Brian's Feedback to Looting (quote from reddit)

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TheSwampDog wrote:

+1

I want only my 1/6th, no more no less. And FFS, I want my teammates killing mobs first, and looting second.

You aren't getting that.
Full 0% of the loot is yours until you pick it up. Deal with it or back to D3.

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mushioov wrote:

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TheSwampDog wrote:

I want only my 1/6th, no more no less. And FFS, I want my teammates killing mobs first, and looting second.

You aren't getting that.
Full 0% of the loot is yours until you pick it up. Deal with it or back to D3.

D3 sucked for lots of reasons, the loot wasn't one of them.

I am dealing with it (see sig).

The thing is, the game is currently a single player game for many of us. That means less player retention, less dollars for GGG, less game for all. Saying adapt or GTFO is not a good solution.

I find it so LOL that people really get that hurt over a few yellows here and there.

When majority of them end up being junk compared to what you currently have and there are plenty of times you get your chance to ninja back which then it all works out.

Sorry if your a glass cannon. Either beef up or accept the fact you have much less risk and less loot reward but with less xp possibly lost due to being on the front line.

It's pretty simple yet a good amount of people just can not get it lol.


OMG! you stole my worthless yellow!!!!!!! I only have 20000000 million in my bank.

I mean ya maybe it would end up being a good yellow oh well happens. Guess I'm just old and understand life is not fair in all aspects of it.

BUT! BUT! it's a game and I should be fair!

Well then you have plenty of choices out there. D3 and TL2 to name some of them. Great games and both play to a different type of crowd. Not a bad thing and maybe it's your thing :)

I accept that d3 will never be the game I want it to be. I'm also not on the D3 forum screaming nonstop to give me the hardcore game I want.

I accepted the game for what it was had a little bit of fun and moved on in search of something that was more for players like me.

Why can the casual crowd not get it? Not everything has to cater to generation entitlement....

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Pinchyskree wrote:

You heard him, don't group with most of the playerbase, just spend forever trying to find the minority that are not self servings pricks.

Sorry, I didn't realize you were incapable of making friends and socializing with people maturely. If you were, it certainly wouldn't "take forever" to form a group that will listen to loot rules. It usually takes me a few minutes at the most, and I've only ever had to kick one person out of any given party.

If you work on your attitude, it'd probably go a long way towards making normal people want to party with you.

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TheSwampDog wrote:

D3 sucked for lots of reasons, the loot wasn't one of them.

Yeah it was. It was absolutely terrible. That's why no one here wants it. Thank god GGG is smart enough to not change the game based on an extremely minority opinion.

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AzraelX wrote:

Sorry, I didn't realize you were incapable of making friends and socializing with people maturely. If you were, it certainly wouldn't "take forever" to form a group that will listen to loot rules. It usually takes me a few minutes at the most, and I've only ever had to kick one person out of any given party.

Given you form groups with loot rules in mind, would it not be best if the game provided tools to make it easier? Sometimes one just wants to jump into a random group and not have to worry about the people that camp a boss/rare at low HP and do nothing until the pinata explodes.

You mean if the game took player choice out of the equation and forced everyone else to do what I want them to? No, I wouldn't find that enjoyable. I may as well play with bots at that point.

GGG actually casued the loot issue to be as big as it is. They choice to attach a players name to a drop (impling it is the players drop) and then putting a short timer on it. Either increase the timer (20-30s) or remove player names from drops. I would be OK with either solution.

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TheSwampDog wrote:

D3 sucked for lots of reasons, the loot wasn't one of them.

I respectfully disagree, and here is why:

Games like this and Diablo are all about loot. If there was some big-bad boss as the end game, it would be an RPG like Final Fantasy, where all loot that drops is yours.

If this game had a series of end-game bosses, it would be an MMORPG.

Bosses in this game are secondary ; it's all about that loot. That being said...



Where Diablo 3 went wrong was the loot. What changed between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3? The Real Money Auction House.

Because of currency implications involved with the RMAH, Blizzard has to make their drop rates a certain (incredibly, low value). They can't have people actually making a living off of playing Diablo 3. In Diablo 2, the drop rates were good enough that, if an RMAH existed, you could've made a good chunk of money.

Becuase of this RMAH, Loot drop values were abysmal, and the actual loot VALUE was abysmal. You have things like an Immortal King's Stone Crusher 2Handed Mace dropping with Intellect on it. Itemization was completely, and utterly, a failure.

After the game had been out for so long, and there was an enormous amount of complaints, they finally raised the drop rates a little bit, but did not improve the drop quality. There really isn't much money to be made on D3 anymore. Everyone who wants to play that game already has the items they need/want.


Because of the RMAH implications, they had to make your loot yours. They are looking at a possible legal disaster if someone is griefed on a potential item that has real world money value. Imagine if a store offered a promotion where they would throw lottery tickets into the street, and everyone was allowed to participate, but someone rolls up with a giant vacuum and takes all the tickets.

Blizzard had to introduce the instanced loot due to potential RMAH complications.

Diablo 3's skills could've sucked, the bosses could've sucked, stat allocation could've sucked. Literally everything could've sucked.. As long as the items you were picking up meant something. As long as your character was getting stronger and stronger.


A vast amount of rare items that drop in PoE are worth picking up and ID'ing. Especially uniques. Diablo 3 was the absolute opposite.



FFA fits in this game because it's how this genre has always been, and always would have been, had Blizzard Entertainment not decided to milk money out of digital item sales. No one complained about FFA drops in any ARPG game until Diablo 3 came along and introduced entitlement, and instanced drops to the masses.

Why are people so angry about getting to your loot before your timer runs out?

The first solution is to play with friends, or established in-game friends you've made from having fun runs with eachother ; parties where everyone kept their word and no one grabbed any loot that wasn't theirs after the timer runs out.

The second solution is to get to your item the instant it drops. What is stopping this? Why is this crowd of people that want individual loot so afraid to stop attacking to grab their loot? Everyone else is doing it, and it doesn't mean the difference between success and failure.


I play with several ranged classes, all who out of habit, run to their item the instant it drops. There are Gentleman's Rules with our group that no one will grab a rare or unique item that doesn't initially have their name on it, but Orbs and Scrolls are free game. If an item drops that is an immediate upgrade for someone in the group, it's given to them free.

The named loot with timer exists to give ranged an opportunity to stay ranged and attack, and they can come to melee to get their item if something drops. If you react when the item drops instead of casting 4 more Firestorms, you're going to get your item.


PoE wanted to make a game where ranged classes didn't have to attack in melee range like Diablo 2, and they've done a great job with this system. It takes the best of both worlds. The classic FFA style that fits the ARPG genre, and the timer loot that gives ranged an opportunity to be a pure ranged class.



Ultimately, I'd be willing to compromise my stance on one condition. Only Unique items kept the name permanently, and never expired. This way the rarest of the rare drops go to who the game at that particular time decides, and the other 5 people can see the item and think "wow, i wonder what that is!"

Rare items are far from rare, and the cut-throat mentality should be maintained. If you want that rare item (aka, lottery ticket), get into melee and pick it up. You have 3 seconds. Go.

The operative motivation here;

I think its the ranged players who feel that the system is unfair:

"So if I am ranged and you are melee and the boss dies and you are closer to the loot, how is that having the same chance? Even with a timer some classes have an advantage to get to the loot before someone else...that is not a fair playing field."

Here are some melee class responses...

"If your a glass cannon and you miss most of your drops, your still getting something. Much less risk to losing your xp. While I'm in the moshpit breaking faces and pulling all the aggro I see it as I get the reward of more drops most of the time but higher risk to keep losing my xp (but my character is built pretty solid so I can live through just about anything :)."


"Most of what I've read about all the QQ about FFA loot generally comes from the ranged glass cannons. I look at it this way so does my friend who plays a glass cannon ranger somewhat. If you are not on the frontline your not taking as much risk. So the tank builds take more risk. I always jump in and pull aggro and tend to keep it while my friend burn stuff down. So I take more risk by possibly dieing, but tend to walk away with more loot."


Ranged characters; question - the melee character risked his life and took damage to kill the boss or mob, and you kited on the outskirts risking little. DO you think you deserve the same chance to get loot, that dropped at the foot of a melee character, that risked his life to stand toe to toe with a mob / boss and take damage, while you were safe half a screen away spamming spells? Who risked more, in the fight, and who, because of that risk, is closer to loot?

I think this system is perfectly balanced.