Looting

Speaking strictly for myself, one of the things I love doing in MMO's is building my character so that I CAN face multitudes of NPC enemies all at once. The entire point is to be able to handle not just one, but eight or nine, and still win. This incidentally tends to make me a tank player. This being the case, and knowing there are more out there like me, if it CAN be done in SotA, then I'm one who will do it, and at that point, YES, I will kill HUNDREDS of enemies per hour. If they all drop full loot, and I can find a conveniently placed vendor...

 

Hoy, now -- not only is gravity your friend, it _always_ works. (Speaking as a jujitsuka.) Making it more variable -- stronger, weaker, along differing vectors -- THAT would be fun.

Just think of ways you could use variable gravity to shake the loot free of the containers/pockets (Nod to Firelotus.)

 

I don't suppose you ever ran a mana/stam/life leeching whirlwind attacking dexxer in UO for champion spawns (or a sampire for that matter)? For me, that was the pinnacle of slaying. 50 minutes and you've dropped over a thousand corpses (and one champion if you're in Despise).

 

I usually play a tank as well, and in most games, the tradeoff is you can take on many mobs at the same time, but killing them is sloooooow, because your DPS is usually looooow. That's why I usually team up with someone spec'ed for DPS. I tank 'em, they kill 'em, and our number of kills per unit time spent together is vastly improved over what either of us could do alone.

 

Not in UO, no, but I've build similar designs in every game that lets me, self sustain in solo mode is one of my first wants when designing a build, if I can carry it to self sustain in PvP and party work, I consider it a good build.

 

My typical gameplay in most MMOs involves making survivable builds, often based on tank classes (though not always, sometimes AOE+CC does wonders), and finding how many mobs I could take at once (a process that typically involves plenty of deaths since I tend to go over my limit constantly to find it and see if I have improved, thus my dislike for death penalties). I loved doing the "kill 10 skeletons" or similar daily quests, where we were supposed to kill them in ones or twos, as a single, epic battle instead

It does mean that I went from empty bags to full bags very fast even when in games where enemies don't drop the gear they are using. If SotA allows killing on that same scale, and has full NPC loot, going back and forth between the field and the NPC vendor (or the crafting station to slag the loot) will get old VERY fast.

 

I'm trying to remember back over the years of using salvaging in other persistent multiplayer online games.. As far as I recall, typically, it doesn't require a crafting station. Generally it's meant to be used "in the field", rather than only in town. Often it doesn't require anything at all except the skill, while sometimes it requires a consumable "salvaging kit" that stacks up into at least units of one hundred, for easy bag storage.
I don't think the Portalarium developers would use such a punitive mechanic for salvaging. I could be wrong, but it seems an easy enough thing to change, if players don't like it.

 

Yeah, I'm not really in favor of full loot, I suspect that a fair number of enemies will be using "equipment" that nobody in their right mind would want to salvage OR pay money for. I prefer the model where your character is picking over the corpse, finding only those items or body parts that are of high enough quality to be WORTH looting. Yes that dragon had over a thousand scales, twenty talons and eighty teeth. But it never brushed, it had horrible cavities, many teeth and claws were chipped from use, there was a fungal infection in both rear claws that ruined the quality, and I myself put holes all through it's hide, not to mention not all dragon scales are grown equal...

So when I kill and loot it, that juvenile dragon yields, say, 3 talons, 5 teeth, and two square feet of dragonscale hide. Things like that could pile up in the bags for quite a while before I felt the need to vendor, or to store, or was ready to craft.

 

I personally prefer realistic looting. i.e. a bear doesnt drop a sword. Also, no instanced loot. However, if you fight a knight.. he is probably wearing gloves, helmet, chest, legs boot. What if he drops all of these? That would maintain realism by not having him drop 4 gorgets, one for each party member, but also provide enough loot for the group.

If someone steals your loot, kill them and put up a note in town center warning other groups about that person. If there is some recourse like this only the most daring will risk their lives/gear/rep to steal a piece they can't use.

 

If someone stealing my loot is possible I will likely just never play with other random players. Single Player Online and Friends Play Online modes, plus Hirelings, means that, if dealing with others isn't pleasant - which can happen if the game doesn't have systems in place to prevent douchebag behavior - the player can just go back to only ever meeting people he fully trusts while sacrificing little to no content.

I don't like getting into this kind of conflict with other players, so killing him is not an option, at all, for me; it would bring me no satisfaction, and wouldn't reduce the previous frustration at being subjected to douchebag behavior.

 

Which is why personal loot has been used in the last couple of persistent multiplayer online games. It completely eliminates that social misbehavior. People don't even think about it anymore, and move on to things more fun.

 

If you object so strongly, that is probably the best choice for you. How fortunate that SotA will make this style of game play entirely by consent, so that players who prefer full loot/open PvP and take advantage of that style of game play.

 

I'm with you Ultimike. The one thing I'll add is that some people feel disappointed when NPC's don't drop ALL of their possible gear. However, I think it's reasonable to say that if you killed a knight, some of their armor was probably damaged beyond use.

 

Even if it is damaged beyond use, it can still be useful as salvage. Give me the freedom to take it, or leave it, as I see fit.

 

I could see that working well if they are allowing for the recycling of materials, which I think was suggested in one of the craft forums as a solution to help stop the world from being swamped with low easily crafted items made while trying to improve skills.

 

There are hundreds of realistic reasons why a bear might drop items it couldn't be "using". Maybe that weapon was stuck in the bear's side. Aren't you lucky that someone wore it down for you first? OR maybe the bear is carrying gems because it ate someone, who had gems in their pouch, and the bear hasn't poo'd them out yet. OR maybe the bear has just killed the knight, and is standing over his corpse. So it isn't that you are looting the bear, it's that you are looting his victim. I'm much less concerned about what mob drops what loot, than I am concerned about having the dev's have to police themselves every time they want to field a new mob animation, lest players complain that it isn't dropping whatever bit of gear they want and can see on it's animation. Let the devs decide what loot a mob should drop, instead of demanding that they give you everything they possibly could. If you don't like the drops, go kill something else.

 

Are we saying that the person who got killed has to get new armor anyways since it is now ruined.
Why not just let someone take it then?
And if it is just a NPC who cares if they lose their clothes or not.

 

When it comes to looting NPCs it's more a matter of balance, and determining what is more fun for the players. Looting half a dozen items from every NPC you defeat can make finding what is worthwhile in all that was looted, and getting rid of the rest, tedious and perhaps even frustrating.

 

How many of us took the clothes from the NPC's in UO.
Maybe if you needed a new set, or you somehow killed Santa Clause.

 

I frequently took things like that from NPC brigands and cut clothes up for bandages and shoes for leather. Waste not, want not.
I did not, however, take bottles of wine and cider from orcs. A little bit of that goes a long way.