Items And Loot Archive
Thread: Group Looting solution
Message Edited by Zorron on 01-24-2005 11:14 AM
Message Edited by Zorron on 01-23-2005 08:27 AM
Zorron wrote:Masterlooting, messages of who looted what, etc, are old and less than perfect ideas. And when they go wrong, the CSR's have to step in, costing real resources to SOE.Here's a new idea. Looting in a group situation should be "instanced", allowing each member of the group an individual random dip into the mob's loot table.Every mob's loot table contains rare, semi-rare and common drops, each with probabilities attached. Also a total amount of credits.Every mob has a "par value" of combat difficulty. If the group's total combat rating is above this par (i.e. the mob is overwhelmed) the chances of rare loot appearing in each instance decrease proportionately, and vice versa.Every member of the group is allowed to use the radial "loot" option on the mob. Doing that means they receive a share of the total credits plus a roll on the loot table.As a result, noone can cheat anyone. Everyone who takes part in dropping a high end mob has a random chance at high level loot. Some group members will get lucky, but everyone will have had a fair and objectively equal chance. This is a powerful incentive for people, including people who don't know each other, to group up to drop high level mobs, like SOE wants us to.P.S. An "autoloot" option should be added in to the General Options, if checked then player autoloots corpses he is allowed to loot when in range. Take out the boring "work" and make the game fun for gamers!
Totally agreed! 5*
Message Edited by AlexPKeaton on 01-23-2005 03:14 PM
AlexPKeaton wrote:
I also think that this is a fairly good idea but can see a couple of flaws that I think might be a bit of a problem. By allowing instanced looting like you've described you'd be increasing the amount of loot substantially, and the loot tables would have to be dramaticly reduced overall to make up for it.
No, it doesn't have to be that way. Total loot does not need to increase. Assume the CU is done, and it now takes 7 people on average to kill a NS Elder. To keep it worthwhile for people to hunt Elders, her total loot per death is increased by a factor of 4 to 7 also. So in futurethe dice will roll several times, instead of one time,and add items to the loot container.
Ok, so the dice are rolling. Let's say the probability of a rare item is 5%, the probability of a semi-rare is 15%, common is 40%, no item is 40%, with a group whose total combat ability is par with the mob's combat difficulty. The dice are rolledonce for each group member. As a result, on average, when killed by par-sized groups, the total items dropped per death will be 4.2. Of the items dropped,two thirds will be the common drop, one twelfth the rare drop, and one quarter the semi-rare drop.
Now imagine a group of twenty trying to beat the system for twenty shots of rare loot. Their total combat ability (which will be subject to a minimum per person) is three times higher than par. Based on a formula that will need to be balanced, the probability of a rare item drops to 2%, semi-rare to 5%, common to 13%, no item to 80%. For twenty people, the total items dropped per mob death will be average 4. Of the items dropped, two thirds will be the common drop, one tenth the rare drop, one quarter the semi-rare drop.
Note that the end result in terms oftotals and rarity of loot is the same, whether you have the mob drop all items in one go and subject them to ninja-looting, or whether the loot drops are instanced, guaranteeing each group member their fair share at the jackpot.
Another substantial advantage to instancing is that it helps reduce camping and "loot-whore" farming. With instancing, if players discover ways to solo mobs that should not be soloed, they will still only be able to loot one item, and the probabilities of a rare item need not go above a capped percentage. To loot the maximum total possible number of items without hurting the probability of rare loot, they would have to bring a group of par size for the mob, so each player can use up their right to instanced loot.
Message Edited by Zorron on 01-24-2005 11:05 AM
AlexPKeaton wrote:
Wanting to take part in semi-high end content should not require that I have to join a massive guild, or spend 3 hours spamming to find enough people to go do something.
Right, neither do I.But if dividing loot requires trust between players,joining an uber guild isexactly what you will have to do, or you will be S.O.L.
For an example of this, next time you see someone showing off with a jetpack, ask yourself if it will be possible to get one by putting together a pickup group of highly skilled players who don't know each other.
Message Edited by AlexPKeaton on 01-24-2005 08:20 AM
AlexPKeaton wrote:
OK, I definately see what your saying here but there are still a couple ofproblems that I'm seeing that might need tweeking to find a useable solution. While it would make finding a group easier in some respects, such as being able to group with players you don't know/trust completely and still get your fair share of loot. It would also exclude players from group that are worried about going over the "par" value of their target.
Using your example of a NS Elder taking 7 people on "par" to kill, assuming your talking about 7people with elite professions,because your combat difficulty as a group changes with the weapons you are holding (mission terminals clearly show this, as does the /con dot next to the NPCs HAM bar). Once the group reaches 7 they will not accept any others into the group because this will lower each individuals chance at good loot.
Also I know on Elder hunt's I've been on we don't just kill elders but wipe out every spawn ofother goodNS (protectors, spellweavers, sentinels) we find. By being over their "par" value it would be far less worth while to take them out, and I can't count the times I've looted better stuff from protectors or spellweavers while out hunting Elders. This would also apply to any of the Dungeons in game such as the Geo Lab, Corvette, or DWB because not every NPC is the same difficulty. If you were grouped to kill Acklay then killing the Geno NPCs wouldn't be as productive as doing it on your own or with 2 people, but on the other hand if you went totheGeno Lab with a group of "par"level for the lesser NPCs you would have no chance of killing Acklay because you'd be too weak, and running the entire cave is supposed to be the point of all of these Dungeons, not just going and camping the first few rooms for loot.
Second, I see where your going with your formulas and like them but it might be a bit too hard to keep them in check with a "par" combat value. Using Elders again, if the par for them is 7 people, and after a month, some people figure out a good combo where 4 people can take them down as easily (and they will, there are always people out there determined to beat the system)then the par value of 7 no longer stands and would need to be changed. Similarly if people later learned to take them out in groups of 2 then the par value needs to be changed again. If this happened, a group of 4 well skilled combatants could goElder huntingand just bring along 3 more guildmates orfriendsjust for the additional stabs at the loot table which would be the same as the group of 4s chances since neither are over the par value. Therefor increasing the total loot rolls and more loot in game. The par value would need to be constantly readjusted to be put in check with what groups have figured out they can do. The only way to put it in check might be to scale the loot probabilites from 1 person all the way up to 20, but then again they couldn't do this either because this would encourage soloing because of better chances of loots.
Again I think there might be something here and I'm all for trying to come up with something better, but I'm not really sure how these flaws might be fixed without constant monitoring, which we all know the dev's are not really up to.
EDIT: I also meant to add that my EDIT on my previous post was meant to support what your tring to do here. We really do need some form of solution that is workable so that Uber Guilds, aren't the only ones running the loot game.
Message Edited by AlexPKeaton on 01-24-2005 08:20 AM
All good, validand interesting points to think about
In response, I wouldfirst like tosay two things: first, it's probably a good thing, not a bad thing, to give incentives to groupsto stay just at the right size to keep the encounter challenging, andsecond, in response to the concerns about the devs not keeping up with changes to par values, I will just say that the "perfect" is quite often the worst enemy of the "good".
Notwithstanding the very general answer I gave above, there are partial fixes to the subtle issues you mentioned, such as what happens to loot from low-par mobs in the same dungeon as a high-par boss? One simple fix is already hidden between the lines of the [edited] proposal: since you don't necessarily have to raise the probabilities of rare loot when mobs are killed by groups under the par size, you can set all dungeon mobs to a par levelsomewhere between solo and the group size needed to takethe boss. This way, whenthe regular, soloabledungeon mobs(your NS rangers, sentinels etc.) are killed bya 10-person raid group on their way to the Elder, the chance of rare loot is reduced a little, but not too much, while the solo player wandering in to the POIstill has the 5% probability of getting the NS ranger's rare drop, because he is below the par.What numbers to use etc. is a matter of tuning tradeoffs and not our business to worry about.
As for the Devs not caring to change the par values once they are set, I disagree. Right now on TC there is a Krayt Dragon spawn boom, which is both in response to the crazy pearl prices, and in anticipation of the combat upgrade changes which will require groups to kill the dragons.So Devs do care about how much of XYZ rare loot is entering the world, and they are taking action to affect that rate of entry. Under such a system, the way to change the flow is to change par values. If there are twice as many pearls entering the world as the devs would like, they just have to halve the par value to cap the flow to a rate that is half that amount. If that doesn't work (because noone hunted with that many people in the first place) it means that they need to change the probabilities on the loot table, or the spawn rates.
Message Edited by Zorron on 01-24-2005 06:53 PM