Autosplit System: P99 vs Live

[beeshma_nameless]

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

In practice what happens is the casters are medding because they are a little LOM, then puller is out pulling, the rogue is trying to BW up and the bard or ranger is looting everything.

That's a generalization, but that's often what is happening with this new system. Not only do the greedheads get the items, but they also get a bulk of the cash. If the split was more even it would be less of an issue, instead of one more straw on the camels back.

That is true about casters not getting their quota of looting in an FFA situation - where with the classic split it would still even out. What we did in many PUG was give a few gems or so to the casters who were buried in their book most of the time.

I played a human monk and most PUGS would give me PP for my gold/siver/plat often during the grouping so I dont go over the weight limit and hit the AC penalty (was it 14? dont remember).

No means a perfect division of loot, but for me, that was one of the quirks of EQ - grouping was a lot more than just strength in numbers, It identified the players, reputations ingame (for what it is/was worth) - It was very soon before a loot hungry person was known (this was way before the "clerics get all gem drops as they need to buy reagents for symbols" uproars )

My 2cp.

[Lagaidh]

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

There was no downconvert system in any live era in which I played. Monks would rather not be loaded down with small change. It's as simple as that.

/nod My memory over things like this isn't sharp. Never spent a lot of time thinking about it.

[Uthgaard]

If there was an upconvert system, you wouldn't be able to do half the quests in the game.

Some of you are acting as if you're at the mercy of the split system, and all common sense and personal accountability have been stripped from you as a result; taking with it, your ability to receive a fair portion of the split.

[Revol]

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

If there was an upconvert system, you wouldn't be able to do half the quests in the game.

Some of you are acting as if you're at the mercy of the split system, and all common sense and personal accountability have been stripped from you as a result; taking with it, your ability to receive a fair portion of the split.

Erm.. IS THIS SMED?

I don't know what happened lately, but I went from routinely getting GP in groups to getting mostly 0 0 0 0. I would usually get SOMETHING in a group, even when it's just SP and CP. The split message changed so something must have been done.

When I do loot I get like 4gp and smaller coin. Something has to be screwed up somewhere.

How would having an upconvert for cash only effect quests?

[guineapig]

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

I have spoke with nilbog about the system, and in interest of common fairness for all group members, and the lack of knowing just exactly the system worked in classic because we know it didn't result in the looter having THAT much of an advantage, we will be changing it to downconvert leftover coins downward until left with only copper remains. This means that the most the looter could ever get over the rest of the group is 5 copper.

Thank you sir!

[Droop]

I remember the looter getting the lion's share, BUT not by that huge of a margin. You'd still always get close to the same amount when you weren't looting, but the looter did have a little bit better advantage.

Now it seems 90% of the time no one gets anything unless they are ML'r. Have mechanics changed on live at all or are they the same as classic?

[Shiftin]

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

If you implement a system that downconverts coins for the sake of fairness, you'll pretty much have to reinstate the self-split upconvert. People will end up with so many coins on them that anything else will be unplayable. You will practically never see platinum or even gold coins in groups anymore, because mobs very rarely drop enough of these to be split fully among a whole group, and the result will be that a gaming session's cash loot ends up as 30g, 2000s, 5000c. Any cash drop of 1-5g in a full group would become worthless as noone can group for any length of time without having to destroy the staggering amount of silver that would convert into. You'd have to either destroy all the cash you get or accept being perma-rooted in groups as logic dictates that the current (seemingly appropriate) amounts of cash dropped by mobs would, in an even-handed downconvert system, almost always end up as ten times as much silver and copper. The original autosplit system at least ensured that the currency dropped by mobs stayed intact until exchanged in a bank. In places like SolA, Mistmoore etc., the typical mob cash drop will be something like 5g 8s 6c. All of this would turn into silver and copper, and people will have to destroy it in order to play. If anyone is concerned about low-levels being able to make money, or with promoting playability through a non-classic invention, please first consider this.

The mob would have to drop 6 or more gold for anyone to get more than silver, which is far from the norm even in level 30s dungeons, and you simply won't see platinum until you go to sell the loot and make change in the bank. Since this would absolutely require the old solo-split trick, you would have to implement two completely non-classic systems purely for the sake of convenience where it was never a problem in the original game. I fail to see the benefit in that. I was led to believe that any non-classic feature found here was due to not being able to change it, or it having absolutely no influence on gameplay. This would be neither, and it would "fix" a "problem" that we lived with just fine. People have just become complacent.

The perceived problem is completely circumvented by occasionally looting yourself rather than depending entirely on others to do it for you. If you can't take three seconds every few minutes to click on a handful of corpses, you're too lazy to get loot. This is how it always worked. It was never a problem. No invented system needs to be implemented to cater to those who have forgotten how the game was played.

This is an incredibly important and correct post. If you downconvert, you will loot almost zero platinum off old world mobs, ever, in a full group. Below sol b and lguk, you will rarely loot gold. The rest of the coin adds up so quickly it has to be destroyed. You have to add back in the splitting upconvert function if you add in a downconverting function.

[Live4Redline]

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

I wasn't just making it up:

The problem is... the loot tables are still wrong.

You can't fix this and NOT fix the loot tables because it just doesn't work right. The mobs are carrying a "Rounded Up Cash Amount" and not a "Coin Count"... and your trying to divide a cash amount by its coins when all the coins have been up converted to a cash amount. It just doesn't work.

In a full group the most you can get from a split is 1g,1s,1c unless you get lucky and find a mob with over 6p and then you'll get 1p,1g,1s,1c. 12p you get 2p,1g,1s,1c. Your seeing allot of 1g or 1s, or 1c. Because the coins on the mobs are not correct.

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

If there was an upconvert system, you wouldn't be able to do half the quests in the game.

Some of you are acting as if you're at the mercy of the split system, and all common sense and personal accountability have been stripped from you as a result; taking with it, your ability to receive a fair portion of the split.

Ya a global up convert system in place would destroy everything which is why in live they ended up changing allot of things to except 3250g [OR] 325p. But thats a whole nothing subject and doesn't really have anything to do with this. There was already an up convert system in place for the autosplit before the group patch and it didn't hurt anything. And you can fix this problem with a down convert system JUST TO SPLIT the money evenly and thats it. It'll be like like it was before patch but with out the ability to /split money in the effect to turn copper into gold (<-- Up converting *Exploit).

And Uthgaard go check out a mid range group of six somewhere and watch the loot on different mobs. And you'll notice that your only getting 1s, nothing, 1c, nothing, nothing, 1s, nothing, 1c, nothing, 1g (OH SNAP), 1c, nothing. Its just not right mate. (And them nothings are NOT from people looting the corpse twice its because the mob didn't drop more then 6g or 6s or 6c.)

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

This is an incredibly important and correct post. If you downconvert, you will loot almost zero platinum off old world mobs, ever, in a full group. Below sol b and lguk, you will rarely loot gold. The rest of the coin adds up so quickly it has to be destroyed. You have to add back in the splitting upconvert function if you add in a downconverting function.

We were already using a down convert system before this patch. So it would all depend on how you did the down convert. If you try and still down convert the coins you may run into "Over Coining" but if you just down convert the cash value like it was done previously you wouldn't have any issues at all but you also wont have the looter getting more money then the rest of the group like it was in classic. I'm not sure how Rogean is planning to do it so that's just one of them wait and see things. But "Over Coining" is still a better system then what is currently in place. At least if you have the coins you can do something with them over the not getting any coins at all unless you /loot it.



Personally I think down splitting the looted cash amount and removing the "/split exploit" is the best route since we can't completely mimic a classic coin drop.

[Uthgaard]

There are a series of incorrect assumptions here.

1. The vast majority of the wealth that enters the game, comes from items on corpses, and not coin, by an incredibly large margin.
2. The only really valid point is that coin is getting rounded up. There are very few NPCs in the game that dropped substantial amounts of coin. It is very easy to cause that to happen, without it being rounded up.
3. People have been adapting to these conditions for the last 11 years. If you are broke because you can't get off your duff every once in a while or choose who you group with, it's due to more than the split system, and could be equated to natural selection.
4. It's substantially less work to manually set coin bounds for the few NPCs who dropped substantial coin, and more logical than implementing a series of band-aids on top of band-aids that are being suggested as a result of a nearly non-issue being blown out of proportion.

The more vocal concern is over the individual's ability to get their fair share in various worst case scenarios as a perpetual victim - referring to "the looter" as some sort of hypothetical automaton present in every group, eating everyone else's share of coin while the rest are rendered helpless, unable to loot a corpse themselves.

But there was a very valid point raised about the issue with downconverting, one that would impact all groups negatively. Those who have raised the issue with coin split have cited coin drops as the issue. This has been a pressing enough concern for some of you to write several pages. Identifying a problem is easy. I challenge you to expend similar effort identifying a solution. We all know about giants. List some others.

[Kenuw]

As I remember it for the example given of :

This means if you have a full 6 person group and the mob drops 5 plat, 13 gold, 3 silver, and 10 copper, everyone but the looter gets 0 plat, 2 gold, 0 silver, and 1 copper, and the looter gets 5 plat, 3 gold, 3 silver, and 5 copper.

Player 1-5 gets 1 plat, Player 6 gets none.
Player 1 gets 3 gold, players 2-6 get 2 gold.
Player 1 gets 3 silver, players 2-6 get 2 silver.
Player 1-4 gets 2 copper, Players 5 and 6 gets 1 copper

Where player 1 is the looter, the rule being that the individual coin levels were round robin'ed, until there was none of that coin type left, and it moved to the next coin.