Loot System

There has been a lot of HYPE for this game as of the last month or so, hence, it has reached my ears/eye.
I started to read the wiki and watch the varies youtube vids to learn more.

As someone who has played the largest population MMO currently in play, I have some experience with the loot system and especially MASTER LOOTER aka NINJA Loot system.

I CAN NOT BELIEVE that all these experienced MMO developers think that a loot system based on MASTER LOOTER is a good idea!!

The largest population MMO switched off of MASTER LOOTer about two years ago to the great cheers of all players! It is now using what they call Personal Loot along with a bonus roll if the player chooses.

So, my experience with Master Looter aka Master NINJA.
1. My guild had to use a system called DKP (Dragon Kill Points) to keep guild members happy (honest guild)
2. Some guilds had rules where the officers where geared up first (run from those guilds)!
3. PUGs is where the NINJA comes into play, when its time to distribute the loot, after three or more hours of killing and being killed, the LOOT MASTER conveniently disconnects! All the hours are wasted, poof goes the loot.

Given the nature of the loot drops in AOC, rarity of gear drop and high need for high quality crafting material, the opportunity for GREED/NINJA and just plain Dishonesty abounds!

How in everything that is right with the world can the Chief Muck Muck think that a loot system based on Master Looter is a good idea? It is lazy thinking.

This will create a nightmare for the GMs chasing and trying to restore stolen loot not to mention endless DRAMA in guilds.
Has no one learned anything from playing the early 2000 MMO's?

If the loot system is Master Looter, I for one will not waste my time because I already know what will happen, never again will I waste my time in a game using that system.

The distribution of loot from World Boss kills is another story. It also needs more thought put into it or the very least, testing.

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Comments

Tam Hawkins

Skuld wrote: »

The worst loot system of all time is the Bidding system in my opinion.
I'm bad at making money in games so I'm not one of those players who have several billions in their pockets but there are always quite many people who have that money. So that makes it kinda impossible for me to get anything from bidding because I can't bid much.

....

I don't know what bidding systems you have seen until now but every single one I have seen redistributes the winning bid money between the party members that got nothing. So if you have 4 members in your party and the average loot bids for 750 gold then one person gets the item and the remaining thre get 250 gold each.
So even if you are constantly lack money the bidding system gives to you and will at some point (number of drops per run / number of players = number of runs until you can afford the average item) allow you to succesfully bid the item you desiree.
And if you don't desiree anything and just run for the story/exp/a friend you get at least money.

Admitetly it is not my favorite loot system either but it works.

Grimzar

petesmisc wrote: »

Drama

well isn't drama fun?

now you can track unfair master looters and make their in-game experience horrible by killing them over and over and over xD

i think AoC will be driven by drama

Nagash

Grimzar wrote: »

petesmisc wrote: »

Drama

well isn't drama fun? now you can track unfair master looters and make their in-game experience horrible by killing them over and over and over xD

i think AoC will be driven by drama

we have already had a lot of drama in ashes *guild fair flash back*

WMC51

What if world bosses has the normal loot table plus a global loot table there everyone involved rolled for 1 or 2 items but they are a tier lower than the main drops? Just throwing it out there.

Beekeeper

WMC51 wrote: »

What if world bosses has the normal loot table plus a global loot table there everyone involved rolled for 1 or 2 items but they are a tier lower than the main drops? Just throwing it out there.

The more obvious application would be quests that ask you to have some participation in killing a world-boss. Changing the fundamental way loot works because something is rare makes no sense when that is specifically the point.

petesmisc

I didn't say with me, did I?

He said it removes all drama, which in established guild focusing on gearing for progression, it absolutely does not, even in WoW.

Well, not sure what guilds you are/were part of but Personal Loot completely removes DRAMA from progression guilds. The loot that drops is YOURs, no one will ask for it (except in PUGs where people will beg you). Progression guilds want their raid members to gear up! If you do get an item that you know you will not use or you already have, than you put it up for roll (but you don't have to, its just the right thing to do since there a is small/no real benefit to keeping it).

As far as group finder or Raid finder, these formations are with people from across the country's servers, in 99.999% of the time, you will not have anyone from your guild or Server on with you, the only common objective is to kill the BOSS, very unlikely you will ever see those people or have to deal with them again. But even with those groups, a lot of times, Discord is required so you do need to listen and or talk.

Don't use "community" as some kind of holy grail for any argument, even in guilds, the common factor is whatever the guild is into, Raiding, Mythic Dungeons, Battle Grounds/PVP just running around or just having a community to chat or ask questions or ask for help, etc.

A lot of times, guild members spend time in Guild Discord, just chatting or talking about how to farm a mount, etc. But during Raid time (if its a raiding guild) than that's the talk , all in Discord (have to have it)

So now, back to the topic of Loot System aka:
Master Looter -HORRIBLE
Round-Robin - Silly (typically used in 5man dungeons)
Need before Greed - People will LIE
Bidding - will gold be that plentiful?

RahkstarRPG

sigh

Some people absolutely amaze me.

petesmisc

RahkstarRPG wrote: »

sigh

Some people absolutely amaze me.

Yes, RahkstarRPG, some people absolutely amaze me too, which is why I hate the loot system as currently stated on WIKI

Grievousness

So let's just remove the whole game and play wow again right?
It got the good looting system after all.

No seriously I have no clue what you are trying to accomplish here.
Personal loot is like the biggest nonsense I have ever seen since they introduced the raidfinder.
The only reason of its existence is that blizz was tired of managing their community.
So they give in to every nonsense that is asked.

Also which people do you surround yourself with?
If you think every other human being with the power to distribute loot is mutating to some evil being out there to disconnect in the right moment and steal all your fancy loot.
You must truly live in a very dark corner of the world.

I have a really weird suggestion to you which literally solves all your issues:
Make your own group and set the looting system yourself.

If you don't want to do it with randoms, that's fine.
Go out find friends, accomplish something together and learn to trust them.
If you cannot you won't have fun in an MMO.

This way we can all enjoy master looter while you can do whatever you want.
Basically this is the true magic of an mmo:
You don't have to like everything, just don't enforce others to play the game like you want them to do.

Rodya

This game isn't going to have personal loot like in retail wow is it? And this game will have Loot Master setting available, right?

Gbolt

Well as I understand, there will be Master Looter option.
But I dont understand your point about making it the only option? Or thats not what you meant?

If guilds want to use EPGP (or whatever), they are free to do. If they want to just roll the dice, hey can do that too. Its up to each individual guild what they want to do.

Yuyukoyay

I agree to some extent. Just because there are other choices does not mean it's a good system. People are just going to use the system that takes the most advantage over their own team mates.

I'm in favor of personal loot with the option to freely trade. I'd also be in favor of a democratic vote like looting system. I also want to absolutely know what looting system is being used at all times. I don't want there to be the ability to change looting systems in a dungeon/raid.

I'm not in favor of systems that give 1 person all of the power. I'm also not in favor of Ninja Looting systems that encourage doing it. I don't want to have to Ninja Loot every single drop in the game just to ensure it's fairly distributed. I'd much rather the game distribute the loot to who should own it. Then you choose from there where it goes if the individual agrees to it.

If it does use Need/Greed then it needs to disable the need option to people who cannot use it. However, Need/Greed is garbage because people do in practice tend to just need everything they can.

I don't mind the system being social. Personal loot is a social system. However, I'm not in favor of Loot Systems that force all the loot to one area just for it to not be distributed fairly or it to be stolen outright.

You need to take the ability to abuse the system out and not just leave it in because there are options. There being options does not mean the individual choices are good because there currently isn't a loot system that is very good in any MMO.

I think Personal Loot is the closest to being perfect of any system because it rolls automatically and gives it to whoever wins automatically. What they do with it should be their choice. In practice people either tend to send it to who can use it in the party/raid or keep it so they can sell it for something they can use. You have to use the chat to get the people who did get the drops to give them away. I really don't see how people can be opposed to this unless their goals are to cheat people out of items they deserved.

I would not even be opposed to only being able to get stuff you can equip and it just automatically distributed it entirely. This system does not need a human element to it. You can have a human element with every other system in the game.

RahkstarRPG

I think Personal Loot is the closest to being perfect of any system because it rolls automatically and gives it to whoever wins automatically. What they do with it should be their choice. In practice people either tend to send it to who can use it in the party/raid or keep it so they can sell it for something they can use. You have to use the chat to get the people who did get the drops to give them away. I really don't see how people can be opposed to this unless their goals are to cheat people out of items they deserved.

Personal loot isn't an auto need/greed system. Personal loot gives everyone their own individual roll on the loot table, and gives people something even if they don't hit a major item. That's very different, and generally involves a lot more loot dropping per boss.

People are just going to use the system that takes the most advantage over their own team mates.

Who hurt you people? I have never had such ridiculous issues with NBG loot in PUGs, and *never* a problem with master looter, because I don't use it in groups I don't trust.

Rodya

RahkstarRPG wrote: »

Who hurt you people? I have never had such ridiculous issues with NBG loot in PUGs, and *never* a problem with master looter, because I don't use it in groups I don't trust.

Yeah... crazy comments in this thread by some people. Makes me think that they've never played an MMO with loot masters and public loot. The devs are not going to put in personal loot because it would kill off a large proportion of the people interested in it, and they aren't going to disallow master looter because that would do the same.

Lazyactor

"Make your own group and set the looting system yourself."

Nothing wrong with the devs giving the players many tools to choose from to accomplish their goals after evaluating their own needs. You have many options to choose from and will have little trouble finding one that suits your needs and or biases.

/thread

Stormfyre

As someone who also plays wow personal loot was NOT happily accepted by the whole playerbase. It added a huge hurdle for the top end guilds who wanted to be able to give the pieces to the people who needed them most and they couldnt. This lead to them maintaining alts they'd never play otherwise just to do split runs to trade gear to the mains anyways. There are always work arounds that just end up frustrating players. For most people personal loot works and is fine. If you want to make a group/guild and have personal loot on for your guild you could in this game and in wow. They got rid of the option for masterloot in wow just to try to make top end guilds stop doing split runs, it didn't work, they do even more of them now. If you don't like masterloot then don't use it and don't join a guild that uses it, make your own. Some people care more about the group's power growing as much as possible rather than only caring about their own player power, why should that be punished? For context I main healers, we tend to get gear last in masterloot situations, idc, I just want the group to succeed.

petesmisc

Stormfyre wrote: »

As someone who also plays wow personal loot was NOT happily accepted by the whole playerbase. It added a huge hurdle for the top end guilds who wanted to be able to give the pieces to the people who needed them most and they couldn't.

That is absolutely FALSE! If you were in a top end guild and it was agreed upon that someone (raid lead or GM) said hey you, give the loot to xyz, than the person COULD do it! Personal loot is tradeable up to an hour (I believe) to any member of the raid that was in on the boss kill. So, yes, if your guild wanted to have a system where whatever drops for anyone has to be ok'd by a raid lead or guild manager, so be it, you could do it, period! Dont understand this BS about ALTS, makes no sense! Alts where played for fun once the Mains where geraed up, or they just did PUGs. Split runs my A$$, my guild runs ALTs on off days just for fun, some are ALTs others are the Mains that came just for fun and to help out!

[/quote] For context I main healers, we tend to get gear last in master loot situations, idc, I just want the group to succeed. [/quote]

That was a shity guild, in my guild using Master Loot with dkp, generally the Tank and Healers where given top priority. Can't kill Boss's if your tank is under geared or DEAD because your Healers are under geared or dead, DPS don't matter at that point (if the Tank is dead and healers, you are done)!

Master Loot has been and will be abused, the other options are just crap. I suppose at the end of all this, good guilds will use some kind of DKP system (if this game comes out and is successful) to compensate for Master Looter (just as they had to do in other MMOs).

Grievousness

Hi Yuyukoyay,

Yuyukoyay wrote: »

People are just going to use the system that takes the most advantage over their own team mates.

Okay, sounds like humanity only constists of evil parasites.
How do you come to that assumption?
I mean even if you are right it's not that easy actually at least not in this game.
If someone steals your loot just stalk him and kill him until he starts crying.
PvP is in the game after all.
I mean imagine being a well known ninja-looter.
Hell that sounds like someone getting a lot of beating.
We could make a hitlist on the forum for those guys.

Yuyukoyay wrote: »

I'm in favor of personal loot with the option to freely trade. I'd also be in favor of a democratic vote like looting system. I also want to absolutely know what looting system is being used at all times. I don't want there to be the ability to change looting systems in a dungeon/raid.

If you like to have a looting system with democratic vote you can in fact do that.
I mean you just give your party lead loot master you discuss who gets the loot as a group and loot master gives it to the specific person.
No problem at all.
If you don't want to entrust someone else make yourself master looter.
That's basically why master looter is so great, you have 100% control over the item distribution therefore nobody can screw you since you give the master looter to a trustworthy person. (or yourself)
The mechanism on how you decide who gets the loot isn't defined just who distributes it.

Yuyukoyay wrote: »

You need to take the ability to abuse the system out and not just leave it in because there are options. There being options does not mean the individual choices are good because there currently isn't a loot system that is very good in any MMO.

I think you disregard the contextual framework which make some of the loot systems in fact really close to be perfect in a lot of situations.

e.g. Master looter:
You got 100% control of who gets the item, if that's what you want it literally cannot be more perfect.

same with personal loot:
If you want literally no social interaction to be nesseccary, it's perfect.

You want a loot system that let's everyone have a "fair quantity" you can take round robin,
it's perfect for that. (though it lacks in other regards)

You are only here to make money?
Get a bidding system even if you don't get a single item (chances are because you don't need them) you are pretty sure to earn a nice coin.

How are they not perfect in that specific situation?
But situations can differ which is why you need to be able to choose between them.

Yuyukoyay wrote: »

I think Personal Loot is the closest to being perfect of any system because it rolls automatically and gives it to whoever wins automatically.

How do you verify that the distribution of loot by the automatic system is good?
Just imagine you raid a boss for 3 months now every week.
Waiting patiently for him to drop your item but it just doesn't want to.
Now you got this friend of a guildmate you invite for one run because you got one slot you cannot fill,
he is basically just luggage dragged along, barely doing anything else than lying dead on the floor.
Now you kill the boss and he randomly gets your item asigned you waited 3 months for already.

Does that sound fair to you?
Because the thing about luck is, it's not fair you just can't blame anyone for bad luck.
How is the system perfect if it's just randomly throwing loot around no matter if deserved or not?

Yuyukoyay wrote: »

I really don't see how people can be opposed to this unless their goals are to cheat people out of items they deserved.

Because usually you don't use this loot system with a party of strangers but a group of people you play regularly with.
So you can make longterm decisions on who needs the loot and make your group as a whole profit more from intelligent loot distribution rather than letting personal loot make random decisions.
If you have a random group of people you can also do master looter but then the person needs to be trustworthy.
I that case I'd prefer it over personal because personal loot is just random and I rather not have an algorithm make weird loot distributions.
E.g. if you have a raid with 3 bosses someone could get 3 pieces while others get none.
A loot master can be aware that the person already got sth from a boss and distribute it to someone else.
Personal loot systems won't do that.

Grievousness

Hi Petesmisc

petesmisc wrote: »

That is absolutely FALSE! If you were in a top end guild and it was agreed upon that someone (raid lead or GM) said hey you, give the loot to xyz, than the person COULD do it! Personal loot is tradeable up to an hour (I believe) to any member of the raid that was in on the boss kill. So, yes, if your guild wanted to have a system where whatever drops for anyone has to be ok'd by a raid lead or guild manager, so be it, you could do it, period! Dont understand this BS about ALTS, makes no sense! Alts where played for fun once the Mains where geraed up, or they just did PUGs. Split runs my A$$, my guild runs ALTs on off days just for fun, some are ALTs others are the Mains that came just for fun and to help out!

I think you are wrong about this since you seemingly don't exaclty know what you are talking about.
Just to be clear, a semi progress raiding guild on a random WOW server and a top 300 raiding guild (e.g.) can be different like day and night in their level of ambition.
And it is quite common for high end raiding guilds (like top 300) to have split runs and alts so they can be more flexible with boss mechanics or sudden changes on classes.
This isn't nesseccarily true for "low rank" progress guilds.

petesmisc wrote: »

That was a shity guild, in my guild using Master Loot with dkp, generally the Tank and Healers where given top priority. Can't kill Boss's if your tank is under geared or DEAD because your Healers are under geared or dead, DPS don't matter at that point (if the Tank is dead and healers, you are done)!

Master Loot has been and will be abused, the other options are just crap. I suppose at the end of all this, good guilds will use some kind of DKP system (if this game comes out and is successful) to compensate for Master Looter (just as they had to do in other MMOs).

Once again your comment is not very believeable, I used to play tank myself and there was rarely a time when you actually needed loads of gear on your tanks.
Can you name an expansion or an encounter so I can at least somewhat check what you are putting out?
Otherwise it's simply not believeable.

Furthermore would you eventually formulate a proper argument at that point?
All you do is rant how bad master looter is while you at the same time point out that it's seemingly ok if used with a DKP System (which also has dozens different variants you do not specify).
Don't get me wrong I am completely ready to discuss this topic with you but you simply haven't put out anything yet that's worth discussing.
Can you try to be a bit more specific around the board?
I mean seemingly you have a problem with master looter but what do you actually want to be changed?

petesmisc

Grievousness, wow dude, do you want my proctology result also?

At this point I don't even care what loot system is used, in 2-3 years there will be another shiny object to "hope" for.

We have discussed the Personal Loot system enough, the good and the bad has been brought up. Its not perfect but close to it ( I don't believe there is a perfect loot system, just one that everyone agrees on and sticks to it). The whole goal is to remove the human element from decision making for loot (loot is the life blood of any MMO) (don't you dare bring up community).

So,
1. it does not skill test players
2. it does not gear check players

All the above is up to the raid lead and/or gm, but if a dumbass, undergeared toon is invited and lays flat on his/her face one minute into the boss fight, so be it, they were invited, they tagged the boss, they have a chance at getting loot.

Which is why there are mods to help with such things and more in certain MMOs, there will be none in AOC and that's fine, kind of refreshing. But is that an excuse for Master Loot, to deprive someone with the excuse, your dps/hps was shit, you were dead for 95% of the fight, you don't know mechanics, etc... the human mind can rationalize anything at any time for any reason. and the toon, lol, can rationalize it also and blame it on everything except him/her self.

So, for the Master Looter, all you control freaks have at it, with all the crafting mechanics described, the loot system is going to be fun to watch (maybe).

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