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

Individual drops are truly the best. There will simply be less jealousy involved. I do like the idea of "need before greed", but lots of people will play all of the cahracters and will simply say "I know I'm playing a Duelist, but I want to hold onto this wand for my Witch".

If you want a lot of drama and un-ending fueds in the adolescent crowd, then by all means, go with FFA drops.

One more thing about why FFA drops are bad. Right now, there are Beta players who "rush" low level players, but run ahead under the condition that they get to have all the best loot and, mostly, desireable ORBS. These people are simply tweaking out their characters under the guise of helping out newbies. Rushing sucks the intended fun out of the game anyway. If the Devs thought it was a good idea to rush to the end game, they would just give you the option to create a max level character and have at it. To give an avenue for a few to take advantage and make themselves untouchably elite, is just poor, exploitable design.

There are more ways to balance a game than just nerfing character abilites. Individual drops is one factor.

(get ready for the "elite" to protest this point)

I play a Max level witch and agree with this post 100%.

I see people in PoE, just like in Diablo 2, begging for a "rush". They just do not want to play a low level character and put in the time. They just want to put on the best gear and roll over everything. Perhaps some will say "that is my choice", but i would simply argue that rushing is an exploit and takes away from the legitamacy of high level characters. Especially in a PVP setting, there is no honor in getting a character to max level in a day or two and dominating characters who earned every piece of gear they wear and scratched out every level fairly.

I guess the Devs of PoE can choose to go the way that Blizzard/Activision has and exclaim that - there is no longer room for passion in game developement and that it is time to make money-

From what I've seen, the devs are true gamers themselves and will strive to keep a level playing field.

Things like individual drops, group leve/exp restrictions etc. are a good start.

Great game Devs. Lets keep it going!

Count me as one of the "elite", then.

As for rushing - never done it myself, but I might point out that the benefit isn't the experience (you'd quite possibly be better off soloing due to how experience is divided), but the fact that you have a high-level character, presumably well-geared, clearing out your challenges for you.
Also, it may be that they have high-level friends they want to play with; in hardcore this isn't so much an issue, but in the default league where no one ever de-levels...

Anyway. I've already stated my reasoning; you should be able to find it a few pages back. And probably every few pages before that, for that matter.

Instead of just blaming the people who beg for rushes, we should equally blame the people who provide the service. Everyone can be tempted by effortless success; some of us just resist it without a second thought as it doesn't appeal to us.

There isn't a good, fair way to prevent rushes. Players will always concoct a system that will become the norm. While FFA loot makes it easier to retrieve one's payment, having individual loot would just require the client to pay the rusher out of pocket in lieu of drops, which leads to scams.

Experience could be distributed on a Damage applied in a radius of say 400 units or 4 screens you must have contributed a substantial amount of damage to the groups endeavors in order to obtain full amounts of hp. This could work because there is no "true" healer in the game therefor everyone should be doing some kind of damage.

Once you move out of these radii everyone goes to a base percentage until combat commences for 70% of the party in which you must start attacking or your experience gain drops to 30% or so depending.

Also it would be cool to stop rushing if the AI in the game could detect health pools and target the weakest character in the party therefor a lvl 3 persons pool of health would be much lower than the higher rushing character making the monsters target them on a sort of anti leech AI.

OR

I don't know how health regeneration works for characters but each region could have a certain global passive damage increasing as the region progresses and based on your level you scale with your own regeneration would cancel it out allowing your to play as normal but keeping under level characters out of the area because of a diminishing health pool that would force them to either die or turn back.


Once again just some ideas i quickly thought up based on everyones input on rushing; let me know what you think!

-Tole

I still just like the idea of an increasing cap put on exp gain if you are too far below another character's level. Optimal groups should be within 5 levels or eachother to get uncapped EXP..etc.

Why can't they make the loot drops sort of FFA only that melee characters can't pick up bows and wands etc that way the ranged characters can at least get a crack at items that suit their builds, but I guess in the end it really boils down to how selfish the other players are as to whether or not they disperse the items amongst the other party members or just keep them all for themselves.

"

Devon_Da wrote:

Why can't they make the loot drops sort of FFA only that melee characters can't pick up bows and wands etc that way the ranged characters can at least get a crack at items that suit their builds, but I guess in the end it really boils down to how selfish the other players are as to whether or not they disperse the items amongst the other party members or just keep them all for themselves.

A rule that disable melee to pick up ranged weaps is something i would be very much against because that one person playing melee might have an alt to loot for. The ranger can use daggers/bow are they melee of ranged? lot of dificulties with that imo:)

The only thing i see as "unfair" is the latency problems.
1: Melee has been in the inside fight so might be low on hp. The ranged might be squishy but honest running in at the very last minut to "fight for loot" that should be manageable..

Please dont make a WoW loot system. "we need/greed roll any unique" I simply h8 that, there is no exitement when a boss die, but it is my personal opinion at least. (i would love to be squishy ranged and have to get in close range and get that phat loot at the risk of dieing. Risk of death is what makes it fun imo.

Some people ninja but as long as we know the rules of the game we can prevent ninja ourselves. (quick loot drop, ask team what to do)

I think it should be like Diablo 3, each player gets their own loot so it isn't a mad click fest

Would be nice if the party maker could choose the loot distribution settings.

Something like:

1. Finders Keepers
2. By Turn
3. Random