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

So, I've mostly resigned myself to the fact that this game is FFA loot. I've even gotten so good at loot swiping that I have made out with more money in every public game I've played in recently than I would have by myself. But... I don't like it... like, at all... Well, except for that rare occasion when I steal that gcp because my ally wasn't paying attention.. Muahahahaha!

But seriously, FFA loot deters me from playing public games to the point that I only do them once in a blue moon, and I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way. I understand it may be a decent amount of coding effort to support multiple styles of looting, to come up with a UI to expose the option, to allow filtering by loot options, etc., and there isn't a lot of money to be made directly from it, but giving us at least the option to created unshared loot games will dramatically increase the enjoyability of the multiplayer aspect of the game for me and many others, while those who want to play FFA style can still choose to do so.

As a side note, the argument I've heard about FFA loot making you feel less like you're playing with bots makes no sense to me. I mean, how hard is it to program a bot to swipe valuable loot? If I get an amazing drop, I can link it in party chat. Problem solved.

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MercurialMaven wrote:

So, I've mostly resigned myself to the fact that this game is FFA loot. I've even gotten so good at loot swiping that I have made out with more money in every public game I've played in recently than I would have by myself. But... I don't like it... like, at all... Well, except for that rare occasion when I steal that gcp because my ally wasn't paying attention.. Muahahahaha!

But seriously, FFA loot deters me from playing public games to the point that I only do them once in a blue moon, and I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way. I understand it may be a decent amount of coding effort to support multiple styles of looting, to come up with a UI to expose the option, to allow filtering by loot options, etc., and there isn't a lot of money to be made directly from it, but giving us at least the option to created unshared loot games will dramatically increase the enjoyability of the multiplayer aspect of the game for me and many others, while those who want to play FFA style can still choose to do so.

As a side note, the argument I've heard about FFA loot making you feel less like you're playing with bots makes no sense to me. I mean, how hard is it to program a bot to swipe valuable loot? If I get an amazing drop, I can link it in party chat. Problem solved.

Diablo II "pickit" comes to mind.

My biggest issue with the FFA loot system is the fact that I'm in west coast USA and my pings are always 80+ and in groups I get quite a noticeable delay in trying to pick up on item (1/2-1 second after running up to the item after click on it). I have played from a few different towns here in Oregon on cable internet 25mbps+ connections. Sometimes I don't even see the item timer finish completely before someone is able to pick it up.

Also if they want to keep this FFA loot system they need to add an option to turn hostile on the spot to get revenge for some true FFA game play. This would turn people away from item stealing if they want to keep there XP.

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MercurialMaven wrote:

As a side note, the argument I've heard about FFA loot making you feel less like you're playing with bots makes no sense to me.

With instanced type looting...i'm not wasting my fucking time.

I can't believe this nonsense is still in the game.

Chris, listen to me, or whoever is in charge. This system doesn't add a single positive thing to the game. The only thing it does is frustrate people. Mark my words: You will not hear the end of this from your player base, and for good reason. It breaks up combat because you have to go get your item or someone doesn't pay attention for a moment and they lose an item to another player. It literally encourages players to NOT play with each other.

You want the world to feel unforgiving, and that fine. Do that in art, difficulty, story, music, enemies, etc... not an item system. What if we applied that logic to another element in the game? Let's make things less forgiving and intentionally sabotage the UI and controls. Now, there's a 5% fail chance when you try to click something or issue a command to your hero. It's more intense now right? No, it's just silly!

If you built in a system where players both compete against each other while playing on the same team, that's totally different. If this was 4 Swords or Mario Kart story mode (if there is such a thing... unlocking tracks and stuff) it has a built in system. You're working together, but you're competing for a score board. However, for PoE this is clearly an after thought. Are you telling me that you play other RPGs and loot based games and think to yourself: "You know what would make my experience better? If other people took my loot %10 of the time."

Come on...

I've noticed over the past week or so a noticeable delay in from the time I click on an item to actually picking the item up. The delay has of course caused me to lose ~50% of my items due to the nature of the loot system. Is this part of the 'cut-throat feeling' or is there some bug that's just trolling me?

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Flopjack wrote:

I can't believe this nonsense is still in the game.

Chris, listen to me, or whoever is in charge. This system doesn't add a single positive thing to the game. The only thing it does is frustrate people. Mark my words: You will not hear the end of this from your player base, and for good reason. It breaks up combat because you have to go get your item or someone doesn't pay attention for a moment and they lose an item to another player. It literally encourages players to NOT play with each other.

You want the world to feel unforgiving, and that fine. Do that in art, difficulty, story, music, enemies, etc... not an item system. What if we applied that logic to another element in the game? Let's make things less forgiving and intentionally sabotage the UI and controls. Now, there's a 5% fail chance when you try to click something or issue a command to your hero. It's more intense now right? No, it's just silly!

If you built in a system where players both compete against each other while playing on the same team, that's totally different. If this was 4 Swords or Mario Kart story mode (if there is such a thing... unlocking tracks and stuff) it has a built in system. You're working together, but you're competing for a score board. However, for PoE this is clearly an after thought. Are you telling me that you play other RPGs and loot based games and think to yourself: "You know what would make my experience better? If other people took my loot %10 of the time."

Come on...

fully agree. this is what we say for 75x pages...

FFA only enforces PvP mentality in the REWARD of a kill....this is the stupiest thing to do in an aRPG, mess with the loot and die like d3...

the original d2 developers QUITED the ffa idea...i really do not get HOW any person with iq>50 and NOT a sad panda (griefer,lootwhore etc) can find this ffa system....fun?

FFA must go to the stones of history

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killbilly wrote:

i really do not get HOW any person with iq>50 and NOT a sad panda (griefer,lootwhore etc) can find this ffa system....fun?

"You like something I don't like? You must be mentally retarded or evil!"

Just extend the timer, to lets say 20 seconds, this will give enough time to kill the pack you`re fighting and pick it up, and discourage people to just stand on the item and waiting 20 seconds to pick up some random rarity/gem, meanwhile the rest of the group moves on. This is so frustrating, youre killing stuff, then you see an item for you on the ground somewhere on the screen, timer runs out like crazy and theres like 3 people just standing on it and clicking it 100 times per second like morons. Even if you get to it youre not guaranteed to pick it up first because of lag and so on. The 20 seconds would be enough to WALK over to it, msg the party chat "oh, its mine", pick it up and lol at the loot pickers. I understand that when ive missed my item, didnt saw it, and someone is at it, he can just wait the 20sec and pick it for himself if he wants to, cause i wouldnt pick it up either way, but when we are on the same screen, and i cant pick up my stuff, or after killing a boss, when i have like 4 drops and i manage to pick up only 1 is just lame. Ofc you can always party with friends or some guys youve met and played for a while and you trust them and so on, but not every1 has friends in the game/there are many new players coming every day/not every1 speaks good english to talk with others in game etc. Sometimes you just want to check the public parties, you see some "Fellshrine farming" party, you say "hey, i need to grind a couple of levels to get to the big resistance node before Vaal, and some better gear would be good also", so you join the party just to watch people running and grabbing your stuff, not even engaged in fighting, why would they even want to fight if they get XP when im killing mobs, meanwhile they can pick up loot. It really discourages you to play in groups, even for the more XP and rarity benefit, i feel better soloing and knowing that the stuff that drops for me is mine, and no one is standing on my gcp or unique when im killing stuff on the same screen. IMO the extended timer is the best solution if you want to keep the system as it is.

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StonedCheetah wrote:

Just extend the timer, to lets say 20 seconds

You think that would fix the issue, but it would not. The timer isn't entirely the problem. Extended timer is ALSO against what GGG wants. Not a good compromise at all.