Looting -- The official thread for discussing the loot system. Updated 18th March, 2013.
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@Malice:
Yeah, it's probably stuff like that. On the other hand, that paladin and necromancer are definitely going to be getting less loot per monster they kill, although at 2 players working together, there is no reduction in XP gain. Still, it's probably stuff like amp damage + might, thorns + lifetap, etc, that make small groups effective. On the subject of the support for free-for-all looting in this thread. The people posting in this thread are probably not representative of the whole population of ARPG players. Path of Exile isn't even in beta yet, so the majority of people posting here are probably serious fans of the genre. This means that there is probably an over-representation of skilled players who believe (probably correctly) that they personally will benefit from a free-for-all loot system. I had a thought for making party play easier without actually changing the game difficulty or having different settings for single player and multiplayer gaming. This should probably also be mentioned in the death penalty thread, but I haven't gotten around to finishing that yet, and it seems more relevant to this discussion, anyway The thought is that if the whole party dies, the instance closes. So, when playing single player, if you die, you have to start over at the last waypoint or whatever that you reached. In multiplayer, as long as one person can survive long enough for the dead members to return, the battle continues. Exact detection of the whole party having died in multiplayer might be a little difficult, and would possibly interact with whatever death penalty GGG decides to implement, so this may not be feasible. However, this provides passive incentive to play with a party, even strangers, because it makes dying a lot more forgiving as far as time spent trying to progress through the game. As far as solo play goes, though, it's not really that uncommon for death to result in starting the level over in a single player game. Furthermore, it's not like dying in single player causes the the player to lose anything like XP or items more than dying in multiplayer would, so I have a vague hope that players would be accepting of this. |
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" I disagree entirely. There has been quite a number of opinions and preferences expressed on the looting system that have ranged the spectrum from pure FFA to pure allocated. It's why this thread is nearly 50 pages long. Also, I absolutely was not advocating for a more free loot system because I want to go around and steal loot from less experienced players. It's pretty ignorant to assume that everyone who wants FFA loot is a ninja loot whore that just wants to take advantage of other people. I was arguing against pure allocated loot because I feel that a more open loot system will enhance the flow and feel of the gameplay. Anyway. When you die, you don't need to start the area all over again. You simply need to walk back to where you died and pick up where you left off. Granted, parties can still have an advantage because dead players can get back to the battle faster via someone's town portal. Of course, one of the key lessons/skills you learn in solo play is to make your own town portal the minute a battle starts going bad or as a precaution before you go into a boss fight. Forum Sheriff
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" True enough, but there's probably also an over-representation of players who care enough about their loot to worry about it in the first place. |
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" I was suggesting changing that. If, when you die, the instance closes, that means that when you respawn and go back to that area, there's a new random map and all the monsters that were killed have been replaced by new random mobs. This would be a slight penalty because dying would delay advancing to the next area and/or force the boss run to be restarted without having killed the boss. I really need to post this in the death penalty thread to see what people think about it. @tpapp157: My apologies, I didn't phrase that very well. Perhaps it is better to say that the portion of the population of that knows that they tend to lose out in free-for-all looting (the completely casual gamer) is probably a bit under-represented here. Also, you don't need to be a ninja loot whore to benefit from a free-for-all system. Again, though, benefit was probably a bad word choice. It would probably be better to say that there's an over-representation of players who won't be harmed (get less loot than they'd get playing solo) on these forums. If your looting skills are in the top 5% of players, then it's going to be very rare that you are in a party of total strangers who are on average going to be better at looting that you. Therefore, your general worst case is breaking even. I guess it's not that you benefit from free-for-all, but that you almost certainly won't suffer, so for you personally, there's no negative to a free-for-all looting system. I'm not trying to say that you will intentionally and maliciously be grabbing more loot than any other player in your party, but that it will probably be happening even if you try to prevent it. I'm making a slight assumption here that you play games like Diablo 2 frequently with high level characters. It seems reasonable. Anyway, because you play like that, you have will be reflexively picking up loot, and probably making assessments that loot on the ground isn't wanted by anyone because it's been there for 2 seconds and picking it up, when there might be people in your party that haven't even notice it yet. I hope that makes sense to you. I'm really not trying to insult you. Also, I agree that pure allocated loot would be bad for the game. If the allocation system can evaluate the value of items and make sure that each player gets equal value, it's still going to make playing feel very unnatural, and wouldn't work well over short gaming sessions when a valuable item is found. Having the value balancing persist over session would create artificial dry spells every time a player received a valuable item that the player wouldn't be able to do anything about, during which they would feel like they weren't getting anything for playing. If the allocation system doesn't try to balance value, it's more like item roulette, where one player can repeatedly be allocated higher value items by chance. |
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" What you think is true and what is actually the case are two different things. Also, I’m not disputing whether or not people will choose to solo or not. I’m saying that there should be incentives for people to play multiplayer together. Most of your post avoids everything that I stated, focusing on supporting evidence that you disregard as not factual. Nothing you said disproves my statements. " Support for free for all loot has nothing to do with incentives to play in a multiplayer game with strangers. Also, I never stated whether I prefer multiplayer or single player. I only stated that if cooperative play is going to be in the game than there should be incentives to play multiplayer with strangers. I also said that if loot can get stolen then multiplayer will be more risky, thus there should be higher reward for cooperative play in order to support that style of play. " Player preference has no bearing on whether multiplayer should be supported. By supported I mean incentivized. You’re begging the question. Clearly, you’re saying “Why should players have a reason to party if a player’s reason to party is so that they can party.” It’s circular reasoning and that’s not what we’re discussing. You want to know why we should incentivize party play, and I already gave you two reasons – because it’s riskier to the player for loot collection and because there are potential PvP situations / enemies are tougher. " It's great that you love to solo, because you're allowed to play Solo in PoE. What's stopping you from playing solo knowing that players in multiplayer have more risk thus higher reward? " True perhaps, but it's irrelevant. Happy Days Abound.
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" It's not that player preferences are on average "biased" one way or another - although they might be - but rather that there is in fact a spectrum of players, some of whom like playing solo, some of whom like playing in groups, and a lot of whom will feel coerced into playing the style they like less if one is too much better than the other. The same goes for those who like both in moderation. " Which may well be balanced out - if not overbalanced - by the fact that you are killing things faster and more safely, thus leveling faster. So, my view here is, first, that there should be both pros and cons for both solo and party play, and second, that these already exist in a reasonably acceptable form. ...also, maybe it's just me, but it seems a little odd to try putting in so many mechanisms in favor of grouping up in a game called "Path of Exile". Let me reiterate though (because saying it once might just get lost), that I like Kyadytim's suggestion: items take time to pick up, with said time possibly based on the size of the item, and during which time the player is able neither to move nor attack. This mechanism evens the distribution of loot without breaking immersion or introducing separate mechanics for solo versus party (or competitive) play - both good points. (possible con: clickfest players accidentally grab a piece of plate mail, get surrounded, and die) I have wandered through insanity;
I have walked the spiral out. Heard its twisted dreamed inanity In a whisper, in a shout. In the babbling cacophony The refrains are all the same: "[permutations of humanity] are unworthy of the name!" |
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@Skivverus
I think that there's an easy fix for accidentally picking up items. Allow other commands to interrupt the pick-up attempt, canceling it. This can be further developed by only making the animation interruptable for some fraction at the beginning, allowing a player to start spamming clicks to resume attacking the moment their character is done picking up the item. Please keep finding flaws with the concept, though. I'm having fun trying to keep it simple and effective. On the subject of encouraging party play, I think it slides a little out of pure gameplay and into design decisions. GGG isn't just trying to make a good game, they're trying to make the game they want to make. This seems a little unclear even to me, so I'll add a few examples. In this case, if the game they want to make is "A multiplayer ARPG that is also pretty fun to play solo," then they're going to try to make multiplayer more attractive. If the game they want to make is "An ARPG with good solo and good multiplayer play," they probably won't try to make multiplayer extra attractive, so people looking to get a decent amount of fun out of the game here and there will probably pick solo over online play simply because it's easier to handle. If GGG wants to make "A really good solo ARPG that can also be played multiplayer," they won't invest as much development time in making multiplayer play fair or balanced, resulting in a game that some people play with strangers, but most people who play multiplayer only do so on occasion with a group of friends or to trade items. These aren't by any means an exclusive or definitive list of options, just a few examples. All three would be equally good games, just with a different audience being focused on. That being said, I think that GGG is aiming for something closer to the first example than the others. Therefore, to make their game a success at what they want it to be, adding small incentives to playing multiplayer is an attractive option. |
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Im pretty sure they are just making it like d2. Good party play and solo play. Want loot and have no friends online? Spam solo-play the final boss in act 3 for dah chancez of gearz.
D2 solo was awesome and so was partying. Well once you got pro, solo was the best way to get good gear but hey. You still have to party for the Diablo keys and so on. Cheaper than free... Speedtree
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"Yes I am aware of that. That's why I said it's what I think, rather than just stating it as a fact. " "You seem to contradict yourself here. It seems to me that your entire argument is based on free for all looting making partying "riskier", and that there needs to be an incentive to offest that perceived risk. Also, this is the looting thread, so I assumed we were talking about looting. "Monsters will be tougher, but the greater number of players counteracts that. Other players will take some of the loot, but the fact that more loot drops counteracts that. They are not "stealing" "your" loot. "Nothing. That's my whole point. I'm saying that loot/xp is only one reason why some people choose to group/solo. I'll still solo even if the loot is 1000 times worse. If your aim is to encourage group play across the board, then giving a loot bonus will be ineffective, as it will affect those people who base their grouping/solo decision entirely on the loot prospects. I'm saying that: " The best way to encourage group play is to make it fun, and give people the tools to interact socially. |
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" Yes, every player's preferences are biased. That's the point of a preference, it's a bias. These biases are what cause there to be a spectrum of players. Thus there are different audiences. So, it's "coercion" if enemies drop more loot for players that decide to group together. I see, and even though it's risky to be in a group, you're saying each player shouldn't be rewarded more for taking that risk. I've mentioned the risks too many times to repeat them. Also, it's not coercion. It's an incentive. No one is being forced into a style of play that they don't prefer. They're simply being rewarded for the extra risk factor. " However, the developers can balance multiplayer however they want. They could make it even less rewarding, even harder, and much slower to progress while in a group. " Really, do you know that they are acceptable? What is acceptable? Are you sure the pro and cons are worth it, since they already exist? My point is simply that the game is in Alpha, and they have yet to decide many of those aspects yet, thus the purpose of this thread. " Right, it's called "Path of Exile" Therefore party play and solo play must be the same. That logic just doesn't work. The game will be however the developers want it to be. I'm simply making the case (as clear as I can) that if the game supports multiplayer action, then there ought to be a reason to actually play multiplayer. And no, a reason is not "you can play with your friends." I would prefer that enemies be impossible to solo in a multiplayer game. I would also prefer that more loot drops in multiplayer games. Experience can be the same, it's not entirely necessary to alter experience. But ideally, there should be a reason to play with many strangers as opposed to solo play, otherwise, why even add multiplayer to the game. Like everyone has already said, solo play has its own incentives many of which have been mentioned. Multiplayer is different because it is riskier, and supported as a major part of the game. Edit: " I'd hope that there will be social tools. Also, fun is such a subjective word nowadays, which sucks because I want to use it all the time. I've resorted to using psychology as a base for most of my arguments because it's much more scientifically sound. Anyways, I still feel that the timed allocation of loot is a risk to players who want their rewards for participating in battle. Yes, it is a risk to play with strangers, because you never know what their focus will be - the loot or the enemies. If both then that's different. There in-lies the risk. PvP is yet another risk as well. Also, enemies can be made as numerous and as difficult as the hardware will allow, thus multiplayer games could potentially be made even harder than solo play. Happy Days Abound.
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