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

Remember that while PoE will be somewhat modeled after Diablo 2, they will be completely different games, even though they’ll be in the same genre.

Anyways, GGG is aiming to give a better overall experience in their game than Diablo 2.

That includes multiplayer and anything else the game has to offer.

Diablo 2 had so many flaws, even though it’s such a heralded game. It doesn’t mean that every feature from D2 needs to be copied in exact detail. The goal should be to surpass D2, and to do that is to examine the cracks and find viable solutions.

Remember you don't want to penalize solo players just because they prefer to play the game in a different way. They should be able to get as much loot and XP as party players. If you want to encourage party play then there are many other incentive routes you can take that don't involve extra XP/loot.

I loved its grouping system better than any other arpg though. Every other game it half's your xp every time a member joins. Its fudgingly gay.

Its just so balanced its boring. Why fix that which isn't broken.

By playing TONS of mmorpg style games i can tell you that free-for-all looting shouldnt be implemented anywhere.
Its useless feature that only create rage for people that work hard and wanna have fun from game ,not runing to their loot in "hurry up mode" cuz some newb steal/camp everything.

The most simple and well working loot system is : the player/team who make most dmg on the mob got 10sec to pick up it before it becomes FFA. FFA between party members or randomized/order/dice between them no matter who pick it.

Im pretty sure everyone here has played "TONS" of mmo styled games. This isn't a mmo anyway. Also your system is extremely flawed. What if someone joined the group that is 5 levels higher than you all and far better gear. He gets even more gear?

@Silver
If you feel that you need to add more spaces when quoting me, I guess I'll try to make them more readable myself.


Anyway, I don't see anything that you said that I disagree with. It's quite true that balancing the risk and reward differences is the most important element if risk and reward are the main differences between solo and party play.

About my loot system - I'd originally proposed a punish/reward system on all loot, with time allocation on items over some too be determined value.

This definitely falls apart at high character levels, but there is less anonymity at high character level because there are less high level characters. Thus, it's possible for a character to develop a reputation for being incredibly greedy when it comes to looting currency items and be ostracized by the other high level characters, providing a deterrent to selfish behavior that is completely separate from the game itself.

Unfortunately, this also falls apart if the player base grows large enough.

There is probably no way to have a good loot distribution method that is fair and effective for both low level characters and high level characters that isn't arbitrary, because the relative value of experience and items (and often different types of items) with respect to increasing the character effectiveness changes as character level increases.



@herflik
The method you propose is horrible for most MMORPGs, too, because it gives all the loot to the DPS characters to the detriment of healers, buff/debuff casters, and tanks.
Also, as Rustychops mentioned, such a system will tend to increase the gap between 2 players' potential DPS the more they play together. It's a "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer" scheme.


@tpapp157
If you could provide some examples of incentives for playing with other people that doesn't effectively translate into a loot or XP incentive (for example, playing in a party boosts your run walk speed, but that really only matters because it allows you to get to more mobs faster, getting more kills and loot in the same time period), that would be great.

I'm not saying that there aren't any, but I'm totally at a loss.


@Rustychops
Yeah, Diablo 2's grouping system was good, but that doesn't mean that there's no room for improvement. The total free-for-all that was looting is one example, although you seem to disagree with it.

On the subject of advancement speed, I think I'm going to have to bow to the majority here. It's more likely that there are some factors that aren't explicitly calculable that cause groups to advance faster than it is that player bias is causing everyone to perceive that they are advancing faster when playing in groups.
I'm going to hold out on the difference not being tremendous, though.

And yeah, I was telling you GG. It seemed like a good idea at the time XD

another thing on the grouping gets you faster levels thing. You generally had a player that was round 40 levels over everyone that could rush you through these levels. This made it very fast : P You know this already though.Personally I like this system xD.Thats just because im not really a fan of leveling. Im more about doing runs for gear and killing people.

Hey free for all lootings alot nicer than what id have picked.

You want the item you duel to the death for it fk yeah! PoM : Path of Manlyness!

"

Kyadytim wrote:

@tpapp157
If you could provide some examples of incentives for playing with other people that doesn't effectively translate into a loot or XP incentive (for example, playing in a party boosts your run walk speed, but that really only matters because it allows you to get to more mobs faster, getting more kills and loot in the same time period), that would be great.

I'm not saying that there aren't any, but I'm totally at a loss.

By incentives I meant more subjective things. The simple fact that you can play together with your friends is certainly an incentive to play as a party. More loot drops so you have a better chance of finding something that you want. It's also helpful to have people of different classes and strengths. All of these are incentives to play as a party that aren't simple loot/XP bonuses.

"

tpapp157 wrote:

By incentives I meant more subjective things. The simple fact that you can play together with your friends is certainly an incentive to play as a party.

That's like saying "the reason for party play is because people like to party" which isn't an answer really. The point of the question is to answer what types of incentives, other than party play, is useful to help people form groups, especially with strangers, not friends who would anyways.

"

tpapp157 wrote:

More loot drops so you have a better chance of finding something that you want.

Here you use loot as an example of an incentive when you clearly stated that loot should not be an incentive for party play.

I.E here:

"

tpapp157 wrote:

Remember you don't want to penalize solo players just because they prefer to play the game in a different way. They should be able to get as much loot and XP as party players. If you want to encourage party play then there are many other incentive routes you can take that don't involve extra XP/loot.

Additionally you say:

"

tpapp157 wrote:

It's also helpful to have people of different classes and strengths.

This is the effect of partying but not an incentive, if enemies scale up considerable then this is more of an advantage for having multiple classes playing at once, but not an incentive.

"

tpapp157 wrote:

All of these are incentives to play as a party that aren't simple loot/XP bonuses.

So, what else can you think of that doesn't involve loot or XP and that doesn't involve giving party players an advantage over solo players?

Which by the way, choose to solo in a game that supports cooperative play.

Also, tpapp157, I’m not trying to use you as a punching bag and I hope you don’t feel that way, but I had to point out the reasoning.

What I meant is that parties shouldn't get bonus loot like 5% more loot per person in the party above the normal amount that each player would get. There will be more loot dropping with more people playing though. For example if two people play together then twice as much loot will drop (loot per person remains the same). So when eight times as much loot is dropping that means you get eight times the chance of something you need. There's a huge difference between what I said and what you thought I said.

Just because an incentive is a natural extension of a mechanic and not something that's artificially implemented by the devs doesn't make it not an incentive. It's like saying that getting paid is not an incentive for having a job just because a paycheck is a generally accepted and natural extension of being employed.

My point is that there are already a lot of natural incentives built in to multiplayer already which is why people do play multiplayer. Not only are loot/XP bonuses unfair to solo players but they are also unnecessary in the sense that you don't need to bribe people to play in a party when they were going to anyway. It's when you essentially force people to play in a party with a loot/XP bonus that people get angry. You absolutely don't want people to be in the position of playing with a party that they don't want to play with and don't enjoy playing with but they're forced to stay because they don't want to miss on the loot/XP bonus.