Looting -- The official thread for discussing the loot system. Updated 18th March, 2013.
" You are right that many people may choose not to use FFA loot however you fail to say why this is a bad thing. The assumption that people need to be forced to pay attention is flawed unless the game is not interesting enough in its own right, in which case it will not do well in open beta anyway so the point is academic. The idea that people might think FFA implies they may need to compete for loot is an interesting symptom of the fact PoE had been in beta far too long - FFA is DESIGNED TO FORCE COMPETITION, that's the whole point according to the GGG post at the start of this thread, the beta community have been playing so long they have forgotten this. The wider assumption that non FFA means leaching is retarded, it is trivial to only assign loot to chars who are close to the action/have contributed to the kill (I.e. were in combat with the mob or linked add). The old comment about non-FFA meaning loot is wasted is far more meaningful however this could be fixed by allowing someone to claim an item they were assigned (I.e. close enough to pick up and that's what you do, to far and you get the option to claim and can pick up later) only claimed loot which is not picked up is wasted in which case the person who claimed it wanted it to be wasted. If FFA supporters are right about FFA being more fun then surely this will become obvious to new players who join their games, unless they don't intend to start games for others to join, in which case they will be playing in closed groups and frankly what do they care? Anyone remember Diaktana? It tried to be different in its genre, the save game feature was, err, ahead of its time - designed to fit with the game, make it fun (force people to have fun)... Anyone remember Frontier Elite? That tried to have certain elements of the game fit with the concept of the game (force people to play a spesfic way)... It's a game, don't force to much or people will just play something else. Someone implied FFA means community, actually it means bad reviews, annoyed players and a shrinking community. As I mentioned Elite, there is a kickstarter project to revive it, elite dangerous - looks good if it gets funded. |
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Assuming act 3 is complete 1 month would be plenty of time to code, release, and test.
I would really like to see an updated Dev post on this subject… IGN: Wrathmar * Paulie * Client
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" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Standard Forever
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Played some more public games today and have some more thoughts on the issue.
1. I am for instanced loot as one option simply for the fact of screen clutter. It is amazingly annoying having the screen completely full of items. I don't think instanced is a perfect system but I would play it sometimes just to keep my screen clear. No don't tell me to filter white items. They have too much potential to be valuable in this game and I don't want to hit a button all of the time either. 2. Even if I wanted to play the weed out the jerks game its too annoying right now since I had no idea who took what item. How the hell can I follow who took what item when A) The screen is full of items, B) The screen is full of enemies/minions/spell effects, and C) A boss creature who is trying to kill me. I simply can't follow all of that at the same time. Thats why I support wraths idea of a loot log so I know for sure who took my orb with my name on it. The current system isn't unplayable I just don't see why it needs to be the only option to play on. I dislike FFA but other people hate it more than me for sure. I want this game to be popular dang it. This issue just isn't important enough to hinder the games popularity. Standard Forever
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" While I still feel instanced loot is dull, boring, and slow. If you guys manage to get options, what type of loot will it be? If the first, ganking will be worse. If the second, leeching will be all she wrote. Remember, its going to be a free game. The fact that mostly adults play it right now will not be the truth after OB. The demographic for this game is ex d2 players, but being a free game means ages 10-18 will be a huge demographic when it takes off. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right!" Henry Ford Last edited by Jackel6672#4463 on Dec 28, 2012, 2:29:50 PM
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" I don't really agree with your assessment of leeching. Right now its worse than what it would be under your second option above. right now people can not only leech their own drops but also leech YOUR drops. IMO anyone who is traveling with the group and contributing should have a share of the loot. Some people will always contribute more than others oh well. A person who only travels without contributing is a problem under any system. The party leader just has to kick them there is no other solution, that I know of. Standard Forever
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" Have you ever played a game with "Kill stealing"? Instanced loot becomes a nightmare under those circumstances. If you guys don't kick people now, for ganking and not contributing, chances are you won't under instanced since they no longer effect you. You also didn't choose which one is the style you are debating for. %heath based drops also lead to problems. My demographic argument seems to still stand. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right!" Henry Ford
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Spoiler
" I can’t reply to all points you make here, but honestly we really only disagree on a few things. 1) Offering loot choices for public games will mean NO FFA loot games because FFA loot is an added difficulty. So what to do about it? >Do you further incentivize with more drops for games that are FFA? We have seen the screenshots of insane amounts of loot on the ground already – and complaints about it. >Do you reduce the drops for instanced games? As it stands, the IIQ does not add enough to keep pace with each new player so they would already be seeing MUCH less loot then they would in a single player game. If it was made worse it would be just plain pitiful. I can’t think of much else that could be done without getting unnecessarily abstract. 2) Also: “it's about creating a situation where POE's multiplayer is appealing & accessible rather than niche & restrictive.” At what cost? Does GGG have to sacrifice design principle and their philosophy in order to appeal to more masses? It seems like they are doing damn well appealing to this “niche” to me. I would even say they have MUCH to lose by giving in on these kind of issues. I’m still not convinced about “play style” either, if you don’t want to pay attention to what drops while fighting you DO have the ability of just playing with friends when you want to group. I have a few friends that NEVER loot until after everything is dead, we even clear maps before picking up anything sometimes. You can have it both ways already with only small effort. Thanks for the well thought out reply, I understand your position much better. |
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Any change to the loot system should keep the same random assignment that currently exists.
Edit to SMRD- A portion of the game population enjoys Timer (FFA) and will play that exclusively. With the hopefully increased Open Beta player population the total number of Timer loot games should be similar to the total number of public groups in Closed Beta. IGN: Wrathmar * Paulie * Client Last edited by wrathmar#4456 on Dec 28, 2012, 2:54:44 PM
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" I personally don't agree that FFA should be considered 'an added difficulty' but if we do then would the same not apply to the concept of Hardcore? People still play that, how would this not be the case for FFA? As far as I am aware many gamers relish added difficulty & complain when games are too easy or don't have a 'hard mode'. I don't agree with you that people would choose to not play FFA because they didn't want to take on any added difficulty but I feel it would be for other reasons entirely. For me the issue isn't that I want the game to be easier, its that I want the focus of playing in a team to be defeating the enemy and not for that enemy to also be on my team. Now what you say about the vision of the Devs is relevant and ultimately it is their decision but every decision they make has an effect on the game for better or worse. Vision is important but what is also important is being able to pay the bills and be successful financially & while I would never argue that GGG wont make it cos of loot options I think it is fair to say that as a business decision it will definitely have some effect on how much people are willing to spend on the game. Now, maybe GGG are a bunch of hipsters who aren't interested in making lots of money, maybe to them the artistic side & vision is most important & not to be sacrificed by any means, maybe they cannot get over the idea of "players are not only competing against monsters, but also their fellow players", I don't know but I feel POE has more than enough vision already whereby adding loot options isn't going to suddenly make GGG look like a bunch of sell outs. Let me ask you this as a hypothetical, if the game was changed to fully instanced loot & it resulted in more people playing multiplayer, would that be a good or a bad thing? |
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