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

Thanks Malice that makes a lot more sense to me now. Actually i could see this being implemented. It would indeed discourage looting while battling. I might still grab one thing i would like, but it would have to be tactical. Though perhaps an exception to the rule.

Let’s ignore the idea that looting is supposed to be ‘cut-throat.’

What exactly is the argument against individualized loot? (Loot that you can see only, but that can be dropped for other players to see).

If the only reason to keep this looting system out of the game is to keep the idea that loot should be cut-throat, then that’s fine.

It’s a design decision, even if it causes issues with loot distribution.

I do like the idea of picking up items taking a second or two (perhaps scaling with the size of the item?) that can't be devoted to movement or attacking - it's an elegant disincentive to players instinctively picking up absolutely everything, and it does this without cluttering the interface or with allocation.

As for individualized loot, though - I don't know about everyone else's arguments, but the way I see it is that under this system, you have items which effectively do not exist for all but one of the players.
Consider the same scenario with "individualized monsters" or "individualized terrain" and you can I think see that in each case this is detrimental to the idea of there being a single world the players are interacting in.
Also, it can cause delays where a party is waiting on one member and they're not sure whether it's because he's figuring out what to pick up or because he's had a heart attack.

Two things, you really can’t compare separate fighting environments to separate loot.

Second, there’s something called a chat feature. I suspect people would use it to say “Wait a second.”

Also, that same scenario could happen in any loot system.

42 page circle fuck YYYYEEAAAAAAHHH

Every system has issues.

It's over 9000.. oh i mean its over 40 pages long!
Agreed.
Every system will have its own issues.
If players would play fair we wouldnt need to solve this ,but no... someone just has to be ninja...

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Skivverus wrote:

As for individualized loot, though - I don't know about everyone else's arguments, but the way I see it is that under this system, you have items which effectively do not exist for all but one of the players.
Consider the same scenario with "individualized monsters" or "individualized terrain" and you can I think see that in each case this is detrimental to the idea of there being a single world the players are interacting in.

Solo 'magic finding' is rather popular specifically because the loot does not exist for any other player. Encouraging soloing to make sure you get your share of the loot is rather more detrimental to the idea of player interaction.

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Fluffy wrote:

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Skivverus wrote:

As for individualized loot, though - I don't know about everyone else's arguments, but the way I see it is that under this system, you have items which effectively do not exist for all but one of the players.
Consider the same scenario with "individualized monsters" or "individualized terrain" and you can I think see that in each case this is detrimental to the idea of there being a single world the players are interacting in.

Solo 'magic finding' is rather popular specifically because the loot does not exist for any other player. Encouraging soloing to make sure you get your share of the loot is rather more detrimental to the idea of player interaction.

You kill more slowly and you kill easier things solo than in groups. The benefit of the group is that it can be greater than the sum of its parts.

ie. in the same amount of time you might get 1 item and a group would get you 1.2 items.... therefore over time you'll get more items or better items from joining groups doing better content faster.

If it's better and faster to solo, then the game isn't balanced properly. ie. it's too easy.

thought the whole point in partying (in d2 anyway) was to get faster xp and more item drops. The monsters would get times x harder every person who was in the group.

...where "times x harder" meant "an extra 50% to their base hit points and experience granted, and an extra 7% (or so) to their base damage".

Grouping up still resulted in significantly easier fights: after all, eight players means 450% monster hit points, but 800% player damage output. Result? Monsters last just a little more than half as long. Which also, incidentally, cuts down on the amount of total damage each monster deals.

Short version: grouping up, even with D2-level monster scaling, gives drastic bonuses to kill speed and survivability.

So, given that, why ever solo?