let's get real about item loot

[Vexenu]

Originally Posted by Lowlife [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Actually I think FV style no NO DROPS could lure many blue players, at the very least serve to offset the horror of item loot.

It's possible.

The only thing certain with a change of that magnitude is that it would produce a lot of unintended consequences, both good and bad.

It could result in a fun server where lots of small guilds battle and no zergs form, or it could result in the formation of a monster zerg that monopolizes Hate and Fear 24/7 in order to stockpile armor. No no-drops could also exacerbate RMT issues and attract those sort of players to the server.

Impossible to know if it would ultimately be better or worse, all we can say for sure is that it would be very different.

[Danger]

I support this.

[MrSparkle001]

Item loot will both make the server popular and sink it: It will be popular in the beginning, lots of people will play, but when the novelty wears off the server will sink lower than red99.

You think red is bad with one guild in control of all endgame drops? Transfer that to teams99 where that controlling guild can also loot everyone else.

[Danger]

i think that line of thinking falls within the context of a FFA server and does not regard the safety net of, nor comradery of teams that can be mobilized to dezerg the zerg

[Vexenu]

Ok, so I'm coming around to DrScience's no no-drop proposal if the server actually ends up going with item loot (which I think would be a mistake, but that seems to be the direction we're going, so I'll try to make the best of it). I think it's the most interesting, elegantly simple and potentially beneficial proposal. It's perhaps the only proposal that would have a big impact on endgame PvP and conceivably slow down the dominant team/guild by opening their members up to item loss.

Now, the big problem emerges: how do you sell item loot + no no-drops to Blue players? How do you get enough players to give that ruleset a chance? PvP alone is a tough sell to a Blue player, I can only imagine how PvP with item loot and no no-drops would sound. It's important to have a compelling sales pitch for a server with this ruleset. Population is king.

Another important consideration would be to do something about bagging macros. Even if they weren't a big factor on Live, it's guaranteed they would be here, especially without no-drop items. Bagging macros would give a huge competitive advantage to any person who used them and would essentially protect them from PvP loss while non-users would face enormous risk. Is there any way to detect the use of a bagging macro?

[fredschnarf]

just want you all to know i dont read any of your huge posts and most other people dont either

so dont waste time, also theres never going to be an item loot server so cut yourself and move on

[Danger]

Originally Posted by fredschnarf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

just want you all to know i dont read any of your huge posts and most other people dont either

so dont waste time, also theres never going to be an item loot server so cut yourself and move on

thx 4 reading

[Rheon]

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

TBH, I like the original RZ system because it's the one I played with.

Then you should use it! it worked well. No point trying to reinvent the wheel..Rz had a perfectly good Item loot system that did the job.

[Rheon]

Originally Posted by DrScience [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've been trying to find the words to describe why "randomized" looting is bad.

The best use case I came up with is that there isn't always an opportunity to loot someone effectively. What I mean by 'looting someone effectively' is systematically checking each piece of gear in their inventory after kill and choosing the most valuable to you/most valuable to them/or some combination.

It's pretty obvious that if you see a cloak of flames you should loot it just based on rarity, but most pvp encounters you won't have the luxury of such items so you'll have a pretty large selection of decent items.

Now lets use the example that you're in a 5 v 5 fight in the middle of SolB, you just killed me but you're at 30% health and you think you're being targeted by the wizard. Since you've decided you're about to die, you try to loot me. You figure you have less than 3 seconds until the ice comet hits, so you're really under the gun to loot.

You see what looks like a hooded black cloak, but don't have the time to bring up the text to see what item it is. You decide to assume I own a hooded black cloak and loot it, just before getting killed by the wizard.

When you get back to your corpse, you find out you really looted a [insert really bad cloak that shares the same icon as HBC]. This type of scenario (and I assure you, it will be a very common scenario - being under an extreme time constraint to loot an item) is not possible under "randomized" looting. In fact, you've changed the whole dynamic of item loot and taken away all of the emotion from it. That's the best way to describe it using 1 use case.

This guy has it right, 1v1 with no other players around sure..if you killed someone you could take all day looting a corpse..but not when it was 5v5 or even 2v1! you only had time to have a quick loot check before dieing or having to run.

Also what about portal campers? or zone entrance/exit campers, if i have 100% chance of looting an item off someone i might as well sit on a portal with my buddy and wait for someone to port in and kill them before they finish loading in or sit outside a zone waiting for low health players to zone out and kill them? The no bagging items rule would be silly and i don't think many people would enjoy playing in that kinda scenario, it way too imbalanced.

[Something'Witty]

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We do have beta phases for experimentation.

I dig it! Let Nilbog do whatever he wants with initial beta, and then give feedback on tweaks etc. That being said, can we stop posting new item loot threads...
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