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

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iamstryker wrote:

To be fair he didn't actually say that the loot system brought the team down. Just that the loot system tries to pit them against eachother. Generally if your with close friends I don't think the loot system should really make you fight and squabble over loot but I would complain that it slows down progression since you always have to find a "fair" way in your minds to divide up the good loot. Sometimes you might just stand there and stare at the loot to see if your buddy wants it or not. With my buddy instanced loot would make the game faster for us. The loot is already divided up and if we want to share what we find to help the other person out we can do it right then or wait until the combat is over.

Just chiming in for the heck of it.

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iamstryker wrote:

Sometimes you might just stand there and stare at the loot to see if your buddy wants it or not

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Squirrelloid wrote:

All i'm going to say is that any loot system which puts me in competition with other players for items is a system which will see me playing very little multiplayer.

Which is fine. This can be yet another single player game for me. I doubt I'm alone.

If you want to encourage people to play multiplayer, a loot system which rewards everyone equally is essential. And I'm not convinced most people are interested in a loot system which pits party members against each other. I know I'm not. I'd like to be able to kill monsters with a group and *then* worry about loot.

Basically, how do you want people to play the game. And I don't mean at the level of 'we want a cutthroat feel to loot'. I mean 'we want people to primarily play single player' or 'we want people to play multiplayer with random groups of people they don't know'. You need to incentivize the type of play you want. If you want people to multiplayer in pickup groups, cutthroat loot is precisely the wrong design decision.

I'm also curious how you intend to deal with auto-looting scripts.

Edit: My one experience with a 4-man team was Merciless Act 2 boss, and the loot pinata was so big (and the game loot display fails to compact well, it puts too much space between item names), that I had to move around to even read all the items that dropped. By the time I could click on a rare marked for me the timer had already run out. I got some rares, but only because everyone else was presumably having the same problems, and its not like i was choosing rares i wanted, just clicking on any available yellow text. Feeling like I'm fighting the interface and the other players for loot? Not fun at all.

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Squirrelloid wrote:

All i'm going to say is that any loot system which puts me in competition with other players for items is a system which will see me playing very little multiplayer.

Which is fine. This can be yet another single player game for me. I doubt I'm alone.

If you want to encourage people to play multiplayer, a loot system which rewards everyone equally is essential. And I'm not convinced most people are interested in a loot system which pits party members against each other. I know I'm not. I'd like to be able to kill monsters with a group and *then* worry about loot.

Basically, how do you want people to play the game. And I don't mean at the level of 'we want a cutthroat feel to loot'. I mean 'we want people to primarily play single player' or 'we want people to play multiplayer with random groups of people they don't know'. You need to incentivize the type of play you want. If you want people to multiplayer in pickup groups, cutthroat loot is precisely the wrong design decision.

I'm also curious how you intend to deal with auto-looting scripts.

Edit: My one experience with a 4-man team was Merciless Act 2 boss, and the loot pinata was so big (and the game loot display fails to compact well, it puts too much space between item names), that I had to move around to even read all the items that dropped. By the time I could click on a rare marked for me the timer had already run out. I got some rares, but only because everyone else was presumably having the same problems, and its not like i was choosing rares i wanted, just clicking on any available yellow text. Feeling like I'm fighting the interface and the other players for loot? Not fun at all.

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Aixius wrote:

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markshiu wrote:

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Aixius wrote:

It doesn't sound like your friends are too into co-op if "opportunity for personal gain" is all it takes to bring it all down.

PoE will give you the opportunity to see how into sharing your friends really are!

If you read previous conversation/this thread, there was an argument that your friend may be in another league or level.

When you die from Hardcore, your friends may stay there, and either you level again (on your own?) or you go on Softcore. Neither of the cause can blame your friends. The problem is STILL the loot system.

What does that have to do with what I said or what Minioneer said? He said he and his friends don't like loot systems that pit them against each other.

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HerrKaputt wrote:

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Squirrelloid wrote:

All i'm going to say is that any loot system which puts me in competition with other players for items is a system which will see me playing very little multiplayer.

Which is fine. This can be yet another single player game for me. I doubt I'm alone.

If you want to encourage people to play multiplayer, a loot system which rewards everyone equally is essential. And I'm not convinced most people are interested in a loot system which pits party members against each other. I know I'm not. I'd like to be able to kill monsters with a group and *then* worry about loot.

Basically, how do you want people to play the game. And I don't mean at the level of 'we want a cutthroat feel to loot'. I mean 'we want people to primarily play single player' or 'we want people to play multiplayer with random groups of people they don't know'. You need to incentivize the type of play you want. If you want people to multiplayer in pickup groups, cutthroat loot is precisely the wrong design decision.

I'm also curious how you intend to deal with auto-looting scripts.

Edit: My one experience with a 4-man team was Merciless Act 2 boss, and the loot pinata was so big (and the game loot display fails to compact well, it puts too much space between item names), that I had to move around to even read all the items that dropped. By the time I could click on a rare marked for me the timer had already run out. I got some rares, but only because everyone else was presumably having the same problems, and its not like i was choosing rares i wanted, just clicking on any available yellow text. Feeling like I'm fighting the interface and the other players for loot? Not fun at all.

+ over 9000

In my opinion, looting should be like in Guild Wars: each and every item (including whites!) should be assigned to one player. In GW, it was too drastic: even if one player ignored an item assigned to him you could not get it. Thus, I propose a timer like you have, but considerably longer (say, 30 seconds). This way, even interface problems or large item pinatas won't keep you from getting the items you want.