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

I started to play with 4 friends and 2 dropped the game already because of the loot system. One was a templar with 2 totems and one was a witch with ice spear. Both of them need to have a big distance from the enemy if they want to deal damage and not going to die. And there lies the problem. Even if they had the 3 seconds timer, it just wasn't enough for them.

Ofc we had no problems when we play together, cause we could easily share items, but both of them lost some unique items to random players because of ninja'ing/griefing and if you asked them if you can have it, they mostly just left the party and ignored any whisers.

Yeah, nice community feature... If you play with randoms, most people give a fuck if others die, as long as they can grab the items before you they are happy. On the one side GGG tries to support party gameplay with increasing droprate, on the other side they foster hostility between players because melee fighters or just stupid people who run straight to the boss monsters to take everything. And the RANDOM(!!) timers does not bring ANY advantage to ranged fighters! I mean, even a melee fighter can get the timer, so most of the time it will result in:

- no timer = melee player get the item
- timer for melee player = melee player gets the item
- timer for ranged = if lucky enough, he gets the item in time, but has to walk half a screen and only has 3 seconds time and maybe there are still small monsters blocking his way. Mostly the melee fighter will get the item

Congrats, the lootmechanic is totally out of balance! On top of all, a witch with Item Rarity gems let many more rare/unique items drop for the entire party and the melee fighters and idiots who are on a suicide mission and run straight to the boss if under 5% health are getting those items! Talk about fairness here...


THE REALLY BEST OPTION WOULD BE (and many suggested that already):

Let the one who opens the party decide HOW items are shared, giving him 2 options! Ofc if you watch all the parties on the noticeboard, you have the option only to view parties with FFA or instanced loot (and there is a sign the shows how itemloot is managed)! So even FFA supporters should be happy in the end...

- FFA: make a timer for EVERY Rare/Unique that's dropped and increase it on 5 seconds and DON'T make it player specific! That means, that NO ONE can take the item in the next 5 seconds until the timer is over! Reason for that is, that you - as a ranged fighter - can DEPEND on the timer and don't need to run straight to the boss shortly before he is dead (you will know, that, if he drops a rare, it will have a timer for everyone and the item will not be takeable in that time). So everyone has the same chance and time for getting the item and everyone has the chance to see what was dropped.

- Instanced Loot: With a group of 6 players, every player gets 1/6 of the loot.


A good optional idea would be to implement a window, that SHOWS what people have picked up! Everyone in the party can look who took which item and can view the items stats/sockets/etc. This way no one can pretend the item was shitty and someone who is interested in the item can view it and ask for getting it or buying it. Makes communication about drops much easier imo. Ofc you can only view the items as long as the guy who took the item is in the party.

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Omnivore61 wrote:

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Taipion wrote:

BTW, what are those wall-of-text-quote-throwers arguing about?!

Well I thought it was about the looting system, FFA only vs non-FFA only vs options. Now it seems to be a dispute over the meaning of indisputable and something about Jay somebody.

Yea, I think I've heard of that Jay somebody!



And I just thought this is the wall of text contest 2013...

my 2 cents to the looting issue....

Change it. Very few people are even using your FFA loot system in the first place, so it is effectively useless. They are are either:

a) Soloing (damn shame your loot system deters people from grouping)
b) Playing with friends (using their own systems anyway)
c) Making gentleman's agreement's to honour whose name was on an item even if the timer runs out

I haven't seen or heard of a single group that is using the actual loot rules!

I personally would like an OPTION. An option cannot harm anyone and should keep everyone happy. Just let us choose FFA loot or personal loot (or whetever else you dream up) when we form a party. At least try it out and see how it goes? Because what is there right now is making a lot of your players very unhappy.

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GhostlightX wrote:

Because what is there right now is making a lot of your players very unhappy.

Yeah, there's a good reason we nearly have 600 pages about lootmechanics and dozen of other threads that appear every day in addition to this thread.

People are just not happy, they tend to leave or will never invest money in this game because it's frustrating. If I search for an item like 3 weeks and doing a dungeon over and over again and then finally the item gets dropped, it's just annoying that someone else just takes it for selling purposes while you really need it. Sux imo.

With the instance option I don't even know what item someone else got, so it's not bothering me. Only the stuff that appears at my screen bothers me and that feels much better, because I can clear the room of all mobs with my party and THEN take MY loot... No griefing anymore, no suicide moves to get items before others (those actions can wipe out an entire party!!) and everyone would be happy and spend of course money in the game because they enjoy it.

@GGG: Don't get me wrong, I like this game, even now I like it. But most of the time I tend to play solo because partying bears the risk for having a shitty party full of egoist people who enjoy doing suicide actions just to get items before you. That ruins the gameplay, it messes up important fights against boss monsters and it's frustratig. Playing with randoms ends 90% of the time being mad and quit the game if something good was dropped.

I don't mind the timer, but just picking up the item is a challenge itself sometimes, as a ranged DPS i lose about 75% of my loot even when im standing on top of the item, just will not pick up sometimes

Regarding the happy/unhappy players:

This is exactly what the devs intended with the ffa system.
To give you that feel.

Those who manage to take loot are happy.
Those who dont are unhappy.

Sad but true. Its the devs vision with this game, even in default/softcore PvE league.
And it's very unlike for this to change in the future.

Does anyone have a link to the dev chat transcripts regarding loot system changes? It was posted ~ 50 pages ago.

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mobutu wrote:

Regarding the happy/unhappy players:

This is exactly what the devs intended with the ffa system.
To give you that feel.

Those who manage to take loot are happy.
Those who dont are unhappy.

Sad but true. Its the devs vision with this game, even in default/softcore league.
And it's very unlike for this to change in the future.

If that's their vision, they probably have to much money, because alot of the players will quit the game from time to time because they play alone or always get griefed... Why should their be a mechanic which makes people unhappy? That does not make sense if their are MANNY suggested options which would make 99% of all players happy...

i've read it, its almost nothing new: they're basically toying with the timers, thats all.

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mobutu wrote:

i've read it, its almost nothing new: they're basically toying with the timers, thats all.

I’ve read it also and I think that they stated they are going to remove the timers on some items (magic/wisdoms/portals) and extend the timers on other (rare/uniques/gems). I just want the link so I can referance it when people are discuraged becaue they think the system is not going to change.