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

IMHO, cutthroat looting only leads to lack of community. I will not be grouping with people I don't know if real life or that I don't know. I'll end up soloing most of the game until I can no longer solo... then I'll probably be quitting. It's as simple as that.

I don't fight players in PVP and I don't fight players in PVE either.

Having the game roll dice for me to decide who gets currency items in groups seems like a no-brainer. Maybe an option to "loot none" if you are just tagging along or don't want anything, etc. I had hoped that online ARPG looting had moved beyond standing near the items that dropped and staring at them until somebody says "I want because x" or just takes the stuff. The game is already making so many RNG decisions, why can't we at least roll dice in chat [even optionally to speed things up] to decide who gets the orb that nobody actually needs, etc?

I personally think there should be some mixture of both. This would prevent the click-mouse-accuracy-spam-griefing scenario. Also, it would retain the dangerous, cutthroat world feeling. Maybe if it was just enough to get you going for personal loot such as loot that is specific only to your class? But, yeah this is a bad compromise probably...

So in the end, probably I'd have to agree with a slightly longer timer for certain rares/uniques that gives players buffer room so there's less griefing and also retains the opportunity to pick up things that should belong to you. This would add a layer of allocated looting. The cutthroat feeling would probably still remain?

I'm sort of beginning to understand why you want to keep it cut-throat though. This would make partying up an endeavor rather then a task. It might also encourage some people to play solo for safety. It would slow down the pace of parties, rather then having them run through everything and get allocated loot (since they'd have to pay attention to drops). Good idea.

I think the idea works. But Would it be possible to make the counter start when the threats/Monsters are dead close by.

Hardcore is deadly for a squishy diving into mobs for loot vs the tankie guy build to do so.

Same problem more risk. before i knew i wasn't getting it. so the risk / reward wasn't worth it. now i'd be teased for a flashy new item at the cost of my life.

I admit I haven't read through all the 100+ pages and just comment on what's in OP. I hope it's still relevant

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Chris wrote:

We're proposing the following system:
- All white text items are free-for-all.

Sounds good. Farming them solo should be trivial anyway.

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Chris wrote:

- All magic/rare/unique/currency/gem items are allocated to a nearby player for a very small amount of time.

Sounds good but I'm afraid it'll be bad for team play when people drop everything and run to the drop.

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Chris wrote:

- 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.

In addition to the distance there should also be extra time for when multiple items drop.

Having played tons of MMOs I see nothing bad in the usual greed/need/pass rolling system except that it might not be what devs have in mind.

You might add different looting options (FFA, rolling, round-robin, ...) and have different perks/penalties for each to make people prefer one to the other or just even no difference at all and see what players want themselves.

Sounds very cool. I hated it when i played on the Stress Test Weekend and he was meele and i was ranger and he stole all the orb loot xD

I like the idea of a countdown timer randomly allocated to players. 3 seconds should be enough to take out most mobs, decide if you want to go pick it up or not, and then run your skinny ranger ass over there to get it in time before the next wave overwhelms the marauder because you stopped firing for a couple of seconds, and cause he's too busy trying to ninja all the loot at his feet to kill the mobs around him...
I also think items from barrels/breakable objects should have a slightly longer countdown for the person who broke it, seeing as they took the time for some item hunting in the first place.

The idea of a counter is sound for the reasons the OP posted, however, I disagree that it will actually produce a result that helps the game.

With the timer situation, it appears that a tanky build with frost wall would be the superior looting/griefing build.

The FFA or (short) timer system encourages, and rewards, people for not killing mobs and instead taking advantage of other player's actions. I expect to see a few tactics with this sort of encouragement:

1. Equip light damage weapon so you can look like you are working to help the team but really just focus on ninja looting and blocking others from loot. Increase movement speed obviously helps here as well.

2. Being a purposefully poor 'tank' that really just rounds up mobs and brings them to ranged/casters who want to kill and get away or they will die. The tank then just picks up items as the caster/ranged cast and run in order to survive.

3. Casters holding back on damage until they move to the back side of a group of mobs. Then blasting the mobs killing them, using frost wall to block the rest of the team from the loot. They are free to then loot any of the items they choose.

While some styles are more subversive and others more overt, either way it turns into a party falling apart pretty quickly with some angered people.

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I like the personal loot option myself, where some items dropped are only for a specific player. The exact mechanic (hiding/significantly large enough timer/whatever) doesn't really matter, so long as I can focus on finishing a fight before collections my spoils of war.

Separating rare loot also opens up an interesting gameplay issue in that a players +rarity/quantity chances become more meaningful.

[*Note: While I'm not new to game design, I'm new to this game and don't know how the rarity of loot works. I'm basing this example on the _expectations_ of how the system currently works.]

While it is somewhat interesting to set a whole party up for a looting run, this allows each party member to equip, perhaps, their lesser items with the +rarity items without really losing anything. If rare loot was personal, this gives the individual a meaningful choice between their primary gear and their +rarity gear. Additionally this would make rare items, a bit more rare since the +rarity from all party members didn't contribute (if even partially) to the loot drop rate.

Not to harp on this issue too much more, but another problem I find with the frantic looting is with looting in general. Because you have to click for every attack, I find I end up picking up a lot of junk I didn't even realize I picked up during combat. This could easily fill up inventory so when it came time to loot that rare, you just drop it for someone else to grab because your inv is full just from trying to get into/out of melee and attacking things.

This would be really irksome if I had to fight for my loot and couldn't get it because I had picked up another suit of armor without knowing it.

I hope this doesn't get lost in the shuffle but here's my scroll fragments:

Just make stuff drop at a random party members feet. No distance issues, no timers to consume extra server cycles, no whining. Everyone has a fair shot no matter their distance. If it drops at your feet you have a higher chance to grab it but someone else could be faster.