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

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Chris wrote:

Do you have a reference for the extra base damage?

Had to dig a bit to find where I got this from, but here.
And the exact number is 6.25% per player, apparently.

Kyadatim, setting aside the numbers for a moment and speaking from experience, I've found that when I play (yes, I still do) in groups in Diablo II, I invariably end up at a higher level, dealing with later monsters, than if I had spent the same amount of time playing solo.

Now, reintroducing the numbers, technical stuff, and reasoning (not in that order):
First off, of course those eight players are going to be a lower level for a particular area than if they had played separately. If they had played separately, though, it would have taken them almost twice as long to get there - assuming "Diablo II-level scaling" as opposed to "no scaling" or "exact scaling", which would result in "about eight times as long" or "exactly as long".

Here, we come to another point about item drops: if you're fighting in a level 10* area, you're only going to see level 10 and lower items drop. If you're fighting in a group in a level 20 area... you'll see those level-10-and-lower items drop, but you'll also see level 11-20 items dropping, which you would be completely unable to find soloing in that level 10 area.

Separately, the reasoning that "not everyone would choose to go the direction leading to the next level" is either flawed or insufficiently explained for me to get it: you'll just as often do that with one player as with several - the only difference I see is that with one player you're doing it over multiple randomly generated maps instead of a single randomly generated map.

*numbers made up for illustrative purposes

My experience is that players playing solo tend to play at a lackadaisical pace, stopping a picking up extra stuff and town-portaling back to sell it more frequently, unless they are specifically trying to progress through the game as quickly as possible, while groups tend to rush through everything due to peer pressure to always be gaining at least as much as everyone else in the party by being in the most forward area and not wasting inventory space on items of only moderate value. If a solo player does actively rush through the game, they can progress pretty fast.

As for that bit about wasted time and incorrect paths, what I meant was that in any given area, generally a party will split up, because this yields maximum reward for time invested. However, every player who reaches a dead end then has to run through the area they've already cleared AND start wandering around areas other people have cleared (especially in the more open fields areas of Acts 1, 2, 4, and 5), wasting time looking for monsters. This can be partially circumvented by returning to town via a town portal then moving to the front lines via somebody else's town portal, but having to share the xp and loot in the region of an area that one is exploring will act as a deterrent to players going out of their way to help each other like this.
The exact amount of time wasted for each player is hard to quantify, but a decent plan of exploration will result in very little time running through already cleared territory when playing solo.

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Kyadytim wrote:

The exact amount of time wasted for each player is hard to quantify, but a decent plan of exploration will result in very little time running through already cleared territory when playing solo.

It's not like that would go any faster though. As a single person, you have no idea where you're going because the level is random. That means you have to personally explore each and every dead end. With eight people, everyone can go a different way and when someone finds the exit everyone else can go straight there which means you can blaze through an area much much faster than twice as fast if you wanted to.

The diminishing returns on loot and XP that Blizzard implemented for large parties was to keep parties from being way too good and help out the solo players. Otherwise, solo playing would have been a waste of time. In no way was Blizzard trying to make solo play better than party play.

Well, you only have to explore each and every dead end until you find everything you need in that area. In practice, rarely means exploring the whole area. Also, you're assuming that a group of strangers playing together are going to tell each other when they found the next area. Furthermore, even if they do, that's still up to 7 people wasting a decent a amount of time running from whichever dead end they were out finding.

I agree that Blizzard was trying to make solo play better than party play, but that seems to have been the result. Look for a second at the party play you've described. Probably the only time more than 2 people are on the same screen at a time is fighting bosses or coincidence, and more likely, everyone is off doing their own thing. That's technically multiplayer, but in practice it's more like simultaneous solo play.

Sadly, in this sort of multiplayer, even a short timed loot allocation as was proposed in the opening post of this thread will be almost equivalent to round robin, because most of the time when there's enough people on the same screen to compete for loot would be right after killing a boss, and everyone is going to be standing around ready to grab everything allocated to them.

On a side note, we seem to be going a little off topic, but I'm going to guess that the developers are finding this discussion at least vaguely interesting, or they probably would have gently reminded us to stay on topic. ¬¬

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Kyadytim wrote:

On a side note, we seem to be going a little off topic, but I'm going to guess that the developers are finding this discussion at least vaguely interesting, or they probably would have gently reminded us to stay on topic. ¬¬

Considering how little the devs have actually commented in this topic, I doubt they mind too much.

More to the point, party play vs solo play can be crafted however the devs want it to be. The devs could make party monsters so much more powerful and numerous that players have to stick together or be overwhelmed and killed off. The ultimate goal, though, is to have neither mode of play be any better or worse than the other.

Well, I’m actually interested in a game were multiplayer means many people playing in the same game-space.

Why should there be multiplayer games where people split up? That simply cuts down on the feeling that you’re playing with anyone.

A great way to promote people staying together would be something along the lines of making enemies really strong and numerous. The enemies will be so strong and numerous that players would have to stick together to survive.

That is a multiplayer game!

Another way to promote the multiplayer feel would be to certainly increase the amount of rewards per player.

Anyways, when it comes to loot, I feel it should promote party play without any distractions. With the current proposed system, the only issue I see is that the timer is so short people will be more focused on the loot than the numerous and deadly enemies.

As long as Challenge=Reward than there shouldn't be a problem. Yes solo play should be a viable option, but at the same time better rewards should be given. The players are taking more of a risk. Bigger chance to fail, possibility of not getting your loot, and working with others is a risk in its own right. So i believe that these Challenges should be properly rewarded with loot in mind.

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Kyadytim wrote:

Depending on the design, parties could possibly have a harder time, or a an equal but different challenge against bosses if the boss has the potential to deal damage to multiple party members at once, especially if the party XP rate is lower than the individual XP rate.

Also, for all the flaws I've described for Diablo 2's system when applied to partying with strangers, that system is very effective at creating an interesting and challenging game for a party of friends.

For a game of this type to encourage multiplayer, the rewards of playing in a group have to be larger than any disadvantages.

Taking, for example, lower per player xp and drop rate and easier bosses, players will tend to play solo unless they're stuck on a boss, excluding social factors.

Ideally, I think, the risk and reward should both be higher when playing in a group. Even if the xp rate/time is the same as solo, a higher per player drop rate/time will encourage people to play together, even if their is a higher chance of dying. Not only does this encourage people to be in the same party, but it also encourages them to fight together, instead of just wandering off on their own to reap the benefits of having other players in their party.

After all, if you've got a party of 4 people who never see each other except to fight the boss together, does that really count as multiplayer gaming?

I added some spaces to your post.

Kyadytim I think this hits the nail almost exactly as to everything that it means to have a multiplayer game in this genre.

My side of it is that the game will allow for strangers to party together. This is the cooperative side of it anyway. As you say in a game like this that allows cooperation, it needs to encourage that type of behavior.

I believe that balancing the risk and reward part will be the biggest effort. Because the enemies must be strong enough to kill individual players who are alone, this would discourage players from straying from the pack.

Providing a greater reward for partying also reinforces the multiplayer aspect of the game. People tend to gravitate to what gives them the most benefit, or reward. If the most reward is attained through partying, then that is what most people would do.

In a multiplayer game, partying should definitely be rewarded more, balanced with proper risk.

The great thing about this game is that even if partying had some greater reward, even with higher risk, it’s still possible to solo, making the game very versatile.

People who want to solo or have no one to party with will still be able to get through the game at their own pace. It doesn’t prevent anything.

As for what you had to say about your loot system, I’m impressed that you were able to give the player a punish / reward scenario for looting. The only problem is that this type of punishment eventually gets weaker as people level up more. At max level it wouldn’t matter if someone stole loot or not, regardless if they contributed any fair amount of time to the fight.

To that end, I still feel timed allocation can work, so long as the timing is sufficient. Ideally I’d vote for individualized loot, but that is so far from what will happen.

Edit:
Also - I'm impressed you read through the entire thread.

This is actualy very interesting grouping info. However in d2 you do fly through levels with 7 because you can rape through 3 areas in the time of 1 player doing 1 (like tppap said). Also more monsters killed in less time means more drops. Play with friends and these drops could be yours. :D Well you have already heard this from a few people xD.

Cool to see the math behind it.

So you were telling me GG?