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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Party leader is in charge of loot system used and you don't like the distribution method? Just talk to them. A long forgotten feature of MMO's is that you can actually talk to people. If it all goes sour you can just find another party or better yet, make your own party...
Personally, I think I'd stick with people using the Need/Greed system because that's what I think is the best distribution method for allowing priority to go to the right people. Especially because most people aren't looking to abuse a system and get shunned from future parties.
I think the bid system isn't bad either though. It is a decent way in amassing a fortune. If someone is intentionally outbidding you just for fun, how many of the items that have gone through did you really need? By the time the dungeon or whatever it is you were hunting is over. You'll probably have amassed a fortune enough to buy the items you wanted outright from a market somewhere. If anything, when I'm short on gold I might just actively look for parties doing this. That's easy money right there.
These loot mechanics are crap, but could potentially be OK if grouping were more casual than requiring 8 instead of 4.
It's not rocket science to figure out that finding a group of 8 people that you enojy playing with day after day is going to be a pain in the ass for most players.
Steven just has blinders on because he's typically the leader of a guild.
So, he's designing the game from the pov of his fun experiences as a guild leader.
That blog is utterly absurd.
It's patently absurd that Steven thinks that design is so good that he can insultingly suggest that if you want to adventure in a party of 4, you should go play a moba.
That is more problematic than you seem willing to admit.
A good game designer would not have to wait until it's proven in alpha and beta to know how absurd that is.
We are seeing a trend in Steven's decision-making skills -exclusive subscription, Wand of Many Things consolation prize, etc- that shouldn't be ignored.
Games where loot is automatically assigned to someone based off of your spec and class might be the way forward however this could result in getting the same item over and over again, however removing the possibility of this happening seems like it is making it too easy to gear up...
The only solution I could see to this would be you can select a loot preference, based off of your class and what stats you are aiming for. You would then have a chance at getting say one of eight items you need for that set. The next time you do this raid or boss fight the chance of you getting that same item would be significantly lower however you still have a chance to get the same item or no item at all. I realise this could lead to having 7/8 of the items and getting the last one could be time consuming or frustrating but honestly it shouldn't be particularly easy to do.
Personally, after wiping to a boss 6 times and on the 7th attempt we get a drop when suddenly I get out bid because some guy has more gold than me even though he was barely doing anything for the team would be incredibly frustrating.
@TheCouchNerd bear in mind people might want specific outfits for things like rp purposes
We group up for an instance as 6 random players, 2 magic users (I am one of these) and 4 melee. The loot has been set to roll for mythic tier (and above) items. This particular instance drops some very good mythic tier accessories, which have stats for either melee or magic classes. It so happens that a magic stat accessory drops and I roll for it (because I really needed it, even said so in chat), the other magic class user rolls and so does one of the melee class users. I win the roll and take the item. I won it fair and square, I need it, so it's all good, right? Yeah, you wish... The other magic class user ends up shouting their mouth off because they apparently deserved the item more than me. And the melee class user did the same because... well I don't really remember. So, from this simple run, I end up getting 1 awesome accessory and 2 people swearing they will never let me into another run with them, that they will tell their guild to do the same + blocking me.
My point here is, it all obviously depends on the community. HOWEVER, using this kind of looting system just makes it so much easier to create toxicity.
Only thing I hope for is that IS listens to their community, and when the testing phases come, and IF it is obvious that the system does more harm than good, that they will be willing to change it.
so players can decide democratically rather than a number generator.
Also consider that without BoP and BoE the system proposed plays out differently regarding the free market and player made economy.
Each person has his own loot: Casual player unfriendly. Why? If a legendary item has a 1% drop rate in a need/greed system it can't be the same with this system unless you want legendaries to drop like cabbage. This will lead to the need to farm a dungeon x times if your luck is terrible => RNG again. People will cry because the drops rate are shet.
Round-Robin: no one will accept that.
Bidding system: You don't have money for to buy a legendary, you try to run the dungeon and it drops, but someone put a higher bid than you, you don't have the legendary but some of the guy's money. I personally prefer this but it needs to be polished. What do I mean by that is, each item should have its own "pool"(not a common one as IS proposed) and you decide to participate or not. If you don't participate then you don't get any money from the highest bidder. Then again, some might just bid 1 coin just to get the money, so maybe there is a need to add something like a minimum: your bid needs to be equal or superior to 10% of the highest bidder to have your share of his money.
This is my opinion on the loot system alone.
Having loot rules like this suggests that random clumps of players will come together to tackle group content. I don't think that should be the case.
Group content should be designed for communicative, coordinated and even practiced groups. If the content is designed in that way, it discourages the kind of random groups that need to be policed by artificial loot rules.
Instead, there should be *no* loot rules, and let the community take care of it themselves. Parties will form between trusted players (even outside of their guilds). And if including outsiders in our groups, since we're apparently going old-school with the server communities, ninja-looters and cheater guilds would quickly be exposed... and shamed. And remembered.
As an aside, I'm not sure where you guys are getting "all groups MUST have one of each archetype!" I read it as they want the option for that to be possible (by not limiting the group size to say, 5.) But of course you're not going to need every class, and there will be utility crossover between them, especially with secondary classing the way it's shaping up.
It won't stop me from playing, but will stop me from grouping outside of my guild.
If you want to have a positive gaming experience, you will have to surround yourself with a positive gaming community.
If i want to build a small community together, i'll want to do that with decent people who work together as a unit, and trust one another.
If i want to run a caravan between towns, i'm not going to rely on random strangers for protection.
If i want to make a trade, I want to deal with a fair and balanced trader, not some scam artist.
If i want to defend my town, I want to do so with reliable allies.
Why should any of that change when i'm going into a dungeon? I shudder at the term 'pug'... not because i don't like dogs... dogs are fine... but with a pick up group, you always have that element of the unknown when it comes to fairness, competence, teamwork, honesty, sanity etc. When people set foot in an instance, they don't always have the same goals.... some people want a speed run, others want to do a pile of side quests, or kill every mob.. yes, people want fancy drops, and if you go in with strangers, you can anticipate a fair amount of chaos when it comes down to that.
The "blind" bidding system might not be a bad idea. Sure it could be abused by gold sellers, but gold sellers will find a way. They always do. So i wouldn't worry about that too much. Bidding seems more likely to be abused by full minus-1 groups, abusing the one person who isn't part of their team, as mentioned above.
Realistically though, pug instancing, in my mind, is like being the new kid at school every time. Sure, it might turn out okay, but sooner or later, you're going to want to have your own reliable group of friends, so you don't just get bullied and picked on for the funny clothes you (want to) wear.
In this way i am fine with lootmaster/leader as an option, or round robin with trading possibilities. Everything is different when working with people you know and trust.
To prevent a little abuse, If you are going to have the team leader choose the loot method, i'd say that's fine.. however if the team leader wants to change the loot method, half way in, they should only be able to do so with a majority vote.
edit: what I'm saying really is that all the rules and suggestions are aiming to protect strangers from strangers
and working with strangers should come with an element of risk
Personally, I don't care about the loot system, because I'm not playing this game for loot. I'm playing it to have an adventure, be social, and have fun. Getting loot is cool, but has never been a sticking point for me, ever.
Granted, this is only my personal opinion, that other's may not share. And, I can understand how the looting system, depending on how it's implemented, could possibly lead to toxicity. But, Steven has said that high-end gear can be had from dungeons/raids OR crafting. So, there's more than one way to get geared, if that's your motivation.
In that blog, it was emphasized that these early ideas are subject to change, depending on player testing feedback. I'm content to see how things unfold...especially since we have about a 2yr wait for release. Nothing is set in stone.
It's great as an option, and in a group of friends It will function amazingly.
I guess random groups can go with default need / greed if they don't like other options.
1 bid allowed is much better option. Post how much you think item is worth for you and "go".
Ashes does not have traditional gear bind mechanics, so these legacy looting systems will not work. What Ashes needs is a modified version of individual/personal loot, such as a Scaled Individual Loot system.
By scaled I mean that the chances of getting a loot drop under this system are scaled so to the same base chances as a group looting system, such as with need before greed.
Benefits of a scaled individual loot system
- Solves loot toxicity because there is no ability to ninja loot.
- Loot distributions are based on boss loot tables and predefined looting methods for each boss. These methods can bet set to mirror traditional loot drop mechanics without the disadvantages of these systems.
- A scaled individual system will generate the same loot drop quantities on average as a traditional group looting system, so there will be no negative impact on the economy compared to group looting.
- The party size of 8 and above means that this system will streamline encounters and reduce friction between group members. Importantly, unlike other looting systems (such as master looter) this will encourage inclusive playstyles such as pugging.
These characteristics are particularly useful in Ashes because most loot items will not be BOP and there are no class or race specific loot drops. These bold and innovative systems require a new approach to looting, such as this.I plan to write up a technical paper on this proposed looting system and will post it shortly for everyone's critique.
As @TheCouchNerd pointed out, a similar system exists in WoW and even though loot is BOP, their system allows party members to trade most personal loot items to other party members.
From what I have seen (from watching thousands of hours of WoW gameplay on my wife's streams!) this system resulted in a 180 degree turnaround from loot toxicity to amazing community spirit, even in random pugs!
The looting system I'm proposing won't be exactly the same as WoW, because Ashes needs a few tweaks to cater for the lack of class/race locking of the gear system. I'll probably create a new thread for this idea when I'm done because I anticipate a pretty lively debate
Guild Wars 2 suffers this problem with the rarity scaling. Only legendary/ascended has any feeling of achievement and scarcity; that's with soulbinding.
If Ashes doesn't have any bind on acquire or equip, combined with personal loot for all players means that the market in future will eventually be saturated with equipment and be over supplied.
To be honest, I think market saturation is an eventual problem that Ashes will have since there doesn't seem to be any plan in making sinks for old equipment to be thrown away.
Eg: If you have a party of 8 and the drop chances of a rare are 1/100 from the boss, then in the scaled individual loot system, the drop chances for each of the 8 members will be 1/800. So the average drop chance is exactly the same 1/100 = 8 * 1/800.
I will also be proposing modifier flags to the loot tables, such as: "Only 1 of this item will drop in any one encounter" to cater for the super rare chance that two party members get the same drop.