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

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dornal wrote:

Don't think of the loot as "yours". You just have first dibs on it. Which is a pretty good compromise between the old ffa, and the new instanced system.

I find the "Ninjas will be kicked" groups annoying. And often the group title just reeks of attitude problems.
First of all it doesn't really work when something really rare drops.
Second, the groups move so damn slow. Everyone is afraid of picking shit up. And then there's the "you have a drop over here".

Good thing is, this is all optional! There are enough groups for everyone to play as they whish. Just don't expect the game to cater to everyones needs. That's just not possible.

Thats why I always make my own groups and title them Docks Farming - Stay together and Loot is FFA so no tears or kicked. That way I can kick chest runners/soloers that just want more loot drops and QQers that slow down the runs without feeling bad :D

Have the quality item/gear drops lockout to that player until they leave the map.
It would give players time to kill all enemies in a given area without the need to rush for loot with a risk to lose it.
Also, I've seen cases where a certain player would run away from the group, kill an enemy, drop a quality item in someone else's name, and rather than inform them of the drop, they wait for the extremely short timer to expire then snag it for themselves.
This would prevent all of that. EVER.

-Slad

Currently, there are people in just about every random party that just stands in the middle of a group of monsters, not attacking or helping the group, just waiting for loot drops, and while everyone else is being productive, that one person just snags every quality drop they can.

Is this fair? No.
If you boot that person from the group, they can stay in that map and continue to steal loot drops, even if they're not apart of the group.
This system promotes people to be useless to their group and take from their teammates.

To top it all off, there are so many latency / frame-rate issues that numerous amounts of players are experiencing that make this current looting system totally unfair. Only the people with the lowest pings and the best computers can really compete for loot, and those are usually your ninjas.

I enjoy this game, but if you want to keep the cut-throat style looting, keep a permanent cut-throat league up for folks who enjoy that play-style, and make a league with a better loot-lockout system for people who don't have the internet speed or computers to keep up with it.
Constantly losing gear and quality items in this game to lazy loot-ninjas lessens my desire to invest in the micro-transactions shop.

Anyway, I digress.

The saying usually goes, "You can't please everyone."
Well, in this case, you can. I've suggested ways that it can be done.
Now it's out of my hands.

Thanks for reading.

-Slad

To give or not to give loot to those who cannot gather for themselves due to uncontrollable events. Why not? It will bring in more players.

Or fix the uncontrollable issues such as low fps due to spell effects, lag, desync from skills, or having fun killing mobs

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Ten_of_Swords wrote:

Whatever they do with the loot system (if anything) I am confident it will be good, but I sure as hell hope that they don't do it to cater to people like you.

As you are a diamond supporter and a FFA fan, what do you actually think about the idea having players compete for loot by actually contributing to the group and the party?

@sladverr, Artaniz, TheSwampDog, dornal, Torrenz, Demious

i think your concerns can be pretty much solved by this idea.
and if not, please tell me why it doesnt.

Also you might want to scroll back to page 641.
The problem isnt in finding solutions how to get different options, allocated loot, timers, etc. done.

The general problem lies in the stance the GGG crew has explained in the first post of this thread, and in various interviews.

They are content with their idea of "loot tension". If they are unwilling to forget about their "loot tension" concept, they will be unwilling to consider anything being proposed, regarding different options, how to achieve different sort of leagues, timers, item allocation etc.
As they stated, they dont want the item drop to be a mere reward for playing the game and progressing through the quests.

THIS IS THE PROBLEM

If you actually want to do something about it, you have to come up with something "pleasing everyone", including the devs.
Which means: it has to be competitive in a way, that the old anachronistic but cheap solution of FFA gets replaced by an more suitable version of creating "loot tension", by at the same time hopefully improving gameplay in a way, that no camping/ connection and ranged char issues can spoil your fun.

Again, so far my idea (linked again above, as it still lacks feedback and support), is the only one going in that direction.

So my humble wish would be, that more ideas like that are brought forward and discussed.

I think it's admirable to seek out different solutions. The one you proposed might work, but it would require a LOT of tweaking to determine what value to give to each player's contribution. Is killing 30% more monsters equivalent to running 4 party buff auras? What about someone who is very good at slowing the monsters or otherwise debuffing them, but does low DPS and gets few kills? The balancing would take quite a while.

For myself, I think it's fingers-in-ears blind obstinacy to cling to this notion of loot tension, when clearly a considerable number of players dislike it. Not to mention that there are many groups that simply do an end-run around it by agreeing to gentlemen's rules.

If players are already effectively shutting off the loot tension, why not just enable the game to do it for them? Nothing is lost for those players.

I appreciate your efforts Disordered, but AFAIC they can shove the loot tension. Like many, many, MOST, pretty-much-every-other-grouping-game-I've-ever-played, I'm looking for a one for all and all for one team. I've no interest in being in a team that wants to compete amongst itself.

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TremorAcePV wrote:

I want to add one thing to your post Lama.

This is a discussion for Default. Hardcore won't change. We will always be here, simply because this game is awesome.

So, the decision is different from what you describe it to be.

Just so you know...

You are absolutely right. My brief forays into hardcore are always enjoyable, and part of that is due to the other players. The mindset of hardcore players seems to be a little more thoughtful than the chaos that default is much of the time.

If I could figure out how to survive puncturing and firebombs better I think I could make it past cruel for once.

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TremorAcePV wrote:

<snip> Re: timer


It calculates which group member has the largest disadvantage (based on distance and lag) and gives it to them, set so that they have JUST enough time to get close enough to the item, but not enough so that they can get it without contest.

It only chooses from the group members who are within a certain area range though, I believe. I could be wrong about that. And it has a maximum time (5s I think, for rares<--could be wrong but I know there's a max time).

I've seen the timer pop up when I am quite a distance from the main group (usually trying to kill off another group of mobs that is moving towards the backside of the team). When I see the timer and how far away the item is I want to laugh half the time.

As far as how they assigned the timer, I thought it was randomly assigned and then the amount of time based off of distance, with a slight factor for lag.

One thing I do find aggravating is when I click on an item and my character runs halfway to the item and then stops to fight a random mob. I don't know if there's a glitch in the system, or if it's just pilot error on my part. In FFA games, I have to make one of the mouse buttons movement only if I want to pickup anything with my name on the timer.

Can you map more than three skills onto mice that have more than three buttons? If so, I might need to pick up a new mouse.

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SkittlesAreYum wrote:

How would those who only like instanced loot do in Diablo 2? It was true FFA, yet people partied together all the time.

They partied for the XP bonus. They partied for the group rushes. They partied for the bot runs.

With Enigma and pick-it programs the loot system was badly broken.

With gold being useless in Diablo 2, there was a lot of muling or even items left behind. If you had a large enough group of friends, someone almost always had what you wanted tucked away for trade, or even free.

The custom chat channels allowed people to build communities of like minded players.

With a big group, the RNG settles into probabilities so items weren't really a problem at all.

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SkittlesAreYum wrote:

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grubworm wrote:

????? where did I say I never killed baal or meph? Killed them all the time.
I guess you made crappy toons that couldn't kill meph or baal solo. :(

Most people didn't. I sure as heck didn't in Hell mode. It would have taken forever with my tank barb.

Also, the heck is a "toon"? A cartoon?

Yeah, it's the diminutive of cartoon, since your character is a pixelated animation.

As for soloing Mephisto and Baal, that part wasn't tough once you had decent items, but soloing both of them with 300+ magic find took a little more work (until Enigma and the O.P. Hammerdin came into play).

Knowing how all the mechanics interacted, breakpoints etc, made such things possible, as well as where to farm for certain items.