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

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Kyadytim wrote:

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@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.

Not at all ,if you are partying the loot dont go to the highest DPS'er in team ,but randomly/in order/dice etc.
So everyone will have same chance as anyone in the team to get the loot.

The team who deal more dmg will ofc take loot ,thats logical. Every team can have DPS and a support class in it ,making it balanced ,because they can composite team in same restriction ways. So with team is better wins the loot ,simple as that. Or you want to prize the weaklings or solo playing??

The problem of many multiplayer games is that solo playing is to rewarding. I mean if you wanna solo go play single players games ,dont bother to play multiplayer games as the genre of it say what for they are created.

Anyway back to the loot system. Support classes wont have any chance without party to be in good position ,no matter what you do they will be in loose situation. Support classes are made for party gameplay ,so if you want to keep the class-to-class balance you need to minimalize solo gameplay.

The thing is ,even if you make loot FFA ,support will kill less monsters than DPS in the same time. Even if he can steal the loot of DPS char ,he will still get much lower EXP simply because lower kill count.
Same goes for tankers ,as they are somewhat support class aswell.

The main goal is to make the gameplay party based ,with possiblity to solo ,but not to same profits as party. Then every character will have his own input to the party ,allowing to kill stronger monsters ,getting better loot ,and eveyrone will get same items and expriance in it. Thats called balance.

If you will do another solo game ,like 99% of rpgs on market ,everyone will take pure dmg dealer. Its like that in every game ,everyone take DD as the offensive is the best defense ,while high dmg allow you to farm in much greater rate than playing tank/healer/buffed/debuffer class.

So i rather see party based game ,with will require some co-operation and skill from players to survive. Not "i run brainlessly into mobs and pew pew pew and win anyway".

I think you've got the wrong idea about this game somewhere. In this Dev Diary, they specify that non-town instances will be designed for a maximum of 4 to 8 players. Presumably, all players in such an instance would be in a party.

Also, ARPGs tend to not revolve around partying with guild members, and instead you generally end up partying with strangers, so logical loot distribution based on what is good for the party often doesn't apply. There are also a number of issues with purely allocated loot distribution.

To elaborate, either the allocation system attempts to balance the total value of the items each player gets, or it doesn't.

If it doesn't, or if it only balances for play sessions, then a single highly valuable drop will probably result in the player who received it getting far more total item value than everyone else in the party, especially if that item drops toward the end of the play session.

If the system balances item value across play sessions, then receiving a valuable item will result in a dry spell where the player is not getting much loot, if any at all. The player will be unable to do anything about this, and will feel discouraged because they don't know when the dry spell will end.

Obviously, increasing the complexity of the system can address these issues, but that will also hurt the feel of the game. As mentioned in the initial post, the developers want Path of Exile to have a cut-throat feel to it. Having a complicated loot distribution system which ensures that all players get about the same value of items for time spent fighting monsters of comparable level will probably kill that feel completely.

I do agree with you that total free for all tends to vastly alter the playing experience, though.

Thankfully, GGG has said they've designed each class to be DPS, so really, there isn't a specific support class. So it seems every person should be able to get similar amounts of exp for the same effort. Likewise, that'd seem to suggest players would get similar amounts of loot for the same effort if it was an allocated loot system. Then again, even when loot isn't allocated players would be able to get fairly equal amounts of loot.

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Anbergino wrote:

Thankfully, GGG has said they've designed each class to be DPS, so really, there isn't a specific support class.

There is no specific support class but that doesn't mean that a person can't design their character for a support role.

@Anbergino:
I know it was said somewhere on this site that they designed every class to be a DPS class, but I couldn't find it earlier. Where was that said, again?

Also, I currently agree with you on the lack of a support build that wouldn't be viable to play single player. I don't think it fits the design goals of the developers, and they also haven't revealed any skill that seem to take a buff/debuff role.


@tpapp157
In the FAQ, it does mention that players can build there character to fill the role they want, regardless of class. They do say that they do not play to have a dedicated healer role, so I'm guessing that most character design decisions will be between single target DPS, AoE DPS, or being better able to survive damage.

Well, they did mention taunts, as well, so it may be possible to build a tank character in the MMORPG sense, but I suspect that it's not going to be as simple as aggro management in an MMORPG.

100% pro own loot for every player..
i really liked the solution in hgl for example.

this monkey style item grabbing is a funkiller at least for me.. in my case it would lead to me playing alone or just with good friends.

better to become friends while trading then foes because this guy just grabed the bow you waited for long time..

I am not a fan of the system where each player gets their own loot and I prefer the straight up cut-throat looting system.

However, I recognize there are plenty of people that don't agree. I think the best solution is to offer several looting systems as options to be chosen when setting up a multiplayer game.

Terrific idea giving us several leagues/options. I don't think we need a timer or anything though. That just adds more chaos to the mix and more cycles on the processor. As long as its clear when you pick a league that there is a 2 second (or whatever) timer on non-white loot, that's good enough. I don't think we need to add more numbers or graphics for each loot to display that.

In my opinion, completely personal loot for everyone. At least in the default softcore realm.

As a long time Diablo player i too feel that it doesn't in any way promote involving team-play with strangers to have a free-for-all loot system. And timers on drops would also just distract people from the combat.. leading to bad cooperative gameplay experience.

I'de be curious to see poll on this matter.

After a long read about Loot, i just have 2 points:

1- Full Loot on death plz.
2- FFA - free-for-all system plz.


Tx