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

Killing monsters and picking up loot are both two equal halves of the gameplay. If you only focus on one then you'll certainly miss out on the other. Divide your attentions appropriately.

Yeah im going to stop reading this thread. Its a 37 page circle of people getting annoyed because they aint pro.

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Silver wrote:

However, notice that those are two separate phases of the game. In one phase the player is looking for a way to intercept the ball and then doing so, the second phase is him running to the goal.

If we're going to be dissecting analogies, I might point out that said analogy also involves preparation (where are you going to run?) and split-second decisions ("do you catch it and run, or 'fumble' it because you're not expecting much yardage and it's a fourth down?").

The point of keeping loot and combat closely mixed is to require more attention of the gamer in group (not necessarily party) play - in other words, to be more immersive.

If a player wants to focus exclusively on kills-per-minute, rather than splitting their attention between killing and paying attention to loot, it seems just a mite absurd to say that they "should" be at an advantage in both kill speed and looting, since they're only focusing on the first one.

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Skivverus wrote:

If a player wants to focus exclusively on kills-per-minute, rather than splitting their attention between killing and paying attention to loot, it seems just a mite absurd to say that they "should" be at an advantage in both kill speed and looting, since they're only focusing on the first one.

This is pretty much how I feel (and how it is) put into a good explanation.

I think its important to note the zombie's perspective. Not only did you cleave, maul, pierce, or decapitate him, but you've spent months decided how to tally up the loot fallen from his still twitching corpse. Who's to say he wasn't just a regular zombie joe heading back from work to his little zombie wife and kids. Instead he gets beaten to death by a group of loot obsessed "heroes".

Conclusion players are dicks.

Is there no way to delete posts?

I wanted to add that there isn't much point discussing analogies, spirit of the game, and psychology. These are irrelevant to the fact the developers want the fairest system they can make without losing the cut throat feel. The system where each person gets their own individualized loot is out beacause this directly goes against any feeling of hardcore. They obviously don't want to do FFA entirely or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

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- Ranged players are unable to get to the items in time.
- Items might just get scooped up by one player with substantially lower latency than the other players.

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.
- The time would be increased by the time it takes for the character to run to the item. An item allocated to a ranged player might unallocate after two seconds, for example.

The Range player argument is invalid as well as latency.

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It's important to us that Path of Exile has a cut-throat feel where players are not only competing against monsters, but also their fellow players. We do not feel it is an option to arbitrarily hide items from players who have not been allocated them.

This is the spirit of the game no room for interpretation there.

Finally by giving the player the choice in the private leagues you very easily appease all players. As far as complexity i fail to see how this would be to complicated. I think if you can read and balance your choices then it is not a very difficult choice.

Killing enemies and picking up loot are not equal. There is a distinct difference between doing either. Killing enemies is much more visceral and strategic. Picking up loot, well, it’s picking up loot. This is something most players do after a battle regardless if they got the loot they wanted or not.

@Skivverus: So you’re obviously for players being punished for focusing on efficient monster slaying.

Because you know, killing enemies shouldn’t reward the player. They must also be distracted with attaining their just rewards.

The argument that private leagues will fix everything is simply a maneuver to avoid the issue. They won’t fix anything for the game the mass public will be playing.

If the game has a low allocation time, then sure, the system will be designed for people to be required to optimize for loot gathering and killing. Otherwise they may lose out on gear if they’re too focused on killing enemies.

So, this will be the games future with this system –

- Reward players that pay attention to loot.

- Punish players who pay attention to killing enemies.

That certainly sounds ‘hardcore.’

Even though most ‘hardcore’ players ought to be rewarded for being good players.

Of course, that now includes not killing enemies as efficiently as possible. Because that would mean not paying attention to loot.

Also playing on HC i don't think it will be a cake walk i would think staying alive is a primary concern to the player. If you're playing with other people then their death will most likely lead to yours. Being a jerk will make them a little less likely to help you out in a bind so i think that generally people will pay attention to the battle at hand. If the battle is that easy to begin with i don't think the loot would be very notable either.

I think hardcore mode should be hardcore all the way. At least from that standpoint.

But I'm just talking about the softcore leagues here.

The game will be fun no matter what, I won't try and deny it, I just feel there ought to be a very fair reward system for all players, otherwise co-op will suffer.