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

@gophren

The problem with longer loot timers is, that they take the pace out of the game.
Also adding a filter to define who sees what loot is taking more work, than to tweak the current highlight mode of the allocated loot & timers. Atm the allocated loot of other players is shown darkgrayish, the only problem with that is, that this highlighting is removed once the timer runs out.

so i'd prefer:
-permanent highlight of your allocated loot and darker tone for the loot of other players.
-make it optional that the permanent highlight of your loot is seen, even if item filter is on (no items shown)
-player names sticking to the items until first pickup (in FFA you get the joy to know who you pissed of ;) )

Now, in reddit and here, players have stated that they dont get to pickup their items either because of connection or reaction issues, or by being blocked by other players, minions and so on- player collision in short.

The timer system was designed to give ranged players a chance to rush in for loot. it compensated their traveling distance but not their connection issues etc.
Also it does nothing to improve this item-clutter.
But, for the timer system to work, there is allready a mechanic in place which covers distance calculations for foe- to player distance and thus player positions.

->as someone else suggested: drop allocated loot at the feet of the players
-prevents item clutter
-running in front of group opening chests will only result in allocated items dropping at player positions, thus...gets useless
-you actually dont necessarily need timers anymore. you can have them optionally to give you a good second of secured-access to the loot, so even ppl in FFA mode are compensated for connection issues

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Ninjafitz wrote:

I really hope you guys do not change this system. What everyone fails to understand is that if you are in a group of 4 and their is individual loot systems in place that means that 4 times as much loot is going to be dropping.

No, that is not something everyone fails to understand. It is simply not true. There is no reason why there would have to be more loot just because of instanced loot.

Why does some idiot come in and say that every few pages??

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Vitacia wrote:

Right now, there is one simple fact: the game is designed with FFA as the standard. This does not seem like an issue to me.

No. The game has FFA in multiplayer, that is true. But the game is desgined for single player. That is the primary focus of the game, as it's primarily a single player game.
FFA changes the gameplay so much that it really just should be an alternative mode for those who enjoy it. Either that or items need timers and random chanses to disapear in single player. Because either "competing" for your loot is a universally fun and good gameplay mechanic, and therefor it should be in single player aswell, or it isn't, and it shouldn't be forced on anyone. You can't have it both ways, it simply doesn't make any sense.

If you see no isses at all with FFA loot then you are extremely blind, stubborn and close minded.

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Vitacia wrote:

If instanced loot becomes the standard, the game will become easier than it already is and will render stuff like magic find runs or actually having to compete when playing with strangers obsolete.

But you can't say why instanced loot wasn't standard in the first place.

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Vitacia wrote:

This is going to be long.
It makes the game too easy. Why play FFA, where you have to fight and compete for your loot, where you have to accept that you can lose sometimes, but also win sometimes, when you can just lean back and let those rares and currency drop right into your inventory?

So you are basically saying that soloing makes the game too easy and on top of that, it has higher drop chance! So...let's prevent soloing as well. That would make completely sense.

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Vitacia wrote:

Your typical player is lazy - that means, he avoids risk by any means (to maximize comfort) and will -in most cases- choose the easy and safe route. By forcing players to play FFA, you are forcing them to take a risk. This is a very strange experience for today's gamers, who are used to get constantly rewarded. They don't "play" video games anymore, they walk like zombies through them. FFA forces those lazy, safe players to actually "play" instead of just join a group and casually stroll around. It forces players to compete with others, to play together with friends, or to make solo magic-find runs.

No, there is absolutely no risk in trying to pick everything up. NONE. ZIP. You use one of the 50 different mobility skills (leaploot, warploot, whirloot, lootcharge) and try to ninja everything. You either pick up that exalted or not. What risk is there to take? NONE! On top of that, on solo / private parties there is no risk involved either. In case you don't make a suggestion to prevent soloing / private partying then you are just saying bullshit JUST because you dont like instanced, not beacuse it has cons.

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Vitacia wrote:

It actually makes the game more diverse.

You know what makes the game more diverse? Having options! WOW right?

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Vitacia wrote:

Playing alone = easy farm, but less quantity and less XP
Playing with a group = hard farm, but more quantity and more XP

Choose your destiny.

You are absolutely wrong. Solo play = 100% DQ. 2 man party, 150%, 3 = 200%, etc. Do the math. But even if you were right (but you are NOT), partying with a friend = more xp , more quantity and no FFA. Furthermore, 6boxing by yourself ( as I pretty much do) has all the + and no -.

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Vitacia wrote:

No, it's called understanding the aspects of the game and utilizing them for your own advantage.

There's nothing there to understand. It's not a deep well thought out mechanism that requires any kind of strategy involved. You just make a single click and thats all. It's like being forced to play with one eye shut. ANYONE can do it but why should anyone do it when the only thing that it achieves is just frustating the fuck out of you

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Vitacia wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

And so what if instanced becomes the standard? Considering the simple fact that the game is designed around instanced loot (single player) that does not seem like an issue to me.

Right now, there is one simple fact: the game is designed with FFA as the standard. This does not seem like an issue to me.

If instanced loot becomes the standard, the game will become easier than it already is and will render stuff like magic find runs or actually having to compete when playing with strangers obsolete.

NO! Quoted by the devs, game was designed to be a single player. Single player has no FFA. On top of that, instanced wont make the game easier, simply because FFA doesn't make the game harder. More frustating? Yes, harder? NO. Not even close.

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Vitacia wrote:

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dirtpoorchris wrote:

If you ask "Why would anyone play FFA if fairloot was an option?" and my answer is positive reinforcement. A lot of times if you want good reaction you reward for the good. Punishing for the bad can work but not in all cases. Give all the FFA party people a +50 item find teambuff from the start to encourage FFA. And maybe even exp. If the reward is greater for the equally skilled they will go for that option knowing they will come out at least even + a bit more.

Edit: The more attractive you make the FFA bonus the more people would WANT to try it out.

This is actually a good idea.
Either that or penalize instanced loot players.

Not bad at all. I like it.

Yeah pretty smart idea. Like it. That way I can have a buff on my private 6boxing party. WHAT A BRILIANT IDEA! Are you guys nuts? There should be absolutely no penalty no matter how your party options will be. Jesus, that was fucking horrible

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Vitacia wrote:

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Crizaig wrote:

GGG just needs to add PKing to the game, that way if you ninja loot items, the entire group can go hostile and kill you.

As an "FFA advocate", I'm okay with this.

You are an FFA advocate in a PVE league. See you in cutthroat then

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DisorderedMind wrote:

@gophren

The problem with longer loot timers is, that they take the pace out of the game.

This happens because people stop attacking monsters, rush towards the items and wait the timers out to engage in clickfest PvP in an effort to outninja each other.

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Ninjafitz wrote:

I really hope you guys do not change this system. What everyone fails to understand is that if you are in a group of 4 and their is individual loot systems in place that means that 4 times as much loot is going to be dropping. This means that the market becomes over saturated and everything starts to fail. At that point only a very small amount of items will be worth anything. This is why Diablo 3s economy tanked so bad. You had some many people gaming and when their are groups 2-4 times as much loot and gold was dropping. It caused everything to drop and the system failed hard. I dont want to see that happen here.


I love this game and thank you to all the developers for this wonderful game.

Dont know why FFA advocates have so fucking poor arguments. Seriously, WTF?

Who said that instanced loot = FFA loot * the number of people in the party? Stop making BULLSHIT arguments. X mob would drop Y item on FFA with a timer for Z player, X mob would drop Y item on instanced going to Z player. HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN MORE ITEMS, I REALLY DONT KNOW

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BitmapFrogs wrote:

DisorderedMind wrote:
@gophren

The problem with longer loot timers is, that they take the pace out of the game.

This happens because people stop attacking monsters, rush towards the items and wait the timers out to engage in clickfest PvP in an effort to outninja each other.

This is a general issue, if loot timers can be set for a random amount of time.*(there are other problems as well regarding changes to the ui, how the party is run on servers, how properties can be changed etc. =>lot of work)

Also gophren had in mind that the allocated loot is invisible to others during the timer duration.
If you set e.f. a loot timer for 5 sec. normally players would like to move on, but will stay at place waiting for all the other loot being shown, others might regard not useful but you might. (one mans trash...) so not necessarily camping

About the ninja looting:
with strong highlighting of the items and loot dropped near your position, you are most likely to focus on own loot. (FFA extra challenge to snap loot at the feet of others)
Again with the names shown, you can judge the behaviour of your group members and kick them accordingly if you stated a loot per name party.

to get a change whatsoever done regarding this topic, it must fit well enough for FFA and for Alloc loot with as little work required as possible.

thus even if ppl argue, that they dont want to play babysitters and have to kick players or moderate between the disputes of team members,
there is afaik no maligaro-dream machine capable of doing that job for you
so
-either state you favor FFA playstyle...no fighting as everyone agrees, kick whiners
-either state loot per name...judge and kick until you have everyone agreeing on the rules and having fun

what i dont get: why are ppl still fighting in a 5k post thread about the overall necessity of changes. simply the post count makes it obvious that something needs to be changed. if someone posts he is against everything discussed why even bother to answer to him? i mean..you probably did allready 3k posts earlier.

shouldnt arguments center about possible ideas for a new looting system?

Also everyone reading more than a few pages knows, 'instanced' loots means dividing/allocating some of the loot to players, just like it is atm. So dont even bother to flame ppl stating otherwise.