unable to get it.

3. There is a big fight happening. When an item drops am I to suicide into a mob that will kill me just to get an item? Yet again there is a nice shiny item with my name on it but I can not run in to pick it up because I don't have thousands of life like the marauder who is in the thick of it.

4. Of course there are always the guys who hawk everything. Ninja's I think people call them. They are the lowest, and it's worse when they are the party leaders. At least you can usually discover what tossers they are quite quickly and leave their game.

As far as white and magic items go, I have no issue if somebody else can see them and pick them up. It's the rare, uniques, and gems that I find annoying when I am not allowed to pick them up in my own damn good time thanks.

Anyway, I feel a bit better now that I have expressed my thoughts in this VERY LONG thread. It is most likely that nobody will ever read it, as I did not read the 453 pages before posting.

So i

So, I assume that all of these people complaining about FFA loot never took someone's loot ever? I mean EVER. If you claim no, you're lying. Everyone has greed, I take stuff that dropped for my friends and they take stuff that dropped for me. It evens out in the end. I agree with the developers, this game isn't supposed to be fair and I personally like it that way.

It just looks to me that everyone seems very entitled because this is what they want.

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Vooodu wrote:

As i said before.

If GGG is going to cave into the complainers and make instanced loot

It should be a simple check box at the charatcer select screen. Which can only be toggled on and off at the character select screen.


With it checked ON you now only get loot based off single player rewards which only that player can see.. You will no longer get party rewards for loot. But you will stil get party EXP .


Simple as that really.

In Chris’s recent post http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/87905 he states “We have been internally discussing community feedback on topics such as looting options and damage displays.”

Multiplayer originally had FFA loot and player responded negatively. They implemented the timer system and some players responded negatively. The devs know that players are unhappy with the loot system and are ‘discussing community feedback’ to determine which changes to implement.

Instanced loot is only one option, increased base timer is another. I personally would be very happy if the base timer was increased to 5 seconds. I agree with some of the anti-instanced arguments presented.

GGG has an excellent track record of listening to tester feedback and I have confidence that the changes they will implement will be an improvement on the current system.