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

Let party-leader set loot-mode to Public/Timers/Private, defaulting to Private.

This is what happens when a developer is irrationally married to a very specific "hardcore" game mechanic. It feels forced.

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Delusionn wrote:

This is what happens when a developer is irrationally married to a very specific "hardcore" game mechanic. It feels forced.

In fairness, they were married. Now they're kind of taking a break. Soon enough, it will become a full out divorce. It's just a matter of how long they want to drag it out.

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Delusionn wrote:

This is what happens when a developer is irrationally married to a very specific "hardcore" game mechanic. It feels forced.

I totally support the ethic and design vision that got them to this point, but it ends up creating bad effects when applied to loot because it actively caters to the wrong demographic.

I also understand that the developers don't want things to turn into Diablo 3, which I also agree with -- having lots of loot dropping is fun, and seeing other people's loot is fun and increases immersion rather than feeling like you are just soloing with other people in the way. But forcing a particular playstyle onto players has turned out to only reward shitlords and leave everyone else with no way to fight back.

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kingofbeers1212 wrote:

EDIT: FFA worked in D2.

tell that to the 90% of playerbase that used pickit bots


lol

and d2 is a game in the 90's...we now have 2013 dont' we?

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kingofbeers1212 wrote:

I've been creating FFA loot games and having full parties and it is so nice to not have people bitch about missing "their" loot. Only 1 complaint so far and we just told him to leave if he couldn't take it. (Oh so stressful, haha) I know there are things I'll miss and I know I'll take something off the ground if someone else isn't paying attention. It happens both ways. Even when I play with just my brother, we try to get whatever we can from each other.

Oh, and I'm a ranged character. Build a strong enough character and you can get right up in their grills and be fairly close to the melee action.

If anything, I would suggest the following:

1. That you can pick up items at a slightly further range. Just a little cause it's easy to get blocked from a spot or sometimes you can't get right on it like you want to.

2. As soon as you party, all enemies have increased health/power/etc.. no matter how many people are in the exact "area".

EDIT: FFA worked in D2.

If everyone understands what's going on and wants to play that way, then fine. Let them play that way. The problem is that there are a lot of people that don't want to play that way, but rather want a more rigid loot distribution than just "whoever clicks first gets it."

Another consideration is that items were significantly less important in D2 than in PoE. Half the classes could run naked through Nightmare difficulty without breaking a sweat. Hell, stick an Eth in a Rixot's Keen and that piece of junk will be good enough for a really long time as well.

Oh dear, STILL people thinking it has to be one way or the other, talk about rigid minds.

Just because you personally don't care about losing currency en masse doesn't mean everyone else shouldn't.

>>>CHOICE<<<

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Delusionn wrote:

This is what happens when a developer is irrationally married to a very specific "hardcore" game mechanic. It feels forced.

I couldn't agree more, they had a vision which is nice and all but that vision turned out to be a dud and now they need to man up and fix it.

I can't believe this thread has reached over 600 pages. The solution is pretty simple, people. You allow the party leader to choose, when forming the party, between three loot options: completely FFA, the current system, or completely instanced. Everybody is happy. There are a couple of arguments against this implementation, both of which are fairly weak:

1) GGG's Resources: People think GGG has more important things to focus on than implementing three separate concurrent loot systems. They are wrong. It's obvious that people are very passionate about this issue, it's why it's reached 600+ pages. If GGG has the capability to inject more flexibility into their loot system, they should do so.

2) Less people will party with a more complex system: Wrong. One of the largest turn-off's to party play currently is the loot system not being exactly what people want it to be. This can have a direct effect on your experience, where your loot gets "ninja'd," or an indirect effect on your experience, where you are sick of people bitching about their loot being "ninja'd." If people know what loot system they are getting into in the first place, everybody is on the same page.

I for one would probably go back and forth between the two extreme sides of the loot coin. Sometimes I feel like playing cutthroat loot roulette with my party-members and sometimes I would rather focus on clearing content successfully and worrying about loot second, making an instanced system preferable.

There is no reason for GGG to not give people a choice in their play experience, especially when their business model relies on people playing this game for a long time and wanting to invest on cosmetic microtransactions.