Player Associations Archive
Thread: Group Looting Solution (cross-post Items and Loot)
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Zorron
Sat Jan 22, 2005 11:17 pm
#1
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 tablecontains rare, semi-rare and common drops, each with probabilities attached. There is always aprobabilityof no item. 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, and the chances of no loot at all increase, in proportion to the difference in total combat rating.
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'tknow 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 makethe game fun for gamers!
(Note: I first posted this in the "Items and Loot" forum. It is equally relevant, if not more so, in this forum, so I am starting the same thread here.)
Message Edited by Zorron on 01-24-2005 04:47 PM
Rothin
Sat Jan 22, 2005 11:24 pm
#2
The Developers stated during the recent stratics chat that they are working on adding in more options for looting, such as a lotto system, leader distributes, etc..
In my opinion if you give everyone in the group the ability to loot an item, then the loot suddenly becomes worthless because everyone will get it, whether its always the high end loot or not. The best option to both keep the rarity and give everyone an equal opportunity is for a type of lotto system. When the mob dies, people in the group can choose if they want to try to win part of the loot. Everyone who wants it says yes, the system then makes a random roll and whoever is highest wins it. No more ninja looting and no increase in loot itself, thus keeping it rare and worth the attempt to get it.
Now of course, I've never been a true fan of the random nature of a lotto system. Personally I'd rather see a type of lotto system designed so that once someone bid and won an item, they could no longer receive another item until everyone else in the party had one. That way it's fair to everyone in that everyone gets some of the loot from the hunt.
In my opinion if you give everyone in the group the ability to loot an item, then the loot suddenly becomes worthless because everyone will get it, whether its always the high end loot or not. The best option to both keep the rarity and give everyone an equal opportunity is for a type of lotto system. When the mob dies, people in the group can choose if they want to try to win part of the loot. Everyone who wants it says yes, the system then makes a random roll and whoever is highest wins it. No more ninja looting and no increase in loot itself, thus keeping it rare and worth the attempt to get it.
Now of course, I've never been a true fan of the random nature of a lotto system. Personally I'd rather see a type of lotto system designed so that once someone bid and won an item, they could no longer receive another item until everyone else in the party had one. That way it's fair to everyone in that everyone gets some of the loot from the hunt.
Running_Target
Sun Jan 23, 2005 6:39 am
#3
the lotto looting in everquest 2 sucks bigtime and its pretty unfair. i seen one guy in a group get the loot almost everytime.
hope its done btter for this game. i would prefere to see an order of looting like who joined from first to last then repeat.
Rothin
Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:31 am
#4
Running_Target wrote:the lotto looting in everquest 2 sucks bigtime and its pretty unfair. i seen one guy in a group get the loot almost everytime.hope its done btter for this game. i would prefere to see an order of looting like who joined from first to last then repeat.
Yes, in EQ2 it isn't really random at all. That's why I said I'd rather see a lotto system that would not give loot to the same person again until everyone in the group had something.
AgekVahoba
Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:32 am
#5
Running_Target wrote:
the lotto looting in everquest 2 sucks bigtime and its pretty unfair. i seen one guy in a group get the loot almost everytime.
hope its done btter for this game. i would prefere to see an order of looting like who joined from first to last then repeat.
I dissagree. If found that it doesnt allways work out in your favor, but try hissing "Selected" instead of 'All" on the lotto screen. FOr some reasons it bosts your chances.
The problemwith a first come, first serve looting system is that it would have to take into account members that were out of range. If a person in your group left to get BF healed, what happens when its his time to loot?
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Rothin
Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:38 am
#6
AgekVahoba wrote:
Running_Target wrote:the lotto looting in everquest 2 sucks bigtime and its pretty unfair. i seen one guy in a group get the loot almost everytime.hope its done btter for this game. i would prefere to see an order of looting like who joined from first to last then repeat.I dissagree. If found that it doesnt allways work out in your favor, but try hissing "Selected" instead of 'All" on the lotto screen. FOr some reasons it bosts your chances.
The problem with a first come, first serve looting system is that it would have to take into account members that were out of range. If a person in your group left to get BF healed, what happens when its his time to loot?
He isn't with the group, it would pass him up for the time being until he was back out there. It isn't quite fair for him to be away from the group and them still killing and then it be his turn and he just get free loot without helping. It should start off as a new lotto for the group to start again meaning everyone gets their chance. Then, when he does come back the system should check and see that he hasn't received anything and get first chance at the next drop, if he wants it.
JamesBenson
Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:16 am
#7
I'm sort of with both camps. I initially proposed the idea of instanced loot to some guildmates probably a year ago, but I never posted it on the forums. As it stands, I hate the fact that on almost every group hunt, I return empty-handed unless it's for collecting creature resources. My proposition was slightly different from yours in that the more damage you do to the mob, the more likely you would receive a rare drop. If you only did 2% damage, you might get some credits or a broken recording rod. If you did 50% damage on a nightsister elder, you might get a NS Bicep. Unfortunately, this would practically kill the 'support' players since they might be healing the person that did the 50% damage, but might have only done 2% damage to it themselves. I suppose group socialization would have to play a role, but at least you wouldn't have a possibility of 20 NS Biceps dropping from one mob. The rarity would be preserved, but you would get the loot you deserved. I'd just be worried that everyone would try to find the most damaging profession just to get the best loot.
On the 'lotto' side of things, I played EQ2 for a while and quickly grew bored of it. I did, however, like the option for groups to have a lotto. Except that I almost never won. It seemed to me to be weighted toward the higher level person in the group. What may have been happening was that the higher level person did more damage and this was what weighted the mechanics of the lotto. Of course, when they ran out of room in their inventory, I had much better luck.
I have mixed feelings about the lotto being weighted by the amount of damage you do. On one side, I recognize that the person doing the most work to kill the thing should have dibs on the loot. Yet, when the lower level/damaging people realize they have almost no chance of looting anything, they will either exclude the high damaging templates from the group or they won't group at all. The only incentive would be that you need a group to kill krayts and NS elders. I suppose if they played with the internal mechanics of the lottery, it could work...as long as it's not too closely related to the EQ2 code. Maybe less of a bonus for doing the most damage. I think either system *could* work if implemented properly.
On the 'lotto' side of things, I played EQ2 for a while and quickly grew bored of it. I did, however, like the option for groups to have a lotto. Except that I almost never won. It seemed to me to be weighted toward the higher level person in the group. What may have been happening was that the higher level person did more damage and this was what weighted the mechanics of the lotto. Of course, when they ran out of room in their inventory, I had much better luck.
I have mixed feelings about the lotto being weighted by the amount of damage you do. On one side, I recognize that the person doing the most work to kill the thing should have dibs on the loot. Yet, when the lower level/damaging people realize they have almost no chance of looting anything, they will either exclude the high damaging templates from the group or they won't group at all. The only incentive would be that you need a group to kill krayts and NS elders. I suppose if they played with the internal mechanics of the lottery, it could work...as long as it's not too closely related to the EQ2 code. Maybe less of a bonus for doing the most damage. I think either system *could* work if implemented properly.
AgekVahoba
Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:49 am
#8
Rothin wrote:
AgekVahoba wrote:
Running_Target wrote:
the lotto looting in everquest 2 sucks bigtime and its pretty unfair. i seen one guy in a group get the loot almost everytime.
hope its done btter for this game. i would prefere to see an order of looting like who joined from first to last then repeat.
I dissagree. If found that it doesnt allways work out in your favor, but try hissing "Selected" instead of 'All" on the lotto screen. FOr some reasons it bosts your chances.
The problem with a first come, first serve looting system is that it would have to take into account members that were out of range. If a person in your group left to get BF healed, what happens when its his time to loot?
He isn't with the group, it would pass him up for the time being until he was back out there. It isn't quite fair for him to be away from the group and them still killing and then it be his turn and he just get free loot without helping. It should start off as a new lotto for the group to start again meaning everyone gets their chance. Then, when he does come back the system should check and see that he hasn't received anything and get first chance at the next drop, if he wants it.
What I ment was, a distance limit would have to be set if something like this was implimented. You wouldnt want the entire system to be borked because someone was to far away.
I by far would approve of a lotto system. its almost perfect in EQ2
Zorron
Sun Jan 23, 2005 12:18 pm
#9
A lotto systemcan bevery similar to this system. For example,imagine that a NS elder killed by a group of seven happens to drop three items: a rare, a semi-rare and a common. Under a lotto system, it could turn out that player 1 wins the rare, player 3 wins the semi-rare, player 4 the common, and the rest get nothing. Under my proposed "instanced" system, it could turn out that player 1 loots a rare item, player 3 wins a semi-rare item, player 4 a common item, and the rest get a "no loot" roll. Two different names for a loot system, with identical results.
By the way, I wanted to clarify something for a poster who seemed to think that one kill of a NS elder might produce 20 premium crystals: that's a one-in-ten million chance or less, because each player has their own loot roll with a positive or negative roll modifier depending on the "ease" with which the group killed the mob (what the mob "conned" to the group). So some (or none) players will get the premium crystal, others will get belts and bandoliers, others will get shards or lances. Obviously the loot tables and associated probabilities would need to be tuned so that on average you don't end up creating tons of junk loot for every high level kill, however that's the easy part - the hard part is taking the big design decisions like what loot system to have for groups.
I think the instanced system has the edge over a lotto systembecause of the simplicity of interface - basically, there isn't any new interface to code or learn, because it feelsmore rewardingto be "looting" a corpse with your own personal chance at winning the jackpot instead of watching an out-of-characterdigital dice interface,and becauseinstanced = player vs. machine, whereaslotto =you win means I lose.
Message Edited by Zorron on 01-23-2005 09:20 PM
Generix
Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:10 pm
#10
Why don't they just make it so everyone in the group gets the same loot ?
That way it would be fair AND people would start playing the game in groups more AND the economy would settle due to there being more uber loots easily available.
Rothin
Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:45 pm
#11
Generix wrote:Why don't they just make it so everyone in the group gets the same loot ?That way it would be fair AND people would start playing the game in groups more AND the economy would settle due to there being more uber loots easily available.
And then the uber loot becomes worthless since everyone has it and then people complain about there being no loot in the game that is rare. That just isn't a possibility.
DarkDemonKnight
Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:55 am
#12
I think they devs are adding a command where the leader of your group can either choose to have the loot split amoungest your group or to choose to have it where the player that loots the object gets all the loot.
ancer
Tavtrin
Mon Jan 24, 2005 6:27 am
#13
Rothin wrote:
Generix wrote:
Why don't they just make it so everyone in the group gets the same loot ?
That way it would be fair AND people would start playing the game in groups more AND the economy would settle due to there being more uber loots easily available.
And then the uber loot becomes worthless since everyone has it and then people complain about there being no loot in the game that is rare. That just isn't a possibility.
Yeah if they put it in a much larger amount of players would be angry thenhappy.
Message Edited by Tavtrin on 01-24-2005 08:28 AM
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