Looting -- The official thread for discussing the loot system. Updated 18th March, 2013.
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We initially announced that looting is free-for-all in Path of Exile. Players would be able to see and pick up any items that dropped.
It's important to us that Path of Exile has a cut-throat feel where players are not only competing against monsters, but also their fellow players. We do not feel it is an option to arbitrarily hide items from players who have not been allocated them. As we saw here and here, many players really objected to this. Several legitimate problems with free-for-all looting were raised: - Ranged players are unable to get to the items in time. - Items might just get scooped up by one player with substantially lower latency than the other players. Over the past few months we've thought long and hard about this topic, and have come up with a system that we feel captures the cut-throat feel that we're trying to go for, but helps mitigate the valid complaints. We're proposing the following system: - All white text items are free-for-all. - All magic/rare/unique/currency/gem items are allocated to a nearby player for a very small amount of time. - All players can see the item, and a countdown of how much time remains until it's available to anyone is shown. - The allocation time is intended to be very small (enough time to compensate for a little latency, reaction time and travel distance). We're thinking a base time of something in the order of 1 second when standing next to the item. - The time would be increased by the time it takes for the character to run to the item. An item allocated to a ranged player might unallocate after two seconds, for example. - It's important that the time is low enough that the player can only get the item if they are paying attention and make an effort to immediately grab it. - The allocation times can be lower or non-existent in hardcore or cut-throat leagues. Players who wanted an allocated looting system will hopefully be happy that this system mitigates item loss due to latency and travel distance. Players who wanted a free-for-all looting system will hopefully be pleased - with this system they can take any item they want if the allocated player is not paying attention to the drops. This is a concept based on feedback only. It's not locked in stone, but we like the direction it's going in. What do you guys think about this suggestion? Please don't just post "allocated sucks", or "I won't play if it's free-for-all". Mod edit: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/268683/page/1 represents the current state of the loot system. On behalf of GGG, thank you all for your feedback. Please note that as we are still in beta, these changes are still subject to feedback and modification. Any feedback you have about the new loot system should be made in the linked thread, because that is the one the devs will be reading. Not this one. -- Charan Last edited by Foreverhappychan on Mar 18, 2013, 2:19:36 AM
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That sounds like a really good compromise to me. The allocation time seems a little short off hand though. The first monster you kill in a large mob may drop something nice but often you can't quite grab the item because you need to take care of the other monsters first. An allocation time more on the order of 5 seconds may be more reasonable.
Forum Sheriff
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" The idea is that there's still an adrenaline rush and that the player has to be alert and aware of what items are dropping. | |
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When an item drops, how do you decide who gets the temporary allocation?
I am a poor freezingly cold soul
So far from where I intended to go |
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" Randomly among nearby players. | |
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Well...
I'm kind of eh, I'd have to see how well it manages in game before I'd be able to make a proper judgment. | |
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As someone who was hoping to see my own loot, I certainly prefer this method to no rules FFA loot.
I'd like to see how the timers look though. I'm usually not someone who gets annoyed by visual cues that hurt immersion, but I could see some players not liking it, even if it's only on screen for one or two seconds. The only other option I can think of is maybe the border around the box that surrounds the item when you use the alt key could be dark red or something to show the player that it didn't get allocated to them. The border would go back to normal once the timer runs out. I'm just wondering, if most of the items will drop with a countdown of only 1 or 2 seconds, will it really be necessary to see the countdown? I am a poor freezingly cold soul
So far from where I intended to go |
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So hypothetically a Ranger is playing with her buddies the Marauder and the Witch. They're fighting in the Upper Prison and BAM Brutus pops out of nowhere and the battle ensues. After this battle is finished Brutus dies and drops 4 white items and everybody just picks them up then two rare items drop one for the ranger and one for the witch. However the ranger was busy drinking a Mt. Dew at the time. So the Marauder picks up the Rare sword of Death. The Witch cares less about said sword, but the other Rare item the Amulet of Life she picks up before the allocation runs out. Now the Witch and Marauder are both happy, but the Ranger is very displeased. However the Ranger has nobody to blame, but himself.
So this is basically how the system with play out? Also you said random allocation will there be a better chance of a Sword going to a Marauder than a Witch? Or the next drop of a Wand going to the Witch instead of the Marauder? That is not to say that a Marauder will never get magical class based items, but playing with a group they will generally get there own item types. Or will it be completely random? Yes good sir, I enjoy slaying mythical creatures.
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As those two issues, the range and latency were certainly the ones that worried me the most I am quite pleased with your work on the matter. I think the situation where we will see this being most effective is on boss battles, where everyone is locked on and if all the extra's around the place are dealt too, you just have to kill the boss and close in quickly to get your allocated loot.
If I may bring up another topic relating to looting, will there be any way to toggle and filter certain items to show up? If I were fighting through larger groups of monsters I wouldn't want to be pressing the alt key every 2 seconds or so to see if anything allocated to me and grab it quickly WHILE I was fending off waves of zombies and lions and ghosts. It would be great if there was an option to individually toggle item types to show up always(either allocated or all?), so i tick the box for rare, unique and gems if that's what I'm looking for. Now during the battle I can focus on using my skills and fighting, when a good item is allocated to me I am aware of it straight away and can if I'm quick enough I can secure it. I will create a suggestion thread for this if you want to discuss it in more depth there. On topic again: I'd have to hold my judgment on the amount of time and the look of a timer on each item until I was able to see it in action or experience it myself. Thanks for giving this so much thought, you have me convinced you know what you are doing for sure. | |
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I think that this can be a very good system if it's done right... But i have some concerns regarding this system: Imagine the following: You are in a party and get in a big fight, with lots of foes and you just killed some of them. But one of the few you killed dropped a really rare item which is assigned to the ranged character => He has to stop fighting and run as fast as possible towards the foes to get the item... This could end in his and even the partys death...
So, for me in the system you suggested there is the big pro: - You get the the cut-throat feel but the con, which is described above... However i can live with the system you suggested, even if i really like the system in hellgate london or mythos where every player gets his own loot... But there you loose the "cut-throat feel" of course... A final desicion on this topic is only possible if we can try out the system the first time of course ;) |
