0.10.3c Patch Notes

I don't understand one simple thing..

Why you cannot make choices?

I personally play solo or with very limited amount of friends, why? Cause I dislike the very idea of being frustrated of what loot I probably missed and if the item I see on the ground might be someone else. I'm not ninja, I would feel bad ninjaing.

Why, you simply cannot make option in game? FFA loot, personallized loot? Is it that damn hard to make it in game? You are obviously able to control the items people see,. I doubt it is far from making them invisible entirely based on option.

Then people make party and choose which option suit them more..

I am perfectly aware of the advantages and the reasoning behind the current loot system however I would still prefer and have a much better gameplay experience if all loot was instanced.

1) Items in parties take up the whole screen. Having to micro manage the show loot button is annoying and does not help much.
2) Some of the most valuable items are completely FFA at the moment, giving a huge advantage to melee classes. I know melee classes have their disadvantages but those are a completely different issue and should not be compensated by being favored with loot.

Personally I will never keep playing any ARPG no matter how good if party playing is not viable or if the party experience is bad.

Also, playing concentrated and alert doesn't have anything to do with the cut-throat loot system but rather is a requirement for being effective in every ARGP.

I am as well another player who is not fully satisfied with the current PoE items looting system.
I know how hard is to maintain the best for all players. However, I think my ideas will not harm
any side and can be only profitable for all players.

I like to run farming parties while I am the leader. I run "no ninja" parties only since I hate
other players' stuff being stolen. Althought there is clearly written that my party does not admit "ninjas" - loot stealers, one "ninja" is still in every one party.

I think this is serious problem. Some players dont even kill they just come to steal things ...

According to words above I would suggest PoE crew to consider the followings:

1. I am not satisfied with fact that devs removed names above lootable items. As I run "no ninja"
parties I try to punish "ninjas" in all way I can. But now with names removed its much harder to
detect ninja. I use to look at items and check if the item is picked up by the right person.

So I would definitely roll back those names above items ...

2. Only that person who is the loot dedicated for can pick it up. Others can see it on the ground but cant pick it up. If the person for who is loot given does not want the loot, then there would be a small icon displayed next to the item name to release that item to others so they can take and keep it.

After some time interval, lets say 2-3 mins, all the dedicated drop will be automatically released to
other players in a party.

I think this is not a bad idea and can solve my first mentioned suggestion.

3. My last suggestion is not about stealing loot. I know you removed names in lootable items to make all items look on the ground more comfortable. But what about adding some customizable loot filter? Person with filter will see for example only magic&rare&unique items and not the white ones. Or only linked items will be shown. Or only items with more than 1 socket. Or plenty of combinations ...

To see the item I mean to see its name while in ALT mode (all items' names are highlited). That item
will still be there on the ground and the person can take it but person need to hover a mouse over it and grab it.

With this suggestion you can keep names above lootable items and all will be still very comprendious.

Thats all from me for now. Thanks for your attention.

I think one of the problems with the loot system is that it's trying to make "keeping track of loot that drops" a priority, but what it does instead is make things outright competitive when it comes to loot.

I think the best way to solve this issue is to "hide" items while they're still assigned to a player and the timer is counting down. If the timer reaches zero and the assigned player hasn't picked it up yet, then it "drops again" for the public to grab freely. This would do a few things:

-Reduce clutter and make it much easier to see what you need to pick up. The current system was already modified to clear up screen clutter, but there's always more that can be done.

-Make actively denying loot from people too much work to be worth it. Icewall when an exalt drops? Sure. Icewall after every yellow kill? meh.

-Make "third party standoffs" much more interesting. If the owner of a desired item is away and two people are waiting for it, generally they just stand over it and click on it until one of them gets it. In this case, the person who gets the item would likely be the one who has the fastest reflexes to see it, get to it, and pick it up.

At the same time, it still makes loot "free for all" while maintaining the design decision that players must keep an eye on their loot or lose it. In fact, it might make the loot situation clear enough that the loot timers could be reduced back to the levels they were before. You no longer would have a screen full of other peoples' items to bring down your reaction time, and you won't have as many situations where players are able to grab the item the moment the timer is up.

Hello Chris and all exiles (^_^). I sieved through the post about the loot system and decided that I should cast my two cents as well. Here are some key points I was able to "loot" while reading:

1. GGG wants a game of hard choices where players compete on many levels, loot is one of them.
2. Running through the game should be smooth and less worrying about whose loot is whose.
3. Playing with other in a party is more fun/dynamic etc. as compare to lonely farming all the time.
4. There are some community rules when it comes to loot. The most commonly known are: free for all (FFA) and loot to name (L2N).

There are more but for simplicity sake lets keep this to just these points. As a compromise, I think GGG should make use of the loot rules the community discovered over the long period of closed beta. The reason is simple, it works for many hardcore gamers and it is what continue building the community in the positive direction.

Anyhow, here are my thoughts:

1. The timer removal is great and it does helps greatly with loot cluttering problem. Also it adds to the suspense and urgency to grab the loot. This fits with GGG philosophy and works for me and probably many others.

2. Removing name from loot is also needed because some players purposely chooses long names to make their loots stands out more and make it easier to pick up loot. This make cluttering hell. But removing loot name removes the L2N solution that the community found. This resulted in a major upset to the community as a whole where this honor system is negated. As a compromise, lets do something like this:

A. Assigned a number to each party member. eg. 1 to party leader and 2-6 to the other players.

B. Rather than loot label using name lets try loot label using the assigned number instead to know whose loot it is. Put the number in [] and to the left of the loot name or whatever applicable.

C. Keep the label number even after the timer runs out.

In this change, we can see that minimal cluttering will be introduced because only [#] is added to the loot name. Keeping the player's label in (C) helps speed up L2N as no one needs to worry about whose loot it was.
The change also keeps the community found solution with L2N rule. The significant of the L2N rule is evidence in the community. It allows many player to know who to befriend and who to stay away. It is not hard to see that these changes will continue to abide with GGG philosophy but also enhances the POE playing experiences. We know that the game is both about building our characters and the excitement of the loots we get through hours of playing with others. Overall, these changes does not remove FFA or L2N looting but reduces cluttering and can make party play smoother and more enjoyable to many.

One advice I want to give GGG is to avoid removing any solution such as L2N that the community had founded. The players should play with as much freedom as possible and should self organize in the most creative manners. This enhances the community and POE as a whole. I have met many complete strangers throughout my experiences with POE and the L2N rule made it very simple to figured out who to play with and ninja to avoid. Furthermore, those who I befriended are one of the more important reason I continue loving POE.

Sincerly,
A POOR FAN who can only contribute in this manner at this point QQ.

I'd really like to see the option of names on loot items come back. I play with 2 - 4 friends and we stay grouped all the time, and even though it's going to sound really lame here, one of the most fun we've had is calling who's drops have dropped, it's sounds dumb, but we are a bunch of goof balls and it was a blast.

Now it's just like 'hey who's ring is that?' and you get a bunch of depressed responses since this is the 78th piece of gear that dropped and no one knows who's it is. Sometimes you'll hear "Not my chromo" but it still has that same sad/depressive response.

Loving the game and the changes, but this one has noticeably affected our goofiness level. -50G.N.L.? lol

Before this patch
I would play solo 90% of the time, would play with trusted 'friends' 10% of the time and would public party never, the loot system determined that.

After this patch
I play solo 100% of the time, the loot system determines that.

"

TremorAcePV wrote:

This ^ The increased timer defeats the purpose of FFA anything.

So what was the original purpose of FFA in previous games?

Less coding
Less CPU intensive
Less work for the game companies servers and networks.

In fact, items were enough of an extra stress on the infrastructure (along with dead bodies_ that in many games, the items and dead bodies expired.

So there wasn't really a Purpose for FFA drops previously.

GGG has stated that They did have a purpose for FFA drops.

So from that perspective does new timer or old timer or true FFA (from awhile back in closed beta) achieve GGG's stated purpose of Loot Tension?

If they intended players to be aggravated enough to avoid public games, then I'd say yes. If they intended a thrilling competitive rush for the item drop that players found exhilarating, than I'd say no .

To achieve some exciting and fun competition for loot they'd need some options or something completely new.

A few possibilities:

Perhaps getting the first blow on a monster, getting the killing blow, doing more damage, tanking more damage or other combat stats would factor into the allocation. All things being equal among players it would be 50% allocated drops and 50% free for all even on rare, unique and and currency drops.

If GGG wants excitement and challenge, you certainly can't claim any of the loot options really add that to the game.

Perhaps add some *REAL* cut throat loot tension. All rare+ items have longish timers (Say 5 seconds) but belong to no one, and no one can pick it up until the timer expires. If 2 or more players have the item clicked when the timer expires, than they must fight to the death to get the item. You can always back away from a loot fight, but if you die, its the same penalties as if a monster killed you - kicked down to default for HC characters and loss of xp possible in default.


Now - I don't advocate any or all of the above, I'm just mentioning them because people who claim to be non-casuals and against non-FFA haven't shown me anything that proves they really want a challenge.

The only thing I have seen in game is a lot of people who spend almost as much time chest popping and collision squatting as they do fighting monsters.

Yes, there are players doing most or all of the work while others are leeching the item drops via allocation. FFA doesn't solve that either, because the leechers have more opportunity to grab item drops because they aren't fighting. This isn't an opinion - I know it for a fact, having seen it happen in closed beta games when true FFA was present.

Ninja looters have been around in POE longer than the timer. Higher level, more powerful players who were leading the party used to kick other players out of the group if they were running up and grabbing items just as they dropped. Some of the party "leaders" would demand all drops to be in the game, and the people who were leeching basically got the leftover scraps. And yet, even with that Ninja looting occurred.


And now for something completely different but along the lines of "loot tension":

For the GGG developers who are wading through this thread - I would like to suggest something that probably no one will like, but would bring players together



D3 had the annoying treasure goblin, whom you had to kill to get loot.

POE can have treasure "Treasure Ninjas" - undead non player monsters that appear on the screen and basically steal item drops until you kill them. These monsters won't give back the items they snagged- those are gone forever, but they will hang around the battlefield and dart in to nab item drops until you kill them. Being undead, Necros can raise them back up. Beware the map that has 100% more Undead Item Ninjas as a mod.

Being monsters, they would get harder to kill in later areas, and would likely have some very high combo of armor, evasion, energy shield, block, resistances, dodge and reflect. They might use a reverse of flicker strike, phase run or lighning warp to get away from the players attacking them. Undead Item Ninjas in merciless would probably have bear trap, vaal totem, rejuvenation totem, or attacks with lower damage but knockback or freezing, chilling effects.

As difficulty went up, so would the speed of their movement and how quickly they could pick up items.

Everyone would hate them and they *WOULD* add some loot tension any time they appeared (which would be random unless summoned by a necro). There would likely be a few named Unique undead item ninja bosses with very high life regeneration that would instantly bring the full party's attention and wrath because otherwise, the monster would nab every single drop.

I'm picturing them to look something like this:

About the loot system. Why not just let the players choose the loot system they want when they're creating the group? Then those who want the cutthroat feel gets it, and those who prefer other more friendly system can join groups with those systems active. Its a win- win situation, not all players want to play a specific way. To be able to keep the players playing you cant just pull stuff down their throat, you need to let them play their preferred play style.

Most players want to have fun and co-op while playing with others, not compete with them and get pissed when their loot get snatched in front of their eyes. Most players just take the loot anyway, regardless if they need it. Would be much nicer to be able to play with people who are willing to trade and being less douchy.

In response to your questions,yes I love the way that there isn't a timer or name helps with a slower machine and being able to click on it in time. I also like that you extended the time. It makes it easier to stay alive long enough to finish killing and pick things up that are yours.

This being said I would like to make my suggestion to the loot system, and maybe this has been suggested already. I know this is a much talked about issue in the forums and chats. I would love to see more choices as a team leader. I like this system of being locked to a person for a short time then letting it be FFA. But sometimes if you were in a party that you would like to restrict this or even make it more open, I think it would be nice to let the party leader have a set of choices like this. Maybe choose this hybrid FFA, full FFA and either a instance based or something like it being locked until the person leaves the instance or maybe even a need or greed type loot drop system.

I know there isn't one way to make everyone happy, and even having one way making most people happy is ok, but giving more choices to the party leader would be a good implement into the game.

Let me know if you have any misunderstandings about my post or a better explanation. I love this game, choices are always much appreciated.