How a (short) loot time would help shared combat experiences

Relax! When I said short, I meant short!

This isn't designed to make looting painful or tedious.

Short like this ---



Or give or take --- whatever ended up working the best for the player's experience. Of course, a long time ago on these forums, there was some argument around looting in PvP and some thought about how looting individual items could be a process that would take time and that this could allow a full loot experience. But that's not where I'm going with this.

Its not about immersion either, though that would also be helped as a consequence. I was thinking about this as a way to deal with to three related issues --

* * * * *

* First, that sharing a small hunting scene with non-party members can be painful if the other players don't loot the corpses. The corpses are locked for you and stick around and new enemies don't re-spawn. Of course, this is also true for corpses that don't have loot, but which can be skinned, and I'll get to that.

* Second, in a party experience, people going in for loot might sometimes be a bit annoying, because someone could pick up some loot you're right about to grab. This leads to confusion sometimes, and sometimes frustration that doesn't need to exist. Same thing with chests as with corpses.

* Third, in a PvP zone, the loot from different corpses or other containers might be contested by different players.

* * * * *

First, some comments about the current looting experience.

You can loot from a great distance, as this screenshot demonstrates ---



You can loot while you're fighting, as seen here; again, with the corpse at a distance ---



And you can loot many bodies at the same time --- just sweep your mouse over multiple bodies and press E sequentially to loot sequentially and then press E to Take All. Its also all nearly instant, or as instant as the game allows due to lag delays. All while fighting. Or harvesting.



Players also never have to kneel down to loot, so you never know when someone is looting.

So, if you're playing with someone else, they can stand quite a distance away from you, and even while they're fighting some mob, they can instantly swoop in and loot all the bodies around you. You'll also never know they're looting, because they're still standing up, and maybe even fighting!

* * * * *

Now, this is all convenient for someone going out solo and trying to farm loot as quick as possible and squeeze everything out of his time. It means someone can loot and run from mobs very quickly. It means someone can loot and get to fighting other mobs very quickly.

However, I believe it frustrates shared combat experiences.

I think the reason that a lot of players are logging out of OPO and going to SPO or FPO is to avoid sharing scenes with other people. One aspect of this is that many of the scenes are too small for the amount of people that are being matched for it. So, for instance, playing right after the wipe, I might find six players competing for resources in East Perennial Trail, which is a tiny scene. Another aspect of this is if someone in the scene is going around killing all the corpses but not looting or harvesting them.

First of all, I think its fine for corpses to lock to a specific player for a period of time, but it should be a relatively short period of time and while he's still in the close vicinity of the corpse. So, once a player moves a far distance from a corpse, the lock would turn off; or, after, say, not more than 20 seconds, the lock would turn off. If the player allows this to happen, its his fault.

Now, if rules were relaxed like this and loot time were implemented, would that still frustrate players in some instances because their loot was being stolen? Maybe, in some cases. But there would be advantages.

* You would actually see what the other player was doing, since the game would make their avatar go to the location and kneel down and then loot for a half second or so. You would know they're looting the corpse. The game wouldn't hide it from you.

* They couldn't sweep in and do this while they were engaged in another activity like fighting. They couldn't do this from a distance. They couldn't loot five corpses without taking the time to do so. No ninja'ing.

* * * * *

This would mean that the game would give you an opportunity to communicate with other players and tell them to knock it off. It would also give you an opportunity to interrupt the other player. This would also be helpful in party experiences also, since it would enable to let you work together better with your party members.

The way this would also naturally work is if you started a loot, you'd lock the corpse for an additional amount of time; for the time it took you to loot. This is similar to how shared chests work.

If there is more than one corpse in a small radius, the player should be allowed to loot them all without getting up and kneeling down again, but should still get the quick progress bar.

The devs could also always lengthen the time necessary to loot in a PvP zone, just to make the corpses more contested; ie. so someone could attack another player when he started to loot a corpse that he wanted to claim for himself.

* * * * *

Now, I still believe that the devs need to change the matchmaking logic and stop bringing in six people into small scenes like East Perennial Trail. But if they do that, I think this will also additionally help.

 

(edited for idiocracy) Because it has nothing to do with this idea
I'm Leaving this Post Up Here to Prove that I Should Never Speed Read Posts After Drinking All Night With Local English Teachers Who Talk Funny All I remember is being dumped into a motorcycle's side car by two Fin's who were drunker than I was ...

~Nope, Sorry Redfish, I Don't Like It~

~Maybe Our Looting Time Could Become Somehow More Entertaining, OK~

But this is not OK...
If anyone has ever attempted to clean and skin a deer or loot a corps of anything, that would be like adding tech and taking away realism of combat, because what you're saying here is, "it's so inconvenient to have to hold your ground while looting".

Taken such a direction in our game is like saying we can create something "instantly" which would then have the effect of our crafting time becoming the same instant soup mix. It would also doom our economy into having to adjust itself to an instantaneous world of wanting everything "now" and without ever any toil. Looting while fighting is the same as asking for crafting while fighting, which is not a good idea either

Maybe I'd like to not even have to fight an animal that I know I'd win against as I have a 1000 times before, "so why even have to fight it?" It should just fall down when it sees me and ready for the rest of it's instantaneous gameplay

We have a skill for looting faster and this would only "Cup a Soup" or game
Sorry @redfish ...
~Time Lord~

 

@Time Lord

You might want to Re-read his post cause to me that is not what he is saying.

 

It's only your true friends that would tell you such a thing
OMG! "What do you mean I took a dump in your Tuba" ?
Oh! You said "sit in with the band" !'
~Time Lord~

 

I am not fully sure about the 20 s rule, but I like the general approach.

(And I am always looting longer than 1 sec, due the bag mode anyways. )

The topic needs a statement in the beginning, that it is not about harvesting but looting. Could be missleading.

 

Hmm, I like it how looting is done in Escape from Tarkov.
You have to search through the inventory of the killed enemy. And the longer you search, the more items appear. So you would have to balance how long you want to loot as other enemies might sneak up on you. But the longer you loot the more valuable and rare items you might find.

 

~Modifications, Objections and Agreements to the OP~
Before I de-railed or slammed our friend redfish's thread, it's more about how to "party or group hunt" more than it is about anything else. He's making it more congenial to hunt and loot with others. I totally agree with him on many points, yet the largest point being that party members should be able to see what other party members are looting. The other thing I agree with is that fighting while looting don't mix and should not be able to be done together.

What all I disagree with is the need not to kneel again while looting another target or looting from a distance, "which sounds too gamey and irrational". The speed of looting to me is fine the way it is. However I would add that there needs a change in the character animation while looting is extended beyond tier one looting before any bonuses are added. When these are added, the character needs to react to that added satisfaction in an auditory and animated way.
~Time Lord~

 

Btw, I think there's a PvE side to this too, which is that in some cases, looting should be dangerous. If you've killed two skeletons, and five are approaching, you better loot those two quickly IMO.

But I was honestly thinking about shared combat when I decided to post this.... since how it exists now in the game is basically ninja looting, which I've seen in MMOs including UO.

 

I was thinking about situations where you have a pile of skeleton corpses all on top of each other, so basically in the same physical location. Your player shouldn't have to stand up and get down for every skeleton in the pile.

 

I like that it brings more situational awareness to players by making it obvious what others are doing and enhances the opportunity for better communication as redfish pointed out.

I'd say from a time sync perspective, adding this should facilitate a slightly shorter harvesting time on nodes to balance out the looting aspects of gameplay.

+1

While you're implementing this (please) fix the fact that we cant loot mobs that fall under the surface of the water, like in Greymark and make any part of humanoid mob clickable to loot, not just a small area around the feet.

 

To be honest though, that's how skinning currently works -- you go down and up again for each body, even if they're piled. And you'd probably have to do it this way with looting, too, since the animation is done once the harvest/loot window comes up. And you'd want at least a quick timer per body.

I guess its okay per body; it was just a thought.

 

~To Meet The Need for More Speed~
The animation for the kneeling could use some speeding up and the path finding could as well, yet I figure that these things will speed up as our programmers continue to apply the game polish.
~Time Lord~

 

~How is Risk = Reward and Effort vs Reward Enhanced With the OP Suggestion~?'
(it's not, it's only making many things easier by convenience)

I'm against all shortcuts when it comes to effort vs reward and I also believe in risk = reward... I think we're looking for easy ways out of effort and risk taking.

I think there should be better loot for a player who is out of combat mode.
(risk and attention to what they're doing)

The in combat mode player is "playing it safe" and less attentive to looting.

If we do not trust who we are in party with, then why are we in a party with them?
(Should the game make us safe or the gaming mechanics replace our own instincts?)

This one I'm on the fence with, only because theft is a skill and should not be game supported in any other way.

Reflecting on our game's core principles ...
~Time Lord~

 

@Time Lord,

Not sure what you mean....

The suggestion in the OP is adding risk by getting rid of ninja looting. Currently in the game right now you can press E to loot and then E again to take all. You do this all really quick with little risk, especially since you can do it while using your mouse to swing a sword and pressing your combat glyphs to fire off skills. You can do this with six corpse at once. Having the player walk to the corpse and kneel with an animation and have a quick loot timer -- which is what's suggested in the OP -- would introduce risk.

As for being in parties, the only point is that the looting animation communicates what you're doing with other players instead of hiding it, so it enables better communication between team members.

 

For some reason I must be having a reading comprehension problem with this subject.
Maybe it's the onset of Dyslexia, Dementia, Alzheimer's or Time Dilation !'

Whatever it is, it seems to be my outgoing message with a blockage in my incoming information...
I've finally done it, "It's the event horizon of a coming black hole"... "Will I dream"...?'

~Time Lord~

 

Another thought occurred to me since I posted this topic.

In recent releases, looting a corpse has sometimes had a delay attached to it. As a player, I don't always understand what's going on, and whether the game is letting me loot the corpse or not, or whether I just have to wait around. I'm sure other players have experienced this, too. And I'm sure its something that would confuse a new player.

A loot timer would also help here, because by the time the timer is finished, the delay will likely be over, and then that's when the loot box will come up. It would smooth over issues with lag and make the game UX present a bit better.

 

Also, you get the loot window coming up after you die, sometimes -- its a bit weird from a user's experience point of view.

An interruptable timer would prevent that from happening, because if someone attacked you when you were looting, the loot would be interrupted.

 

I use SPO because I want a game w/o the other players, and already hate what they've done to ruin it. Same with most people in SPO. The original SPO is a major part of what got me interested in this game at all.

 

@Mishikal

You mean for the overland and in towns? You can still basically have SPO in adventure scenes.

Yea, anyway thanks for necro'ing the post I want to to an updated version of this one of these days. I also think players also tend to pick up a lot of junk that they don't want, and its because they never look at what they're looting. Then inventories full of loot you never look at leads to things like accidentally selling artifacts to vendors. And then I also find issues with the whole loot roll system, because it tends to happen when everyone is in combat and can't pay attention to the loot rolls.

I just think the current mechanics are very bad and this would be a way to address a lot of the problems.

 

Yes, exactly.

Agree on all of the above. I have to spend time searching through my loot after a few runs of (X SCENE) and make sure I lock all the artifacts before I go to sell & salvage, etc.