POE= Ninja looting game?

I brought this issue up to a friend of mine and he brought up an interesting point. He recalled how when he played D2, numerous hacks were created that auto-picked up the loot that would drop off of bosses. Now, the point he was making was that, if a company as large as Blizzard had a hard time preventing such cheats, what would prevent someone from doing the same with Path of Exile. Are we really to believe that a team of 19 people dealing with the incredible stress of just getting such a massive game up and running (server issues, bugs, etc.) are going to be able to prevent such hacking?

It was funny too, because I mentioned the reason why the devs wanted FFA loot in the first--to promote a "cutthroat" environment. His response was, "so they essentially want to promote people to behave like assholes in the game?"

I'm going to have to agree with this.


Individual Loot is better than FFA. Even if you're playing with friends, it does kind of suck when your friend gets the loot before you. Hard feelings. Definitely.

The best solution is to have Party Options set by the leader.

This will give those who want FFA can have their FFA.
Those who want individual loot can have individual loot.

The fact remains is that everybody will who have DIFFERENT preferences. And options that make EVERYBODY happy is the best way to go. Why should "GGG" restrict the game fun factor or limit themselves to people who solo only (cuz they dont like FFA) and those who group only who likes FFA cuz they are fast at grabbing loot.

Loot Options are:
1. FFA (no timer)
2. FFA (timer bar, with a time setting, you choose the duration. default, or extended time)
3. Individual Loot.

If you are playing in groups and you don't like the setting. then leaeve the group and go make your own settings. Or pick another group that has the setting you want.

This is the BEST solution for the game.

More options = more players.
Less options = Less players. PERIOD.

This is a simple concept that GGG needs to realize.

"

RonEmpire wrote:

I'm going to have to agree with this.


Individual Loot is better than FFA. Even if you're playing with friends, it does kind of suck when your friend gets the loot before you. Hard feelings. Definitely.

The best solution is to have Party Options set by the leader.

This will give those who want FFA can have their FFA.
Those who want individual loot can have individual loot.

The fact remains is that everybody will who have DIFFERENT preferences. And options that make EVERYBODY happy is the best way to go. Why should "GGG" restrict the game fun factor or limit themselves to people who solo only (cuz they dont like FFA) and those who group only who likes FFA cuz they are fast at grabbing loot.

Loot Options are:
1. FFA (no timer)
2. FFA (timer bar, with a time setting, you choose the duration. default, or extended time)
3. Individual Loot.

If you are playing in groups and you don't like the setting. then leaeve the group and go make your own settings. Or pick another group that has the setting you want.

This is the BEST solution for the game.

More options = more players.
Less options = Less players. PERIOD.

This is a simple concept that GGG needs to realize.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/69906

Ive found that in these kinds of games, for me, playing with other people is just not fun even if they are your friends. the more people that are playing the more chaotic and faster paced things get.

But on the Flip side i know alot of people value multiplayer so it really should be addressed. i think the best solution to this is having everyone have their own loot, seem to be the best way to keep ninjas at bay.

"

Nobody liked it in Diablo II and those who say they did enjoy it are lying.

Nah. They're not lying, you just have to understand where they are coming from. These players see a benefit from playing with other players who aren't that great a FFA. So they see themselves getting a lot more stuff from the effort, at the expense of others.

This is true in FFA PK games as well. I recall this situation well in the initial roll-out of Ultima Online.

"

Glasse wrote:

When I see posts like this all I can think of is that every single person that complains about this played D3 and should probably go back to it.



D3 was the only game of this genre where loot was yours and only yours.

It's also the only game that got the loot system right (yes they fucked up many, many other things, that's not really being debated here). Played D2 since 1.08 (that's actually the patch before guided arrows pierced, there were no synergies and all sorcs were frozen orb/thunderstorm, also arkane's valor was overpowered as fuck). Loot system didn't bother me that much, but now I have been exposed to D3's take on loot it does bother me a lot and it bothers other people as well. It's like shitting in a hole somewhere in the yard your entire life and then being exposed to a modern toilet, next thing you know you get to trade your shitty 1-bedroom cottage with a modern toilet for a small palace with no modern toilet but a hole in the yard. You just ask yourself: why can't it have a toilet?

GGG also doesn't understand where the willingness to share loot actually comes from. they should read this article: http://ftp.iza.org/dp5648.pdf but because it's a lot of fucking words I'll summarize and simplify it:

Suppose you are stranded on an exile island with a few other people. You will help these people and try to ensure that plenty of rapport ('high rapport' basically meaning 'on good terms') is established. Altruism is purely an evolutionary thing, where we put immediate value vs. expected value on an equivalent base and make a choice. If I'm stranded on an island with a random woman half my size, do I take away her little amounts of possession? Do I let her die so I have twice the water, or do I share it with her? What about food? Of course not, one would argue you wouldn't do it because it's inhumane but it's just an evolutionary mechanism that we gave a politically correct name and meaning in today's society. I tend to her, share my water with her and so forth - after all, eventually I have to sleep and there's a very slight chance I'll trip or get sand thrown in my eyes or somehow lose the power struggle with her despite having a massive advantage, something you don't have in PoE at all (if you take someone's loot, they can do absolutely. nothing.). To expand on this: who's gonna keep watch? What if something happens to me and I can't walk for a few days - who's going to take care of me? If I can't find a solution to a problem, maybe she can. If I'm trying to find certain items, four eyes will see more than two.

In PoE, you do not have this. If you have fast fingers or simply a fast computer (because when I'm with 2 witches who hide behind their lagging totems and minions I sometimes simply can't be in time no matter how fast I click), there's no reason to have agree to sharing loot. If you are able to click faster than other players 4 out of 5 times it is simply the better option to ninja loot away and suffer having something ninja'd away from you 1 out of 5 times. The only reason you would agree to not ninjaing someone is if you were friends in which case you're giving more value to the prolonged friendship and interaction with this person than the immediate benefit to your loot.

There's no reason to not have the exact. fucking. same. looting system D3 has, it is simply the best.

I played Diablo II for years as well. If you played Diablo II for long enough, you used mods and hacks, including those that picked up good loot for you. There was no skill involved in picking up the drops in Diablo II. Anybody who is saying otherwise is wearing rose colored glasses or simply didn't play Diablo II for very long. Most of the time you could not play a Diablo II public game without a person who used pickit or something similar to almost instantly loot all of the good items.

Now that we've cleared that up, I think it's clear that the POE loot system is much better than the old Diablo II loot system where everything dropped FFA and was immediately botted up. That's a given. But I feel that it pales in comparison to the Diablo III loot system. Individual loot was a smart move and one of the best ideas that Diablo III had.

Really, to me, the solution to this problem appears to be adding a few more seconds to the timer. Pretty simple. But this problem with looting goes way deeper. First, there's a misconception, a very common one, that the timer was put in place to prevent "speed clicking" or "ninja looting" or whatever. In reality, it was put in place so ranged characters have a chance to grab the loot, and that's why the timer length is directly proportional to how far away you are from the mobs you kill.

Another big problem is that instanced loot is really detrimental to the idea of group play. The whole point of this game might be to kill monsters, but the end result is loot appears when you kill them. These games are about the items. If there is no communication within the group, what's the point of even being in the group? People moan about, "Well, I don't want to get to know people, I just want to play and get my lootz!" and this is completely ass-backwards in my opinion. Group play is supposed to be a social thing where you interact with each other and co-operate as a group. Some may argue that the majority of the player base are "ninja looters" and they'll just disregard the rules, but when you think about it, it seems like a large majority of players dislike this FFA loot aspect of the game. Wouldn't you think that most reasonable people would adhere to rules established by the group leader so long as they were discussed? This isn't a mainstream game like Diablo 3, this is an indie game that appeals to a small group of players looking for a particular experience. It is very easy to weed out the bad seeds. There's no harm in advertising your group as "Drops according to name on timer" or however you want to do it, establishing these rules with those who join your group, and kicking those who disregard these rules. It's actually pretty simple. The only counter argument to this that I can think of is that, "Oh, well that requires more effort :(" in which case, you shouldn't be grouping (public grouping, that is) if you don't want to actually interact with people you don't know.

The idea that you should simply be able to invite people to your party then immediately start playing with no communication required is actually quite detrimental to the idea of group play in my eyes. If I wanted to play with random people (I'm not speaking hypothetically, I really don't prefer to for my own reasons), I would want to get to know them at least a little bit before playing. If not, why are you even grouping with people? Just to have other people on your screen killing stuff with you?

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MrMeowMeow wrote:

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GoL_Fusa wrote:

You obviously never played an ARPG prior to diablo 3.

d2, if you were not nut hugging the boss when it died and ( chose a spot on the screen to spam click ) you were getting nothing, not even a white for as many runs as you wanted to run.

diablo3 is terrible it "gives" you loot

Dumbest shit I've ever read. NO ONE except bots play public Diablo 2 anymore. Every fucking Baalrun made by legit players is organized with a fair lootsystem which rules are made up by the group itself.

In 2013 though, we have a new game, that has all the means in the world to stop making public partys a retard fest, but we decide against it because we need "competitive grabbing".

JESUS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU RETARDS SMOKING?

How about this suggestion: Allow party leaders to choose a loot system between grabfest and instanced loot. I bet my left nut, no scrap that, I bet my dick 99% of public parties are gonna use instanced loot because it's fun for nobody if just one guy tries to kill the monsters while the rest tries to reach their loot in time, resulting in hostility, slow as fuck runs and an overall bad atmosphere in the game.

Jesus you fucking rpg-grandpas should stop defending retarded system because you're nostalgic of them and probably run a private group anyways.

QFT.

The timer based looting crap is the only reason that makes me play solo. I can't even imagine an universe where this system would even begin to make sense, I mean come on, "A yellow item just dropped! Everybody should stop fighting and run over to pick it up!". That's utter bullshit and it has already been brought up numerous times in closed beta.

I have truly no clue where do those brainwashed people who are defending it as the only one viable looting system come from. For all I care they can keep the FFA loot system as long as it's OPTIONAL and a fair alternative is also available.

Most people are grouping for specific quests or goals. That's why people make a group called "Kill Vaal" and people join, because they have the same goal in mind. Nobody is joining those groups for loot unless they are the very ninja-looters that the people in the thread are complaining about.

Myself, I play a summoner and grouped for Piety as her AOE damage simply destroys my minions (she killed my level 57 Hardcore summoner just a bit ago). I did this in both Normal and Cruel (where I died).

So taking that into consideration I feel that most players feel like I do, we join a group with a specific quest in mind. It isn't to socialize and it isn't to get loot. We can socialize, sure, socialization is great; and we should get loot too, but sadly in most cases were don't.

If anything the current loot system detracts from grouping for most players.