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

I guess it comes down to what kind of game design you want. What do you want the players to experience while going through the motions of fighting enemies and collecting loot.

I realize the stated goal is “cut-throat” but I must ask you to think about that twice.

By that I mean this –

Do you want the game design to embrace co-op play, or do you want the game design run counter to it. Or maybe you want to try and establish some sort of tug ad pull of co-op and cut-throat. You can not design the looting system to be cut-throat and expect the co-op to feel any good.

People sit there and reminisce about how the Diablo 2 FFA system, wasn’t really that bad. They gloss over various game-play issues that cropped up solely because of that system.

Many have been mentioned in this thread –

- Players wanting to solo or play with friends only.

- Players fighting over loot instead of enjoying the game-play.

- Players would stop attacking the boss at low health in order to “rush” said boss in hopes of some loot.

- Ranger and low ping disadvantages.

All of those problems reinforced in the player’s mind that the best way to get loot was to solo, or to get a good group of friends. That is completely counter-intuitive to a cooperative experience, where strangers can get together to have some fun.

Recently in these forums players have began to think up ways to ‘discourage’ looting. In this way even in a FFA game players would have to ‘think twice’ about ganking loot.

That’d be fine and dandy in any other type of game, maybe, but this is an ARPG. The game is meant to be fast-paced and fun with lots of action and lots of loot.

By forcing the player the think twice you’re basically telling them not to loot so often. This pretty much cuts out half the fun of the game. Part of the fun of a game like this is deciding if loot is good for you or not. When you take that away, you’re left with an actiony game that punishes your curiosity.

I really can not understand all the vitriol over allocated loot, or individual loot. Sure, there are a lot of backers here, but for whatever reason it falls short. It’s as if people do not want to play a game that is fair for all. Yes, I get it… cut-throat.

A truly cut-throat system is FFA with possibly minor timed allocation. That is because people will steal items left and right. If the timer is too low, I suspect we’ll have similar issues as FFA. If the timer is too long, people who don’t like allocated loot will complain that they can’t steal everything.

Once again, what is the goal of the design, is it to have co-op and embrace it, or is it to have a cut-throat environment.

The pros of cut-throat are pretty few (in my opinion) –

- The feeling of the game (feels like a pretty harsh world)

- The game-play encourages the player to be nimble.

- The game-play may encourage players to rush for items that may get unallocated.

- I can’t think of any more pros.

The cons of cut-throat are maybe a bit longer –

- Players may opt to solo and play with friends more often.

- The cooperative feel of the game is damaged.

- Players may be encouraged to stop attacking to gather loot.

- Looting takes away from the action of killing enemies.

The pros of allocated loot or individual loot are pretty long in my opinion –

- Players will easily be able to play with strangers as loot whoring will not occur.

- Players will likely finish a battle with enemies before looting.

- The player can focus on killing the enemy.

- The cooperative feel of the game is greatly increased as people can be relaxed about the looting environment.

The cons of allocated loot or individual loot are basic –

- Players wouldn’t be able to pick up loot that isn’t allocated to them (which is why many games opt to not show it to other players).

- You loose a little bit of that ‘cut-throat’ feeling.

If you just increase the amount of time that loot is allocated to like 30 seconds or more then I don’t see how any of this would be a problem.

Anyways, the discussion continues.

You know ganking means gang killing right. Like killing a player with more than one person. How does one person gank loot?

Anyway. Not everyones a dickhead. So if an item drops and they pick it up and you say you need it and why.They will probably give it to you. Unless their a dick or they need it. If their a dick then why are you playing with them in the first place?

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Silver wrote:

Lots of stuff to quote.

I think it is important to remember that out of sight out of mind plays a huge role. Most people are satisfied with what they get until they see that someone else got something better. Take for instance your pay. I would say that in the real world it is pretty cut-throat for jobs right now. But you don't see employers telling their employees what everyone is making. Most people are happy just to have a job until they hear some new guy that they are training is getting paid as much or more than them.

Same thing with loot. If we have allocated loot and you don't even see the drops of the other players then you just grab your own stuff and move on.

I still don't see how the loot system relates to a "cut-throat" world. The two things are separate. The world is cut-throat via how the world treats you. If you want to say it is more realistic that a cut-throat world throws ffa loot then you might as well be clamoring for a lot less loot and most beasts not carrying loot since they wouldn't be walking around with big pieces of heavy armor that are made for a humanoid anyways.


Tl;dr = Cut-throat world is not an excuse for a poor loot system.

I'm not going to argue what ganking means; at this point it's an ambiguous internet term that generally means a person is abusing some game mechanic to the detriment of other players.

I suppose I could replace it with loot whoring.

Regardless, I do wonder if it is worth the cons of creating more solo-minded behaviors, and friend party behaviors in order to reinforce the idea that ‘everyone is out to get your loot.’

Would it not be a joy to embrace cooperative play for looting? Or is that only a dream on the path to exile?

Yes, out of sight out of mind works well, but I’m not the one that needs convinced of that. It’s really hard to describe in words why such a concept is useful.

90% of good design is good psychology also. At least that’s what I’ve heard from some veteran designers.

So, if the goal is cut-throat, how do you reconcile that with cooperative play? Or do you denounce the idea that the game needs to be cooperative friendly.

Which one is honestly more fun?

When playing games that have individual loot or allocated loot, I feel they are much more fun to play with strangers.

Games without that mechanic are harsh indeed, and I feel like playing by myself or with good friends.

There is a certain draw to games with allocated loot; there is no risk of failure to get loot. In games where loot is a large part of the game, this is a great benefit generally to the co-op feel.

I think the easiest method would be to leave the decision up to the player. By this I mean when a server is created, the host simply selects what loot rule they wish.

Chris has said that the original design was for FFA loot. This can then be made as the 'default' loot rule but have the other loot rules as options. If a player doesn't like the selected loot rule, don't join that server. If you don't like any of the server choices available, host a server yourself with your preferred loot rule. The beauty of this system is that additional loot rules can be added to game at a later date.

I think the decision of what loot rule to go with is kind of a waste of development energy when it can be simply passed on to the players.

My 2c.

I don't really see how allocated loot is co-op at all.

You kill stuff you get your item. No need to talk to the others in your party. What if a lifesteal item drops that one person is building towards but its allocated to the fireball guy?He doesnt want to trade it to you because hes Brazilian or a dick that knows it trades for good items. You still get the exact same problem. Your still going to want to group with friends anyway because of this reason.

Wow has a need and greed system and there is still bundles of ninjaing. Theres a filter on the system also that keeps mages rolling on mages items and so on. Yet a 2 hander warrior will still ninja a dagger because it sells for good cash.

The only actual way to stop this is to talk to your team and make sure you all get along. If your nice to them they arnt going to want to whore items you want because they will feel like a dick.

Also the only thing you should be calling "your loot" is an item you need. If your allocated stuff you dont need yet someone else does need it. Thats still going to be counter co-op isn't it. Thats still just as bad as someone taking the item off the ground before I did. At least that way I had a chance of getting the item with skill rather than luck.

So again this results back to having to party with friendly people.. Which makes sense.

I really think the timed allocation will work better than you think in practice. Full allocation would undoubtedly give the game a more leisurely feel, strolling around killing a few monsters and occasionally backtracking to grab your loot. GGG wants something more fast-paced and frenetic where players need to be aware of many things at once.

^ yay a smart person.

That’s pretty conceited of you Rustychops.

The point of allocated loot is so that everyone gets a fair shot at drops. If a player can only see his or her drops, then I really don’t see the issue.

So you’re saying that the game should be more stressful and frustrating to gather useful loot? I mean, isn’t the point of a game to sit back and have fun?

For example: a great item drops and is allocated to you, but because the allocation time is 3 seconds and you’re in the middle of a large battle between multiple enemies, you miss the allocation time and another player grabs it up right in front of you.

You could stop fighting and grab the loot, but how is that action intensive? It isn't.

That doesn’t sound very fun.

Loot is a major reason to play a game like this. Most people gather loot as they travel because they have such a limited bag space. By forcing the player to drop what they are doing just to get what’s rightfully theirs, you’re putting too much emphasis on loot whoring and not enough on the core of the game. Which is generally fast action and customization through loot. Adding – grab loot fast enough – to the mix doesn’t help much in any regard except to add stress and frustration.

The major question here is what the design goal is. If it's to counter-cooperative play then FFA / shortly timed allocated loot works well in that direction.

Though I can not see how that is fun.