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

most likely not, but it'd be cool for the future.

10 years is a long time.

"This could actually be a feature of a heuristic grouping function. The heuristic grouping function could look at statistical factors such as loot grabbing efficiency and other metadata in generating a list of high compatibility players for you to group with."

Id have so much fun with this feature. Farm up bad pick up rates. Then join bad groups and steal all the items hahahahah.

In the end the ffa looting system is harsh but people will get used to it. Like if your fighting a hard boss and die to him lots you cant just call it bad gameplay because you cant beat him.

Thank you for your insights.

What about a loot piñata at the end of killing a boss?

Then everyone would have a chance to get close up before any loot is dropped.

For normal enemies it'd just be kill / drop scenario.

Well after 40 pages I think every point possible about how to pick up something off the ground has probably been given.

But, for what it's worth. No pinatas please.

The loot pinata was actually discussed but we didn't call it that. Boss loot at one point was discussed for its drop complexity and perhaps that it should be need/greed/pass.

Boss loot could also be bought with credits... just like WOW guilds do loot.

Example:

You kill the boss you get 5 credits for his loot. When a piece of loot drops from a boss it goes into an auction window. People can use their points they gained to win the fast auction.

So you go to 10 boss kills and get nothing.. you have 50 credits. You go again and something drops... you bid 20, someone else bids 21, you win the bidding at 42. Credits only accumulate for that particular boss... you cannot farm a diff. boss to get other loot.

That whole process would take a minute or so at the very end of a zone. If everyone passes on bidding the loot just drops FFA.

Obviously this system doesn't work if the developers want a situation where someone has run the boss 100x, but then someone runs it 1x with them and ganks the drop they were looking for. I've actually seen that happen in another game.

I would be ok with a system that was a little more allocated for boss loot. Maybe give people a solid 10-15 seconds of allocated loot for them to chill out and look it over before it becomes FFA.

I agree Tpapp. Not for regular fights, but for Boss fights that is perfectly acceptable. After a major boss fight you're wanting to chill anyway and roll around in your newly found loot. 10-15 seconds sounds like a good time range.

Yup this could really help and keep it fair.

Having read through this thread, a Herculean task unto itself, I am now attempting a second impossible task of putting forth a useful contribution to the discussion.

As best I can tell, there are two rewards for killing enemies. The first is experience. The second is drops, referred to here as 'loot.' The debate seems to stem from a dilemma between preserving the feel of the game and allowing every player to feel as though they were properly rewarded for their part in the fight.

On one hand, there seems to be a great number of people who don't want to have to stop fighting monsters to pick up items. On the other, we have a decently sized group of people who feel that the game loses something if there's no competition over loot. Between the two, there has been a lot of discussion on focusing on the right thing.

One proposal I have is that players are rewarded according to their focus. If a player never stops fighting to pick up drops, they're not going to get loot. However, experience is, in theory, a reflection of the combat skill gained by killing monsters. So, why is a character who spends the entire battle looting gaining the same experience as a character who spent the entire battle fighting?
Thus, I propose that players who pick up loot while other players are killing monsters suffer some balanced penalty to experience gain reflecting the fact that their character wasn't doing as much fighting.

Other thoughts were having picking up items being non-instantaneous and/or incurring some sort of defense penalty. None of this isn't a total fix, because there's still the problem of rare drops always going to the player they drop next to in a completely free for all system...


On a second subject, a lot of people having been talking about quickly assessing loot to determine if you want to pick it up or not. This makes no sense to me. In a total loot free-for-all, like Diablo 2, the best looting method is to grab anything that looks like it might be something you'd want for trade or use then drop it later if you don't want it.
In short, grab everything.


To clarify, I am against free-for-all loot systems, but I don't think that total allocation as a requirement is the correct solution. Allowing parties to set a loot drop algorithm (round robin, timed allocation, or free-for-all, for example) before leaving town is a decent bandage.


On the subject of my proposals, they come from a thought on preserving the game feel by applying realism. After all, in a hostile world, who the hell ignores a bunch of zombies swinging at them to bend over and stuff a suit of chain mail into their backpack? And even if they do, that should take some time to do, and leave the greedy adventurer vulnerable to the zombies while he or she is doing it.

Some combination of timed allocation (for valuable drops), reduced experience gain for looting during battle, and added risk and/or delay when looting during battle, would, I feel, create the best result. Allocation would allow all players to have a chance at rare drops, and grabbing the less valuable loot during battle would become something that each individual player needs to decide about on a case by case basis, instead of everyone generally wanting to grab as much as possible.


I believe this would also create a more realistic feel to the game. Imagine a party of adventurers only loosely cooperating only for the sake of their own survival fighting zombies.

First, imagine that every few seconds one of them bends over to grab a few gold pieces or a piece of equipment. As the battle ends, all the adventurers have already grabbed everything the want, and move on. Not very realistic, is it?

Now imagine that same party, where everyone is fighting the zombies, except for one guy who spotted a powerful item and decided it was worth the risk to life and limb to ignore the zombies for a few moments to grab it. As the last zombies fall, the adventurers are no longer bound by the threat of mutual annihilation and make a mad scramble to grab everything of value that they can get their hands on. Doesn't that sound a lot better?

TL;DR
By implementing some negative effects for looting during battle in combination with timed allocation on certain drop types, looting can maintain the cut-throat feel the developers want while resulting in a more fair distribution, because properly selected disincentives to looting during battle would lead to players leaving grabbing the generic loot until the battle was almost over, without taking away the option to be greedy or actually enforcing any draconian rules.

I do respect the fact that you read through this thread no easy feat indeed. I can agree even if it is FFA i think there should be a penalty if someone is hanging back they should be penalized if there not doing anything, but loot-whoring.