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

Need greed pass rolls do have a serious flaw... which is rolling when you don't need it. Often players will just hit need without even looking at the item because there is still action on the screen.

I'd propose a hybrid system... most items would be Timer FFA, however some items... perhaps only boss loot, would be need greed pass.

The hybrid system means that you can't just sit there doing nothing, and when it really counts for co-op, it's a roll system anyway.

This takes away the incentive to throw the fight. Some of the great items dropped on the way though would be Timer FFA, but you can't plan for that, so you won't have people throwing those either.

Loot problem solved.

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Need greed pass rolls do have a serious flaw... which is rolling when you don't need it.

This problems was solved... eh 5 years ago, and many very effective solutions exist. Namely, the roll can have several penalties: if you click too often, use another stat (like Int-witch ninja-rolling on str-item) or dont have skills to use it properly. The parent model in WoW is absolutely satisfactory.

Sharing loot between friends is no big deal, but the majority of the time you're playing with strangers. FFA loot was one of the few things that occasionally really pissed me off in D2 and I don't see it changing here.

The delay system is a good idea and makes it more fair, but 2 seconds for a ranged char does not sound sufficient.

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zeto wrote:

Need greed pass rolls do have a serious flaw... which is rolling when you don't need it. Often players will just hit need without even looking at the item because there is still action on the screen.

Is this somehow not the case in the if-you-don't-click-it-before-someone-else-you-have-no-chance-at-the-item system that is FFA?

As stated before, I'm in favor of the system the devs have suggested, with time-limited allocations that adjust for both distance and ping, but otherwise free-for-all; I also happen to disagree that the parent model in WoW is satisfactory for this game - the combat and loot systems are meant to demand quick tactical thinking, not "stand there and DPS until well-telegraphed monster skill forces me to move".
Why (or, why not permanent allocation or need-before-greed):

- Permanent allocation:
-- "You can look, but you can't touch." Particularly in the event of a disconnect. Either the allocation disappears, in which case it's back to FFA and players with poor connections throw a hissy fit because they lost items they were "entitled to", or it doesn't, in which case the item is basically destroyed if the player doesn't rejoin.
-- There's no satisfactory way to allocate items in a nonrandom fashion, and random allocation results in leeches or bots in pickup games (consider: bot loads "kill macro", cleans out the instance, then bot controller comes back from afk to decide what to pick up for highest profit).
- Need before Greed:
-- Breaks immersion. One player picks it up, and after a few seconds of clicking "need" or "greed" and waiting for everyone else to do the same, the item teleports to the inventory of whoever won the roll (provided they have inventory space; would you get to pick need or greed if you didn't?).
-- Also, the interface, however simple, distracts from the battlefield far more than just the plain item lying on the ground.

Also, do note that inventory space is finite - even if someone is ninja-ing everything at one point (particularly the white items that don't get allocated, period), they start having to play inventory tetris, or drop items (at which point you can snag them yourself).

Mildly sardonic parting thought:
This isn't Mandatory Co-operation Island. If it were, you wouldn't have to fight anything in the first place.

I've thought about it and I think I came with a pretty good (and simple) compromise, but I don't know if its ressource heavy.

Here it goes :

Any picked up item that is near a hostile target(monsters, maybe other players) is randomly given to a nearby player directly in his/her inventory.

Which means:

1. when in battle, melee characters do not have an advantage
2. FFA Loot is applied when monsters are killed, and hopefully, all players will be at an equal distance from items.
3. If applied to hostile players and assuming a cut-throat environnement, the only way to get the item you want for sure is killing the other player.

It doesn't deal with latency though

Thoughts?

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Skivverus wrote:

- Permanent allocation:
-- "You can look, but you can't touch." Particularly in the event of a disconnect. Either the allocation disappears, in which case it's back to FFA and players with poor connections throw a hissy fit because they lost items they were "entitled to", or it doesn't, in which case the item is basically destroyed if the player doesn't rejoin.

You’re saying it would be impossible to code into the game, items that stay allocated to the player, regardless if they got disconnected or left the game? I call foul.

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Skivverus wrote:

-- There's no satisfactory way to allocate items in a nonrandom fashion, and random allocation results in leeches or bots in pickup games (consider: bot loads "kill macro", cleans out the instance, then bot controller comes back from afk to decide what to pick up for highest profit).

I would hope that bots would not be in this game, or at least would be easily deterred.

If not, then it’s a ridiculous claim that that allocated loot promotes bots.

Also, programs like “pickit” that instantly grab items of worth off the ground would technically be deterred by randomly allocated loot because loot would only drop for the player regardless.

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Silver wrote:

You’re saying it would be impossible to code into the game, items that stay allocated to the player, regardless if they got disconnected or left the game? I call foul.

No, I'm saying that if you do make it so items stay allocated post-disconnect, you have a "look-but-don't-touch" situation for anyone else in the instance, which I can guarantee will be frustrating if the item happens to be a potentially good one (read: rare currency item/unique/desirable rare).
Consider: a player in a party gets allocated a nice rare from (say) a boss drop; his connection is poor, and before he picks it up, said connection cuts out entirely, leaving the item on the ground for everyone to see... but only to see.

As for the "pickit" programs, those are also deterred by the combination of random item quality per drop and finite inventory space; this particular point is more about leeches than bots: under both FFA and allocated loot systems, leeches can simply stick around and scavenge while other players do all the work; however, FFA forces the would-be leech to decide on gear as it drops due to the finite inventory, whereas with allocated loot, they can simply stick around for half an hour and then take the best of "their" share.

As for Kahoder's suggestion - interesting, although definitely more in the spirit of allocated loot than FFA, and if truly random eliminates all reason to pick up items mid-combat. Imagine, if you will, dropped potions (I realize they don't work this way in PoE, but you get the idea) being randomly distributed mid-combat - suddenly having even friendly players around is detrimental to your kill speed and/or survival.

NbG is such a slow, clunky way of solving the loot issue. It has its place in mmorpg's. This game I imagine being much faster paced. Watch some gameplay videos. Do you picture NbG poping up in that? I sure dont.

Look at the rate theyre killing monsters in PoE and compare that to a game like WoW or another MMORPG your familar with. PoE is much much faster. Its not like an MMORPG where youve been grinding for hours and suddenly an item drops that youve been looking for and it gets ninja'd.
Your running about killing fast, items are dropping all the time. FFA suits the gameplay quite nicely. Adding random allocated loot here and there for a few seconds would help the people with slower reflexes get some loot too.

Randomly adding items to players inventory is the worst idea ive read so far. Do you want them to add auto-potting too? How about them adding auto attack and auto skill while theyre at it?

The fact is, not everybody is going to like a loot system. Wheither it be hardcore FFA/FFA +Rando Allocation, Perm rando allocation, or even seperate loot for everybody. Its a matter of what loot system best fits the gameplay and has the best feel.

We could keep arguing about this for another 50 pages atleast and we would still have people aruging about the same stuff.

Constantly allocated loot on a rotation gets frustrating and seems like the rotation is against you. A randomly placed, non-constant loot allocation thats in FFA could work. I personally think thats the best place to start from.

Not everyone is going to be contantly on the hunt for loot. This aspect plus the randomly placed, non-constant loot allocation makes the FFA loot system much more friendly. If the amount of loot dropped is increased by the amount of players in the party and near the area, then the chance of you picking up loot increases further.

I feel we need an update on what the dev's plan on doing with the loot system. If theyve already decided then were just wasting our time.

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Skivverus wrote:

No, I'm saying that if you do make it so items stay allocated post-disconnect, you have a "look-but-don't-touch" situation for anyone else in the instance, which I can guarantee will be frustrating if the item happens to be a potentially good one (read: rare currency item/unique/desirable rare).
Consider: a player in a party gets allocated a nice rare from (say) a boss drop; his connection is poor, and before he picks it up, said connection cuts out entirely, leaving the item on the ground for everyone to see... but only to see.

In that situation either A. The player who disconnected should be able to re-log and get his loot or B. allocated loot should be hidden. Both of those are solutions to that supposed issue.

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Skivverus wrote:

As for the "pickit" programs, those are also deterred by the combination of random item quality per drop and finite inventory space; this particular point is more about leeches than bots: under both FFA and allocated loot systems, leeches can simply stick around and scavenge while other players do all the work; however, FFA forces the would-be leech to decide on gear as it drops due to the finite inventory, whereas with allocated loot, they can simply stick around for half an hour and then take the best of "their" share.

Diablo 2 has a pretty small inventory and Pickit was not deterred by the inventory, so I don't see how you can consider that a detriment.

Also, If pickit finds its way into PoE it will likely be modified to pick up small but valuable items (like currency items). In which it would still be an issue.