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Mob tagging and looting mechanics
To be sure, a vast majority of the game is still just <em>ideas</em>, but it would've been nice if the devs at least had a little more concrete <em>ideas / plans </em> with regards to looting mechanics. While the node system and combat have been addressed (awesome!), I believe that they said nothing was nailed down with regards to looting mechanics and mob tagging (http://aocwiki.net/Combat). I understand that a lot will change over the course of production, but it'd be nice if they at least discussed some potential routes they were considering because mob tagging / looting is pretty important for me in an MMO. It's not like people would gather their torches and pitchforks if Steven and the devs change direction after offering a good reason for their decisions.
Anyway, unlike the other revolutionary aspects of the game, my hopes are that the mob tagging and looting mechanics will stay in line with what MMOs like GW2 have done recently (with some tweaks here n' there).
I prefer the GW2 system of mob tagging. Player A is fighting a bandit and was the first to attack the bandit. Player B comes along and helps kill the bandit. No kill stealing is possible even if Player B ends up doing more damage towards the bandit.
Both Player A & B get exp, quest/task credit (if applicable), and then loot is generated for each individual. The loot dropped is unique to the player, and loot received by one player does not affect what another player receives. One monster may drop the same rare item for multiple players. E.g. An elite monster taken down by a group might generate class-specific gear differently based on RNG, but each member of the group might receive the same crafting mat if that was intended by the devs. The same system would apply for world bosses etc.
One exception might be having challenge rewards for most dmg dealt / tanked / healed during world bosses and other big battles. Top tier players would have a slightly better loot table but overall the RNG boost would be small.
^some people will probably hate this idea, so it's just a suggestion. The important thing is the core mechanics above.
I much prefer this system to some MMOs that have loot be generated once per monster and where the group has to roll for loot. RNG is fine for loot tables, but it's better when they apply separately to each individual player.
AOE and quality of life (QoL) looting: I'm okay with Steven's vision that players have to run up to a monster and loot each monster individually because then you feel looting is more meaningful. What I would like to see is AOE looting for mats and other lesser loot. If an individual monster has dropped item(s) and currency, then there'll be a marker (e.g. sparkles above the corpse etc.) that tell the player he/she should take the time to run over and properly loot the individual monster (feeling that excitement that the monster may or may not have dropped a rare item).
Anyway, unlike the other revolutionary aspects of the game, my hopes are that the mob tagging and looting mechanics will stay in line with what MMOs like GW2 have done recently (with some tweaks here n' there).
I prefer the GW2 system of mob tagging. Player A is fighting a bandit and was the first to attack the bandit. Player B comes along and helps kill the bandit. No kill stealing is possible even if Player B ends up doing more damage towards the bandit.
Both Player A & B get exp, quest/task credit (if applicable), and then loot is generated for each individual. The loot dropped is unique to the player, and loot received by one player does not affect what another player receives. One monster may drop the same rare item for multiple players. E.g. An elite monster taken down by a group might generate class-specific gear differently based on RNG, but each member of the group might receive the same crafting mat if that was intended by the devs. The same system would apply for world bosses etc.
One exception might be having challenge rewards for most dmg dealt / tanked / healed during world bosses and other big battles. Top tier players would have a slightly better loot table but overall the RNG boost would be small.
^some people will probably hate this idea, so it's just a suggestion. The important thing is the core mechanics above.
I much prefer this system to some MMOs that have loot be generated once per monster and where the group has to roll for loot. RNG is fine for loot tables, but it's better when they apply separately to each individual player.
AOE and quality of life (QoL) looting: I'm okay with Steven's vision that players have to run up to a monster and loot each monster individually because then you feel looting is more meaningful. What I would like to see is AOE looting for mats and other lesser loot. If an individual monster has dropped item(s) and currency, then there'll be a marker (e.g. sparkles above the corpse etc.) that tell the player he/she should take the time to run over and properly loot the individual monster (feeling that excitement that the monster may or may not have dropped a rare item).
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TLDR: Make the mob tagging and looting be similar to GW2. Allow AOE for lesser loot but make it individual looting when the monster drops items / cash.
When you kill a mob and your in a party it RNG on who gets to loot if its just grey Items ( not hard or rare to get ) once he done looting the other party member can loot what he left behind!
For Rare stuff like Green,blue,purple,Orange items a box will come up on the screen with 3 buttons ( no matter who loots first! unless they change the party looting settings )
Greed--- it randomly rolls a dice between 1-100 the highest number wins the item!
Need--- If you need it and everyone Greed it get it automatically whether your dice was low or not! but if 2 people or more need it rolls a dice and again the higher number wins
Pass-- self explanatory
I wouldn't mind this looting system , but individual looting I would mind that either
Thanks for sharing!
that aside, AOE looting is certainly an interesting concept. I'd don't want to rampage through an area only to spend the next 15 minutes looting basic stuff.
On the boss loot mechanic when loot will all be tradable there is going to be a monitary value to everthing so I agree everyone will press need on everything so this mechanic would not work that well, but to be honest I cant think of an alternative either.
I look forward to finding out how this will be handled.
We know that legendary items can drop and they are meant to be very limited in QTY. So if there can only be 1 legendary sword dropped by a legendary dragon, how will that be distributed between a party of 20 players?
Also this game is open world, not instance dungeon. You cannot stop players from joining in on your party's exploration.
I'll be interested on how they would make a solution for this.
One solution I've seen before was a bidding solution.
Players can pass or bid on items.
The bid is divided to all party members.
Its like legolas and gimli having a body count competition.
NEXT!
:D
Due to the core concepts of Ashes, we can't really have defenders being locked out of combat or locked out of rewards simply because some other avatar(s) attacked a mob first.
When that Spider Demon starts attacking the village, everyone in the vicinity will need to try to defeat the Spider Demon and its minions. We aren't going to waste time trying to join a formal group. We may not even form one formal group.
We can expect the same to be true in raiding castles and dungeons in the open world.
Also for caravans, anyone who registers as an attacker will be able to get loot for destroying the caravan.
Really, has to be the same for sieges as well.
Keep in mind that the nodes are tracking everything that we do. We gain xp from everything we do. There will be leaderboards tracking our stats. So, the rewards we receive from encounters can all be based on our participation - both combat and non-combat contributions. Not just, "I tagged the mob first, so I reap all the rewards."
That being said, the devs have mentioned some mechanics for need/greed/pass.
And we need more details about legendary drops - though I suppose some of those might be for server first achievements.
But, the focus of gameplay is ultimately on leveling the nodes and how we all contribute to the health of the nodes.
Rather than focusing on making an individual character uber as quickly as possible.
I played vanilla WoW, so I'm somewhat familiar with Need / Greed / Pass options for group rolls that can be set by party leaders etc. I remember running the same dungeon for 3 months until the boss finally dropped my class's set piece and then <em><strong>
some jerk rolled Need on my Bind on Pickup (not even Bind on Equip) Set Item</strong></em> that they<strong> definitely did <strong>NOT</strong> need (their class could not equip the item)</strong> and ended up rolling higher than me. It was part of the reason why I quit WoW. I hate systems that don't reward time invested fairly. Some Joe Shmoe with insane RNG can just outdo in 1 day what it takes you months or even years to do in these RNG heavy systems.
If you've played D3, you'd know what I meant by GW2 looting system. There's no need for group rolls on items because items are generated separately for each player in an area / group (whether grouped or not). Some players might have loot generated for them and some might not - it's all about RNG and loot tables but not the luck of the die rolling system and the greed / misclicks of players.
This individually generated loot system works so much better for every tier of item from common to rare (regardless of greys etc.).
This works even for boss battles because of loot tables and item quotas. Say 50 players are fighting a dragon. They won't all get a legendary from it. Maybe the dragon drops 1 legendary each time and it randomly goes to 1 out of the 50 players. No rolling is needed because the "dice is cast behind the scenes" so to speak. And the legendary that does drop can be generated class-specific, so if a Mage is the 1/50 player to get the legendary, the item will generate as a Mage Legendary etc.
I understand where you are coming from with breaking immersion. In the event of Artisan Class specific mats, it would be better for you to have to individually skin each wolf or to hammer away at each mining ore etc.
That said, I think there can still be lore / fantasy based settings that could help explain the power to AOE loot.
For example, there could be general crafting mats such as enchanted dust that you can get from disenchanting and from looting. These dusts can be used in recipes for any Artisan Class (whereas skins, herbs, metals, etc. would be Artisan Class specific). In the case of looting, when you get to a higher level, you acquire a trinket that has a powerful magnetic force - allowing you to sweep up all the gold (or whatever currency) and dust in an area, thereby justifying the AOE and QoL looting to speed up some aspects of the game while avoiding immersion-breakers such as collecting 50 pelts all at once from 50 wolves.
I'll admit looting is subjective. I'm not super into RPing, so I didn't really feel any break in immersion when using AOE looting in GW2. Moreover, I still felt the same excitement at finding an Exotic item from AOE looting as from non-AOE looting in games like EQ and WoW.
<blockquote>
Also the risk vs reward system would be enhanced if you had to spend some time collecting the rewards allowing the slayed whatever to get revenge. maybe killing a large number of mobs causes a alpha creature to spawn etc.</blockquote>
<strong>That'd be a cool idea. While you try to skin the wolves you just slew, an Alpha Wolf appears and attacks you!</strong>
@Shirikuryu
If they go with a system where items are not generated individually and instead drop once to the entire group / raiding party (I hope the devs don't go this route), the bidding idea would be an awesome alternative to the Need / Greed rolling system.
@dygz
<blockquote>Rather than focusing on making an individual character uber as quickly as possible.</blockquote>
No one is saying this has to be about the rat race to the top :) In fact, I believe an individually generated loot system (à la D3 and GW2) encourages players to focus on the greater goals rather than squabbling over loot. There'd be no delays while people roll virtual dice on loot, place bids on loot, etc. and, additionally, it'll avoid the political aspects of funneling items to guild officers / leaders etc. I've passed on rolls for loot that I wanted because the guild leader wanted it. Would all players do the same? No, but why create that situation in the first place? With individually generated loot, if you find an item you don't need, you can donate it to the guild bank later or you can pass it to an alt (either way, no one will know because there'd be no group rolling done with guildies).
1: We won't simply be fighting a dragon because killing the dragon will allow us to loot items. Rather we will be defeating the dragon because that dragon and her minions can severely cripple our city and the surrounding freeholds, perhaps crippling the fast travel network in our Science Metropolis, thereby causing 3 weeks of invested time to bring the fast travel network back online.
The real reward for defeating the dragon is keeping the fast travel network active.
2: Sieges can last days, weeks, months. There is no guarantee that we will be online when our siege target either surrenders or is destroyed. It can't simply be that only the players who happen to be online when the victory conditions are met get legendary items.
There will very likely be a leaderboard for the greatest contributions. And I would expect rewards for most kills, most heals, most doors unlocked, most minions summoned, most catapults shot, most gear repaired, etc.
Over the course of the entire siege - regardless of who happens to be online when the victory conditions are finally met.
In addition to the leaderboard rewards, there may also be legendary rewards for "killing blow" or something.
3: That being said, the paladin who lands the killing blow on a dragon, may not have been able to do so without the aid of the legendary bard buffing her. So, there should be times when that bard gets the legendary, 1 per server loot reward. Yes.
4: Also, again, I don't think tagging will be a thing such that the leader of the group gets to determine RNG because there will likely be quite a large number of people fighting a dragon. They won't all be in the same alliance or raid or party. There won't be one leader who can decide how to distribute the two dragon eyes.
I don't know what the actual solutions will be, but it can't be the kind of tagging and Need/Greed/Pass that is typical in EQ or WoW.
<blockquote>No one is saying this has to be about the rat race to the top. In fact, I believe an individually generated loot system (à la D3 and GW2) encourages players to focus on the greater goals rather than squabbling over loot.</blockquote>
Right. No one is saying that. What I'm saying is that because Ashes is not focused on individuals racing to the top, and becaue all attackers who destroy a caravan get to loot the caravan -most likely for loot commensurate with their contributions to the battle- we can be sure that it's not going to be a tagging system similar to EQ and WoW. It's likely going to be a loot system more similar to NWO.
And probably similar your vision of D3 and GW2 - although I haven't played those games, so I can't really comment on that.
That should include legendary rewards for most number of siege engines crafted. I don't know what kind of legendary reward there would be for gathering the most stones for the catapults, but seems like gatherers should also receive legendary items for their exemplary participation in a siege.
<blockquote>Bringslite wrote:
Isn’t need-greed-pass really best used with all of the hated BOE and BOP gear systems? Not really a fan of that kind of stuff.</blockquote>
"Best used" is your concept; not my concept.
Seems to me that if we were going to roll on a fire dragon's tooth which can be used as a resource/component for fire-based gear, I would either roll need, greed or pass depending on whether my avatar uses fire-based effects or whether my character only uses cold-based effects.
That doesn't need to be BOE or BOP. If I win greed, I will sell it or give it away. Seems like I should be able to sell or give away a 1-per-server legendary item, too. Especially with Ashes' economy.
But, I don't really care about player economy or BOE or BOP or BiS gear, sooo...I really don't know. (or care)
I think that's the key to why AoC really *cannot* work like GW2 or any of the "open tagging" systems.
The economy is going to be to important to "generate" many things out of thin air, if everything about what they've said so far holds true. That's one of the key failures in GW2 (lack of) economy - there is no control over faucets dripping stuff in.
If a shared-tagging system is implemented, it's important that it is only for something like quest credit, and not actual loot (stuff that would enter the economy!)
But I don't even really like that - I prefer good, old-fashioned tagging and looting - you hit it, you get it.
Also: Need/Greed/Pass, no thanks. Too much drama and opportunity for abuse in those systems.
If we're at the point where we can't be bothered to collect the rewards, then there are too many rewards dropping :)
the gear degradation, crafing and economic systems in place do not favour it.
I personally do not want to out of date mob tagging implemented.
However it has also been mentioned the /roll will exist
current tech and hardware can sustain contribution algorithms towards appropriate loot tables.
Auto loot or press 'f' Aoe loot at minimum, is a quality of life convenience that I would be in favor of depending on the appropriate nature of mob number/locality, items drop amounts and loot animations and UI's.
will items just poop onto the ground or more immersively be an intractable object with inventory window.
</blockquote>
Steven confirmed little to no soul-binding. and I'm also in support of seperate loot drops.
I think that’s the key to why AoC really *cannot* work like GW2 or any of the “open tagging” systems.
The economy is going to be to important to “generate” many things out of thin air, if everything about what they’ve said so far holds true. That’s one of the key failures in GW2 (lack of) economy – there is no control over faucets dripping stuff in.
If a shared-tagging system is implemented, it’s important that it is only for something like quest credit, and not actual loot (stuff that would enter the economy!)
But I don’t even really like that – I prefer good, old-fashioned tagging and looting – you hit it, you get it.</blockquote>
"You hit it, you get it" has to mean that there is no tag-locking.
The very nature of PvE combat in Ashes makes that so...and we have plenty of examples from the devs telling us that everyone who participates receives loot.
In the caravan system, if the caravan is destroyed, all of the attackers get loot from from the caravan. Doesn't matter who tags the caravan first.
In Monster coin events, everyone who participates gets loot. Doesn't matter who tags the monsters first.
The same also has to be true of sieges.
And really has to be true for open world dungeons as well.
The nodes are tracking everything we do - especially the xp we're all sending to the nodes, so they should be able to help determine the loot we deserve. Much of the time, that's going to be pelts and gold.
Anybody have dev quotes about drops commonly being items? I'm still looking for dev quote confirmation.
I think that’s the key to why AoC really *cannot* work like GW2 or any of the “open tagging” systems.
The economy is going to be to important to “generate” many things out of thin air, if everything about what they’ve said so far holds true. That’s one of the key failures in GW2 (lack of) economy – there is no control over faucets dripping stuff in.
If a shared-tagging system is implemented, it’s important that it is only for something like quest credit, and not actual loot (stuff that would enter the economy!)
But I don’t even really like that – I prefer good, old-fashioned tagging and looting – you hit it, you get it.
</blockquote>
“You hit it, you get it” has to mean that there is no tag-locking.
The very nature of PvE combat in Ashes makes that so…and we have plenty of examples from the devs telling us that everyone who participates receives loot.
In the caravan system, if the caravan is destroyed, all of the attackers get loot from from the caravan. Doesn’t matter who tags the caravan first.
In Monster coin events, everyone who participates gets loot. Doesn’t matter who tags the monsters first.
The same also has to be true of sieges.
And really has to be true for open world dungeons as well.
The nodes are tracking everything we do – especially the xp we’re all sending to the nodes, so they should be able to help determine the loot we deserve. Much of the time, that’s going to be pelts and gold.
Anybody have dev quotes about drops commonly being items? I’m still looking for dev quote confirmation.
</blockquote>
Well, what I should have said is "The first who hits it gets it."
I don't think you can put the caravan in the same category here, though. My expectation is that the caravan will drop real player-created items and materials that were being transported. How the distribution of those is worked out, I don't think they've talked about.
But the key there is that they were <em><strong>player sourced</strong></em> (crafted, processes or gathered) goods.
In the case of killing a mob for example, the loot that drops would have to be generated out of thin air, entering the economy. (the only exception I've seen this is the cool new Black Market idea from Albion Online.) Which is why I don't think AoC really can run an "everyone has the same chance to get the same items from every mob every time and as much as necessary" system without completely invalidating their goals for the dynamic player economy.
I think for experience, quest credit and so-on, shared tagging makes sense. But I don't see how it can be the right thing in a player economy.
Another "feature" of GW2 is that the extended this shared-tagging to resource nodes as well, which really f's over the economy as well, Hopefully that's not even under consideration here, with the idea of finite resources it can't be. That's why I think mob loot item drops won't be shared either.
But I'd love to see a quote with their current thinking on the topic.
“You hit it, you get it” has to mean that there is no tag-locking.
The very nature of PvE combat in Ashes makes that so…and we have plenty of examples from the devs telling us that everyone who participates receives loot.
In the caravan system, if the caravan is destroyed, all of the attackers get loot from from the caravan. Doesn’t matter who tags the caravan first.
In Monster coin events, everyone who participates gets loot. Doesn’t matter who tags the monsters first.
The same also has to be true of sieges.
And really has to be true for open world dungeons as well.
The nodes are tracking everything we do – especially the xp we’re all sending to the nodes, so they should be able to help determine the loot we deserve. Much of the time, that’s going to be pelts and gold.
Anybody have dev quotes about drops commonly being items? I’m still looking for dev quote confirmation.
</blockquote>
Well, what I should have said is "The first who hits it gets it."
I don't think you can put the caravan in the same category here, though. My expectation is that the caravan will drop real player-created items and materials that were being transported. How the distribution of those is worked out, I don't think they've talked about.
But the key there is that they were <em><strong>player sourced</strong></em> (crafted, processes or gathered) goods.
In the case of killing a mob for example, the loot that drops would have to be generated out of thin air, entering the economy. (the only exception I've seen this is the cool new Black Market idea from Albion Online.) Which is why I don't think AoC really can run an "everyone has the same chance to get the same items from every mob every time and as much as necessary" system without completely invalidating their goals for the dynamic player economy.
I think for experience, quest credit and so-on, shared tagging makes sense. But I don't see how it can be the right thing in a player economy.
Another "feature" of GW2 is that the extended this shared-tagging to resource nodes as well, which really f's over the economy as well, Hopefully that's not even under consideration here, with the idea of finite resources it can't be. That's why I think mob loot item drops won't be shared either.
But I'd love to see a quote with their current thinking on the topic.
“You hit it, you get it” has to mean that there is no tag-locking.
The very nature of PvE combat in Ashes makes that so…and we have plenty of examples from the devs telling us that everyone who participates receives loot.
In the caravan system, if the caravan is destroyed, all of the attackers get loot from from the caravan. Doesn’t matter who tags the caravan first.
In Monster coin events, everyone who participates gets loot. Doesn’t matter who tags the monsters first.
The same also has to be true of sieges.
And really has to be true for open world dungeons as well.
The nodes are tracking everything we do – especially the xp we’re all sending to the nodes, so they should be able to help determine the loot we deserve. Much of the time, that’s going to be pelts and gold.
Anybody have dev quotes about drops commonly being items? I’m still looking for dev quote confirmation.
</blockquote>
Well, what I should have said is "The first who hits it gets it."
I don't think you can put the caravan in the same category here, though. My expectation is that the caravan will drop real player-created items and materials that were being transported. How the distribution of those is worked out, I don't think they've talked about.
But the key there is that they were <em><strong>player sourced</strong></em> (crafted, processes or gathered) goods.
In the case of killing a mob for example, the loot that drops would have to be generated out of thin air, entering the economy. (the only exception I've seen this is the cool new Black Market idea from Albion Online.) Which is why I don't think AoC really can run an "everyone has the same chance to get the same items from every mob every time and as much as necessary" system without completely invalidating their goals for the dynamic player economy.
I think for experience, quest credit and so-on, shared tagging makes sense. But I don't see how it can be the right thing in a player economy.
Another "feature" of GW2 is that the extended this shared-tagging to resource nodes as well, which really f's over the economy as well, Hopefully that's not even under consideration here, with the idea of finite resources it can't be. That's why I think mob loot item drops won't be shared either.
But I'd love to see a quote with their current thinking on the topic.
Again, when mobs start attacking the city, it can't be about who tagged first or who's in a group and who's not.
You can't just lock everyone out like that.
You can do that when people are going to be camping zones. And the mobs are basically going to be tethered to those zones.
You can also do that with instanced dungeons.
Especially since we've got devs from Daybreak and EQNext on the team, I expect similar decisions since a lot of the core design is from EQNext.
But, yeah, will be fun getting confirmation and details of the devs' philosophy.