Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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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
lol lay off the crack, man. I was merely saying that having a computer handle the items and money is safer than some random guy. I've seen guilds fall apart because the Lootmaster felt that legendary drop was more important than months of friendship with dozens of people.
Loot Master
Bid
Need/Greed (Need/Need lol?)
Round Robin
Most RNG dependent:
Round Robin
Need/Greed
---Not RNG after initial drop chance---
Loot Master and Bid
I hate RNG more than anything and thus I like Bid the most personally.
The worst form of Bid system is the blind system that was suggested earlier. A scammer only needs to over bid a couple times and then everyone must assume they will do it at any time (if not every time) and it pushes up the bids from other people because you can't see what other people really thought the item was worth. A scammer can spend an extra 200g on a few items worth 50g at the start of a run and increase the bids on all items by 25-50g. Even if you try to talk it out to get around the scammer the looting will turn into a game of MAFIA where everyone goes 'I bid 10g' in chat when they really bid 50g. It's even worse for someone who actually needs an item than Need/Greed.
Bidding is not flawless but it's better than playing the RNG game twice or relying on the honesty of other's.
My first MMO was FFXI when it released. Say what you will about mechanics and whatnot, but there was definitely a sense of community in that game. Most of it due to the forced grouping activities and such. It brought people together to accomplish common goals. People had better manners and were held more accountable for their actions because of it as well. I feel this game is trying to bring that back.
I think when games started auto forming groups to run content, and then moved to grouping people from different severs as well, the anonymity allowed others to grief and abuse mechanics to benefit themselves. Anymore, all anyone ever cares about in a game is themselves. I mean, why help some random person out with what they need when you will likely not see them again, let alone remember their name 5 minutes after the run? Why be fair to anyone when you can sever hop or change your name once your rep has been run into the dirt?
Regardless of what system is used in the end, only we as the community will either make it work or not. Everyone has their own goals in playing any MMO. Is yours money? Chances are, you are the one that would exploit a bidding system or Need everything. Maybe the smaller servers and having to actually make a group to do dungeons will allow that "random" to be much less so, and the chances of that drop that you let him have two weeks ago can actually benefit you during this run...
That is insane as Zhevras not dropping hooves every time, since each one naturally has four!
Lame idea.
I will add my 2 cents for posterity.
The idea is simply to ensure that first refusal is given where it is most essential, for game and community progress.
ie game progress driven rather than player desire driven.
Prioritised need refusal system:
1. Node upkeep usage - Some loot should be necessary for the node maintenance as we should be here at the node (community) behest firstly.
Community loot for us (military/religious/economic/scientific) should be more important than personal loot for me.
This is imperative to get away from the me me me mindset and return to a community mindset.
2. Direct skill usage - Build similarity get 1st refusal on all loot tagged as harmonic with their build tags.
3. Indirect skill usage - Any artisan skill progress that require specific harmonic loot 'components' get 2nd refusal.
4. Achievement usage - those people with specific loot requirements in their achievements completion get 3rd refusal.
5. Trophy usage - those people with a vacant slot for specific loot items in their home display get 4th refusal.
6. Other usage - Loot master, combat, divine intervention or gold bidding with opt out for those who aren't bothered (military/religious/economic/scientific solutions).
I liked ESO because there was ZERO loot drama, other than the broken drop rates.
That was based on individual and personalised loot.
Sharing is a good thing, but modern culture has nothing to do with sharing.
It is an alien concept for far too many people.
We are driven and taught be be selfish and put ourselves before everyone else in both school and work now.
Modern culture is forced to compete rather than cooperate.
Many will happily share spoils...as long as its something they dont want.
Alas many people think they are just as entitled to everything as anyone else.
Even without functional value, loot still has economic and cosmetic value.
So a priority system has to be in place without personalised loot.
I understand where Steven is coming from with the need for cooperation and community spirit and even communication.
I have no doubt the players will settle nodes and get to know each other.
They will verbally reach agreements over time and establish the foundations of community.
Treachery, mistrust and ambivalence with be replaced with trust and friendship.
These communities will also establish truce with their neighbours and grow into village, town, cities.
Through cooperation, civilisation will grow and advance, as it did in the very dawn of civilisation when humanity abandoned the law of the jungle for mutual prosperity.
Highly unique jigsaw pieces will form adjacent to compatible communities they can knit with.
But there will be no civilisation to begin with...it an organic thing that takes time.
So I suggest this as a stop gap until its not needed.
'In situ' biome specific communities build cultural identities specific to their locality.
No one understands the gifts and pitfalls of their home better than the locals.
They are individuals, with unique requirement, in unique surroundings.
They are the foundation stones and building blocks of civilisation.
They are like a tree that plants roots and grows in a specific way, in a specific place at a specific time.
They cannot be slapped together any more than a pile of cement, wood and brick can be called a building.
They can not be imported and exported because doing so destroys the relationships and expectations that already exist and bonds that took an age to grow.
Doing so destroys the personal identities and social agreement upon which cultural identity is made.
1. You have to pay for loot that you earned through participation.
2. People with large bankrolls will have an advantage, while having equal participation.
Instead of in game currency, a completely different item can be used to bid with (dkp). Everyone starts with the same amount at the beginning of the raid and uses it on items they wish to acquire, and when the group is dissolved everyone goes back to zero. Or... The dkp is earned as tokens by some means, (raiding, quests, daily logins, etc) and can be saved and used to bid on loot when the player chooses.
Bidding, round robin, lootmaster, FFA........All can and have been exploited by less than altruistic players. I would like to think this wouldn't happen in AoC but you always ALWAYS have to factor to the lowest common denominator. A sad but real truth.
Honestly, the only loot system I have played that I have had zero problems with is ESOs system. Not saying they did everything right but looting is something they did "get". (basically everyone loots the bodies and gets their OWN chance at something with the ability to trade within group). This is pretty much what @lexmax has proposed.
With that said, in conjunction to a group loot type situation, it could be possible that tackling larger foes or lieutenants could also provide some sort of alternate loot for anyone involved (some form of currency perhaps) where if you have enough you can use that currency on maybe some alternate currency vendor. Though I imagine with the player-driven everything that would be part of this game such vendors may have no place.
Just a random theorycraft blurb from the solo tending person who still works well with groups.. but realizes nobody ever wants to actually start or run them anymore unless a guild is involved.
All for a basic system and player interaction there after!
but joke aside i prefer personal loot too, because its less drama. (its kinda boring but the least abusivly thing)
You are also free to go with the groups that don't use bidding system if you prefer not to use it.
You are also free to form your own groups and set the bidding system you want to use.
Again, no problem with this whatsoever.
Well the loot systems from your blogs need vs greed, loot master and round robin (also the bidding system but not mentioning it since I have no prior experience with that type of loot system) come with inherit problems. I am talking about the standard versions of them. I guess you could add smart game mechanics to those loot systems To solve some issues.
Without rehashing all the issues and the pros and the cons I would like to say that these systems can make for nightmare situations.
Ounce the game goes live and if you were to use the standard versions of these systems you will start to see feed back on these systems that is kind of negative.
Think Personal Loot will be the best answer to those issues. But it is a virtual reality maybe these systems could be used with smart game mechanics or a totally different one.
I did not list any specific examples cause ounce the game goes live you will see what I am talking about but then again you might make this systems work.
also what do you mean by no 100 prcent drops?
I got completely lost on your post could you translate it to noob please?
For me as does everything in AOC , it lends itself towards really building real communities with communication at the heart. These traditional looting mechanics tend to lead in this direction. Having said that this is all Alpha and Im sure intrepid will be monitoring and if neccessary will tweak or even introduce a new mechanic if the conditions are right for it.
Cheers Lex
I would obviously prefer the most fair and balanced loot rules possible, but unless everyone gets 1 of everything that's not a reality. Primary Class focused drops would be nice; the fighter gets first go at the weapon, tank at armor and so forth, but there would be a ton of things to work out for the mechanic too.
Unfortunately no matter how loot is done some of the audience will think it sucks. I just want IS to stay true to their vision, I'll play with what they give me.
Having multiple versions of loot rules is great the group can decide what they want and it can't be changed once set without reforming the group.
The bidding could be good would be nice to have as one of the options of available loot rules.
The idea for blind loot sounds like it could be a good idea and limit miss use.
About looting I think it a good idea what they have with the items. But I do believe everyone should get little money at the end if it the monster who drop coin's