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Originally posted by Banaghran

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Originally posted by lizardbones I gave a solution to the questions asked*. They weren't even new solutions. They are solutions that are already implemented in running games, and they are games that are doing well for themselves. The solutions work as intended. None of the issues you've mentioned concerning Diablo (any version) has anything to do with private loot. The amount of loot, the randomization of loot and the loot itemization are all issues that exist with and without private loot piles and are all issues that are addressed separately from private loot piles. * How do you stop kill stealing and loot stealing in an open world game? The answer is that if you don't want players to do something, you don't allow them to do something. If you don't want players to steal kills or loot, you don't allow them to do it.  

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You will remember that i replyed to your "they will make it impossible" statement.

Which your original suggestions were themselves far from.

Well, if you want to argue that a feature that increases the amount of loot has no effect on the amount of loot, then be my guest, i will stay back here, at the edge of insanity, making the occasional step back and forth as usual :)

Flame on!

:)

 

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

small group dungeons (like in DDO, WOW, LOTRO, DCUO, .....)

arena/battleground pvp (some smaller than BF3)

raids (biggest in WOW is 25 man ... even at 40 man .. it is smaller than BF3 battles)

and not to mention SINGLE PLAYER quests and daily quests.

In fact, the only massive part is the city where people wait for their dungeons/pvp to pop .. and that is just a massive lobby with a massive AH.

So much of the gameplay experience that many players spend most of their time on are not "massive" (like a PS2 hundreds on hundreds battle) in *many* MMOs, may be it is time for MMOs to abandon its roots, and embrace a broader definition. In fact, the texas holden online game i just played is as massive as a MMO. YOu can gamble with 8 people, which has more players than heroic dungeons ... and the lobby is as massive as orgrimmar in WOW.

 

Correction, much of WoW clone and non MMO gameplay is non massive.

Real MMOs have massive gameplay.

You can claim New York City isn't massive.  It is made up of small groups of people queing for travel, dining, and entertainment.  We can say it is just a glorified lobby city.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Banaghran

Private loot IS part of the problem in D3, much more items are introduced into the game, thus the items have to be more useless, more random, so that not everyone is decked out right away in the best items.

And pardon me if i take offense in being told that a full stash of yellows that can be only vendored has to do with playing a Diablo game...

Flame on!

:)

So? Dropping 100 yellows and then you get a rare legendary (or 100M worth yellow) is the same as getting a rare raid drop after playing for 50 hours.

You get a good item every 50 hours of play.

But you dont. The legendary is worth <1m in most cases and my definition of good is much broader than "100m item".

Even in raids you see good drops very often, they are just not for your class, or you have stronger ones.

You maybe get a item every 50 hours you might want to wear, if you would not have already something better bought from the ah, or you would be a different class.

Which is extremely low.

Flame on!

:)

So in any case, you get a good upgrade every 50 hours or so (depending on your gear level, of course .. it is faster when you have little stuff) ... whether it is a 100M item that you can cash in to get something good on the AH, or a good item drop (which i have done both).

I thought people are for slower progression. YOu really want a good drop every hour? Think about the horrible gear inflation if that is teh case.

A good upgrade does not mean selling for 100m (which is at best 2 medium upgrades past mp3 on farm), as you point out, so you can potentially spend months without good drops, 50 hours are 2weeks - 1 month of playtime, and people do.

A good drop every hour..., this old song again, yes, i would like a item that has correct mainstat for item type, vit, resall and a random dps affix, yes, something that is now traded for 30-100k every now and then, even an hour.

Call me a idealist :)

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Banaghran

A good drop every hour..., this old song again, yes, i would like a item that has correct mainstat for item type, vit, resall and a random dps affix, yes, something that is now traded for 30-100k every now and then, even an hour.

Call me a idealist :)

Flame on!

:)

 

I believe, on these forums, that kind of system is refered to as Easy Mode. :)

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Banaghran

A good drop every hour..., this old song again, yes, i would like a item that has correct mainstat for item type, vit, resall and a random dps affix, yes, something that is now traded for 30-100k every now and then, even an hour.

Call me a idealist :)

Flame on!

:)

 

I believe, on these forums, that kind of system is refered to as Easy Mode. :)

Hmm, so gaining 0.5% of a level every hour while gaining loot and wealth is grind, but a item that has essentially no value other than being a "nice drop" is easy mode.

Interesting.

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by lizardbones
Your response was that I made half @ssed suggestions. While that is technically a response, it's really short on details.

Private loot piles don't increase or decrease the amount of loot. The developer decides how much loot drops. If Blizzard wanted less loot to drop in D3, then less loot would drop in D3. They aren't limited by having private loot piles. Because, you know, they determine everything that happens.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but kill stealing is when a player A needs mob X and player B tags or kills mob X before player A can tag or kill them, yes? So if player A can hit mob X after player B has hit mob X, and both players get credit for the kill, then that makes kill stealing pretty impossible, yes? If you scale the damage done to the mob based on the player level, rather than the mob level, then it becomes even harder for player B to kill a mob before player A has a change to hit it...player B can no longer one shot mobs that player A needs.

Loot stealing is when player A kills mob X, and some loot drops, then player B comes along and takes the loot. Well, if the loot pile belongs to player A, and player B can't see or touch it, then player B stealing player A's loot is not impossible, yes?

These are solutions that have been implemented in other games already. They address the issues of kill stealing and loot stealing. I didn't suggest them because I made them up myself, I suggested them because developers have already done these things, and they worked as intended.

 

Fair enough for the response.

As for private loot piles, private loot in d3 mean full loot for everyone, in this sense a group of 4 gets 4x the amount of items that an group of 1. Thus private loot in this case increases the amount of loot. Which is in line of my argument that it is never that easy as "just make it impossible", they did, but the execution contributed to another problem.

The rest is academic, "if" blizz wanted this and that, if blizz wanted to create a good game, they would not have released d3 so unfinished :)

I have no problem with your suggestions per se, we could maybe talk about how you want to (or respectively, how it is if the system works somewhere) divide loot or how to avoid the mischief of randomly increasing the level of mobs for noobs, or some timeout on loot piles (i do enjoy picking up stuff after bots after reporting them, much better than just reporting them  :) )

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Banaghran

Private loot IS part of the problem in D3, much more items are introduced into the game, thus the items have to be more useless, more random, so that not everyone is decked out right away in the best items.

And pardon me if i take offense in being told that a full stash of yellows that can be only vendored has to do with playing a Diablo game...

Flame on!

:)

So? Dropping 100 yellows and then you get a rare legendary (or 100M worth yellow) is the same as getting a rare raid drop after playing for 50 hours.

You get a good item every 50 hours of play.

But you dont. The legendary is worth <1m in most cases and my definition of good is much broader than "100m item".

Even in raids you see good drops very often, they are just not for your class, or you have stronger ones.

You maybe get a item every 50 hours you might want to wear, if you would not have already something better bought from the ah, or you would be a different class.

Which is extremely low.

Flame on!

:)

So in any case, you get a good upgrade every 50 hours or so (depending on your gear level, of course .. it is faster when you have little stuff) ... whether it is a 100M item that you can cash in to get something good on the AH, or a good item drop (which i have done both).

I thought people are for slower progression. YOu really want a good drop every hour? Think about the horrible gear inflation if that is teh case.

A good upgrade does not mean selling for 100m (which is at best 2 medium upgrades past mp3 on farm), as you point out, so you can potentially spend months without good drops, 50 hours are 2weeks - 1 month of playtime, and people do.

A good drop every hour..., this old song again, yes, i would like a item that has correct mainstat for item type, vit, resall and a random dps affix, yes, something that is now traded for 30-100k every now and then, even an hour.

Call me a idealist :)

Flame on!

:)

 

So whether there are a boat loads of useless yellow is pretty much irrelevant to this discussion. Whether they are yellow, or white .. makes zero difference. The only thing that matters is how often you get something "useful".

And i disagree with your assessment. I am farming MP5 now .. and my next upgrade (for roughly 10-20k dps increase) is in the 100M range. So 100M ... is pretty good at least for my toon. And last time i check, my DPS is roughly at the less than 5% quantile (roughly top 5000 in US, less than top 2000 wiz) ... so i will guess many players are getting upgrade FASTER than me.

At the end of the day, it is really about the speed of upgrade. In a WOW raid scenario, it is easily 1-2 weeks before a single upgrade .. i don't see D3 as much slower. 

I just forget, the discussion is about loot stealing .. in that aspect ... D3 and LFR loot system obviously eliminated the problem.

Now we can discuss the speed of loot drop, but that is obivously an independent issue. Blizz can easily double of halve the loot drop and still maintain the private loot.

Personally, i like private loot. No need to fight over loot .. and eliminate one interaction problem. 

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Originally posted by Banaghran

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Originally posted by lizardbones Your response was that I made half @ssed suggestions. While that is technically a response, it's really short on details. Private loot piles don't increase or decrease the amount of loot. The developer decides how much loot drops. If Blizzard wanted less loot to drop in D3, then less loot would drop in D3. They aren't limited by having private loot piles. Because, you know, they determine everything that happens. Correct me if I'm wrong, but kill stealing is when a player A needs mob X and player B tags or kills mob X before player A can tag or kill them, yes? So if player A can hit mob X after player B has hit mob X, and both players get credit for the kill, then that makes kill stealing pretty impossible, yes? If you scale the damage done to the mob based on the player level, rather than the mob level, then it becomes even harder for player B to kill a mob before player A has a change to hit it...player B can no longer one shot mobs that player A needs. Loot stealing is when player A kills mob X, and some loot drops, then player B comes along and takes the loot. Well, if the loot pile belongs to player A, and player B can't see or touch it, then player B stealing player A's loot is not impossible, yes? These are solutions that have been implemented in other games already. They address the issues of kill stealing and loot stealing. I didn't suggest them because I made them up myself, I suggested them because developers have already done these things, and they worked as intended.  

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Fair enough for the response.

As for private loot piles, private loot in d3 mean full loot for everyone, in this sense a group of 4 gets 4x the amount of items that an group of 1. Thus private loot in this case increases the amount of loot. Which is in line of my argument that it is never that easy as "just make it impossible", they did, but the execution contributed to another problem.

The rest is academic, "if" blizz wanted this and that, if blizz wanted to create a good game, they would not have released d3 so unfinished :)

I have no problem with your suggestions per se, we could maybe talk about how you want to (or respectively, how it is if the system works somewhere) divide loot or how to avoid the mischief of randomly increasing the level of mobs for noobs, or some timeout on loot piles (i do enjoy picking up stuff after bots after reporting them, much better than just reporting them  :) )

Flame on!

:)

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Originally posted by lizardbones

 

Each player gets a chance at a good piece of gear when they drop the big mob. Most of the gear, while of "yellow" quality, is still garbage. The players didn't get a loot drop, they got a pre-vendor drop that they aren't expected to keep. The players still have to run and re-run a particular boss or section of the game until they get a piece of gear that they want to keep. Private loot piles don't make a substantial change in game play between D2 and D3. To be honest, this is the first I've heard anyone complain about private loot or too many drops in D3. Like GW2, I sit with people who play the game and won't shut up about it. This has never come up before.

But keep in mind, I answered two very specific questions with two very specific answers. Anything outside those very specific questions wasn't considered because it wasn't part of the questions.

** edit **

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

That you state how it is does not make it ok, does it?

You are not keeping a very close look on the game, forums and broader community if you have never heard and experienced "there are too many useless drops". And, ofcourse i will ask, which particular boss i have to run to get lacunis with crit? :)

Noone claimed it is a substantial change in gameplay, i just claimed it contributes to the problem.

What it changes (together with other mechanics) is the psychological effect of the rewards, and while im coming to a conclusion that some people are too dense to be desensitivized :) , it is the fallout. 

One might, in a tongue-in-cheek way, even suggest that if players would get more often a good drop, they would even stomach fighting over it at this point.

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by nariusseldon

So whether there are a boat loads of useless yellow is pretty much irrelevant to this discussion. Whether they are yellow, or white .. makes zero difference. The only thing that matters is how often you get something "useful".

And i disagree with your assessment. I am farming MP5 now .. and my next upgrade (for roughly 10-20k dps increase) is in the 100M range. So 100M ... is pretty good at least for my toon. And last time i check, my DPS is roughly at the less than 5% quantile (roughly top 5000 in US, less than top 2000 wiz) ... so i will guess many players are getting upgrade FASTER than me.

At the end of the day, it is really about the speed of upgrade. In a WOW raid scenario, it is easily 1-2 weeks before a single upgrade .. i don't see D3 as much slower. 

It is relevant, because people are not machines, you may be one, what do i know, but people in general are not, and they are even less logical thinking than anyone assumes.

You and the devs cannot expect to just say "yellow is the new white, deal with it".

We judge and feel rewards based on our previous rewards and sometimes even arbitrary factors.

To illustrate, you (in a broader sense, meaning "people") will drive across the town for 100 bucks off on a 500 buck dvd player, you will not if it is on a 10k item, yet it is the same 100 bucks.

Similarly, and more to the point, if you drink cheap coke every day, real coke will be a minor improvement in taste (if you like coke, that is), but if you drink water...

In a wow raid scenario you SEE good items drop, it gives people hope and a sense they have accomplished something, which does not come so easy from "yellow gold piles".

I surely hope you farm mp5 for the keys :)

Flame on!

:)

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Originally posted by Banaghran

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Originally posted by lizardbones   Each player gets a chance at a good piece of gear when they drop the big mob. Most of the gear, while of "yellow" quality, is still garbage. The players didn't get a loot drop, they got a pre-vendor drop that they aren't expected to keep. The players still have to run and re-run a particular boss or section of the game until they get a piece of gear that they want to keep. Private loot piles don't make a substantial change in game play between D2 and D3. To be honest, this is the first I've heard anyone complain about private loot or too many drops in D3. Like GW2, I sit with people who play the game and won't shut up about it. This has never come up before. But keep in mind, I answered two very specific questions with two very specific answers. Anything outside those very specific questions wasn't considered because it wasn't part of the questions. ** edit ** Happy New Year Everyone!  

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That you state how it is does not make it ok, does it?

You are not keeping a very close look on the game, forums and broader community if you have never heard and experienced "there are too many useless drops". And, ofcourse i will ask, which particular boss i have to run to get lacunis with crit? :)

Noone claimed it is a substantial change in gameplay, i just claimed it contributes to the problem.

What it changes (together with other mechanics) is the psychological effect of the rewards, and while im coming to a conclusion that some people are too dense to be desensitivized :) , it is the fallout. 

One might, in a tongue-in-cheek way, even suggest that if players would get more often a good drop, they would even stomach fighting over it at this point.

Flame on!

:)

 

 

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Originally posted by nariusseldon
small group dungeons (like in DDO, WOW, LOTRO, DCUO, .....)

arena/battleground pvp (some smaller than BF3)

raids (biggest in WOW is 25 man ... even at 40 man .. it is smaller than BF3 battles)

and not to mention SINGLE PLAYER quests and daily quests.

In fact, the only massive part is the city where people wait for their dungeons/pvp to pop .. and that is just a massive lobby with a massive AH.

So much of the gameplay experience that many players spend most of their time on are not "massive" (like a PS2 hundreds on hundreds battle) in *many* MMOs, may be it is time for MMOs to abandon its roots, and embrace a broader definition. In fact, the texas holden online game i just played is as massive as a MMO. YOu can gamble with 8 people, which has more players than heroic dungeons ... and the lobby is as massive as orgrimmar in WOW.

 

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Just to put on sum perspective, Eve has 50k players on concurrently and usually your the loneliest guy in your corner of space.

People is the problem. they don't want massive anymore.

Originally posted by lizardbones
You've come back around to arguing for letting players steal loot. Which is fine, but again, I didn't respond to a question of whether or not it's a good idea to let players steal loot. I answered the question of how you would stop players from stealing loot.

You can have an open world game where players cannot steal loot from other players. How you set this up depends on every other aspect of your mob killing and looting systems. Those systems would depend on what kind of game you want setup and how you want it to play out.

None of this really has anything to do with the OP. I don't even know why the question was asked. Perhaps the point was that the systems implemented in MMOs can be similar or the same systems implemented in ARPGs and things would tick along just fine because the issues addressed are very similar*.

** edit **
* There's not that much difference between some MMOs and some non-MMOs.

** edit edit **
You can't steal loot in TSW either. For that matter, there aren't many MMORPG where you can steal loot from other players. Which makes me think the kill stealing was more important than the loot stealing part of the question.

 

I did not come around, i meant it as a joke, unless you want to waste 2 paragraphs, that is :)

For me the OP was the guy who claimed "If you want to stop a particular behavior in a virtual world, you make it impossible".

** edit **

"Generic observation which is hardly relevant unless i want to start a discussion about it knowing it is a flamed point round here." :)

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Banaghran

 

It is relevant, because people are not machines, you may be one, what do i know, but people in general are not, and they are even less logical thinking than anyone assumes.

You and the devs cannot expect to just say "yellow is the new white, deal with it".

We judge and feel rewards based on our previous rewards and sometimes even arbitrary factors.

To illustrate, you (in a broader sense, meaning "people") will drive across the town for 100 bucks off on a 500 buck dvd player, you will not if it is on a 10k item, yet it is the same 100 bucks.

Similarly, and more to the point, if you drink cheap coke every day, real coke will be a minor improvement in taste (if you like coke, that is), but if you drink water...

In a wow raid scenario you SEE good items drop, it gives people hope and a sense they have accomplished something, which does not come so easy from "yellow gold piles".

I surely hope you farm mp5 for the keys :)

Flame on!

:)

You are arguing about human conditioning that you have no evidence of. You said "In a wow raid scenario you SEE good items drop, it gives people hope and a sense they have accomplished something"

That is no difference than seeing a good yellow, or a good "green" or "legendary" (which btw, has a MUCH higher chance to be good, if it drops at all) dropped.

Instead of conditioning to see "yellow as good", players are now conditioned to see "trifecta stats" as good. There is little difference ... just a different lable. And after a while, players will be conditioned to that .. in fact, i know i did. I got excited when i see trifect stats (+primary +vit), or a 1200+ dps 1H weapon.

Lastly, i have like 10 inferno machnies now, so key farming is no longer a high priority. In fact, it is hard to get a good roll on the hellfire ring .. it is much better to farm for legendaries (and i got a decent chance in MP5). Not gear enough to solo high MP ubers though. 

Originally posted by Nitth

Just to put on sum perspective, Eve has 50k players on concurrently and usually your the loneliest guy in your corner of space.

People is the problem. they don't want massive anymore.

Why is it a problem? It is just a gaming preference. There is certainly no problem if the devs respond to that desire.

And why would anyone think "massive" is mandatory for fun? Old PnP RPGs are not massive. AD&D is not massive. In fact, most PNP RPG is about small groups of comrades fighting through a dungeon.

Personally i don't think massive is that important for PvE gameplay. The only place that  i enjoy "massive" combat is big pvp battles. (ALthough i do like massive AH/trading, and a massive lobby so you can form small group easily).

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Originally posted by Banaghran

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Originally posted by lizardbones You've come back around to arguing for letting players steal loot. Which is fine, but again, I didn't respond to a question of whether or not it's a good idea to let players steal loot. I answered the question of how you would stop players from stealing loot. You can have an open world game where players cannot steal loot from other players. How you set this up depends on every other aspect of your mob killing and looting systems. Those systems would depend on what kind of game you want setup and how you want it to play out. None of this really has anything to do with the OP. I don't even know why the question was asked. Perhaps the point was that the systems implemented in MMOs can be similar or the same systems implemented in ARPGs and things would tick along just fine because the issues addressed are very similar*. ** edit ** * There's not that much difference between some MMOs and some non-MMOs. ** edit edit ** You can't steal loot in TSW either. For that matter, there aren't many MMORPG where you can steal loot from other players. Which makes me think the kill stealing was more important than the loot stealing part of the question.  

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I did not come around, i meant it as a joke, unless you want to waste 2 paragraphs, that is :)

For me the OP was the guy who claimed "If you want to stop a particular behavior in a virtual world, you make it impossible".

** edit **

"Generic observation which is hardly relevant unless i want to start a discussion about it knowing it is a flamed point round here." :)

Flame on!

:)

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Nitth

Just to put on sum perspective, Eve has 50k players on concurrently and usually your the loneliest guy in your corner of space.

People is the problem. they don't want massive anymore.

Why is it a problem? It is just a gaming preference. There is certainly no problem if the devs respond to that desire.

And why would anyone think "massive" is mandatory for fun? Old PnP RPGs are not massive. AD&D is not massive. In fact, most PNP RPG is about small groups of comrades fighting through a dungeon.

Personally i don't think massive is that important for PvE gameplay. The only place that  i enjoy "massive" combat is big pvp battles. (ALthough i do like massive AH/trading, and a massive lobby so you can form small group easily).

It's massively and not massive. And altough it is not mandatory for "fun" it is mandatory for a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. It is like creating a multiplayer game and not having any actual multiplayer.