Looting

I hope the design will play to both sides, I try to work with my friends, we all gather loot and split it later.
I would not call it compete, I would call it cooperation.
That way players get the item that their character type might need the most.
And making sure the newer players get some good items and loot to help them move through the game.
Everyone getting loot for themselves removes that cooperation.
Always nice to come back from a hunt and everyone piles up their loot in the middle and then let players pick what they want.
Maybe that don't work for some but most of the guilds I've been in worked great.

 

Ninja looting should of course be permitted if you prefer playing that version of SOTA. It's your responsibility as a player to defend your loot in that game.
Harsh?
Yes and it sure isnt for everyone but it should definetly be an option in SOTA.

 

It really depends on who you run with.

If everyone is friendly and courteous, and no one is inclined to behave like a jerk, then sure, allowing players to pick whatever they want and trade loot between themselves is a good idea.

But, absent that, I find personal loot to be the best option. I have seen too many fights over loot in group situations, and a system that prevents that is just too enticing for me in any situation where I don't completely trust everyone else in the group.

In a similar vein, if you had a perfect ruler; one that is skilled, fair, incorruptible, and have the best interests of the nation in mind; the best system of government would be an absolutist dictatorship. But, in the real world, where people can fail or even be corrupted, that system is usually a recipe for disaster.

 

And thus the multiplayer experience.
Sometimes a disaster and sometimes a benefit for everyone.
Learning to work together does bring together or divide people.
But I still lean towards that type of play.

 

Just thinking on that a little more the situation comes to mind; someone who has no intention of PvPing is throwing down with some liches only to have his/her kills ninja-looted by someone looking for a PvP fight. While some players surely have no problem with it because they are happy to go at it with the ninja-looter in order to get their loot the player that doesn't want to PvP is left with no recourse. Any ideas for how to keep loot relatively open without this sort of conflict of play styles?

 

modes of play?
1. single - offline
2. single - online
3. friends - choose type of loot
4. open online - no pvp - every person who contributes to kill a npc gets their own loot bag - players cannot loot your body
5. open online - pvp - every person who contributes to kill a npc gets their own loot bag - players cannot loot your body
6. open online - pvp - open loot - players can loot your body - aoe spells effect everyone

the open loot mode would call for some kind of criminal system

 

If this has already been discussed elsewhere feel free just link the thread(s). I'm wondering if everyone getting their own loot bag has been shown to have or could reasonably be expected to have negative unintended/unexpected consequences for the health of the economy?

 

Works fine in every game that has it. GuildWars2 is a recent MMO example that uses personal loot.

 

@vjek Good to know. There's still something about it that feels off though. I guess I'de just have to play in open-PvP, open-loot mode to get my 'realism fix.'

 

I'm a strong supporter of not giving players currency and finished usable items, directly from loot. Resources of all kinds, though, sure. Salvageable equipment, sure. Repairable equipment, sure. But nothing that you can equip directly after you take it off a corpse.

That way, resources become the primary value. Metal, Stone, Cloth, Wood, Leather, Edibles, Reagents, Body parts, Bones, etc.

Throw in triggered events and NPCs that require resources and/or crafted finished products, and you've got a good starting point for keeping players occupied.

Personally, if such a system were in place, I don't see the need to differentiate between NPC and PC looting, with the caveat that it would require ancillary mechanisms for strategically removing PC opponents from the field of battle.
What I mean by that is that if by killing a player you remove them from combat for a significant period of time, do you need to loot/destroy their stuff, when the reason you looted all their stuff (in the past) was to strategically remove them from combat? I'd be content having the bonus of the strategic value of the PC kill, myself.

 

If the reason you were fighting was to win a battle then loot would mean little.
If on the other hand you make your living by killing and looting other players then yea you would need to loot.

Maybe most battles should take place in a mode like number 5 (above) to get more players involved.
But in some type of criminal system I think we need a mode like number 6.

 

I personally wouldn't argue nothing. You should be able to take a sword or dagger from a slain enemy and use it. It would be ok for the enemy to have a small coinpurse with him, or a slightly larger one if he's a wealthy man. As long as getting wealthy by looting is hard work.

To that end, I'd also support damage and possible breakage in battle, and injuries that don't heal automatically within a few seconds and with no treatment, because you'd want there to be a cost to battling even if you survive.

 

I don't think that people not having an easy time looting my kills ruins the economy. I could see open PvP characters having open loot. If I start killing NPC mobs and some guy runs up and starts looting them while I am though, that's just gonna make for bad feelings all around. It doesn't MATTER if I *can* attack him or not. If I'm not interested in PvP tonight, there should be no way on earth for someone to force me into it. That includes looting my kills without my permission.

 

I sort of liked it when you were in a group or people around you that you had to watch them so they would not steal all the loot example Borderlands 1 and 2. I also have the same feeling when loot is instanced Père Fouettard

 

I think it's a foregone conclusion that the loot will have to be done in a series of options, much like the grouping and the PvP. There is no way to please even a significant portion of those on these forums with any single method. That being the case, I think the only question should be, how far can the individual player or group take it. Open looting and Free for all loot is easy. It's the group distributed, only for me, automagicially in my bags type stuff that is debatable, and the question is, should the individual players be able to select those styles of loot?

 

I can see some benefit to that as a general trend in loot but it seems too restrictive as a hard and fast rule. Is there already another thread on that? If not maybe there should be?

 

Looting a "blue" body flag you a criminal and you can be attacked by anyone, worked very well in UO and will work just as well in SOTA.

The ones that dont like this ninja looting will most likely have other options so i dont see the problem.

Ninja looting will only affect the ones that prefer that gamestyle.

Same with full loot and on and on............

 

I don't think there's been a thread on loot quality (I searched, didn't see anything similar) yet. How the loot is generated and how it gets into the bags seems a very minor gameplay choice when compared to all the design decisions of a game. What you loot is an important and fundamental design issue that I don't think Portalarium has talked about.

I look at it this way: What's the goal of what you give the character? If the goal is to immerse them in the world and open up several multi-step task loops , you can give them resources via a variety of items. If the goal is to give them cash, and sell-able items, that's extremely easy. The easy way has been done since Meridian 59 and the majority of single player RPGs. Typically you get your loot, you sell it, then you buy better loot. Meh?

I just think there's an opportunity to make it deeper. I don't necessarily have a problem with killing an orc and finding a full suit of broken armor. I just don't think it's a good idea that every piece of that be instantly usable, and have stats/bonuses on it. Economically, that's a very short loop. Now, if you had to repair that armor (player consumes resources) before you could use it, and optionally add stats to it as part of an enchantment process, essentially that broken orc armor might cut out a few crafting steps. And it may be that because it was broken orc armor, it is damaged from use faster than something crafted by a character from scratch.

In practice, what this means is that if you loot a potentially good item off a corpse, you always must return to town to get an NPC or PC to repair the item, and you must either provide money, resources, or both to get it into a useable state. Further, you could optionally adds stats to the item via enchantment. This consumes time, resources, (potentially quite a bit with enchantment) and allows for meaningful choice. If those are design goals, this is a way to achieve them.

Also, it may be that certain armor appearances might be available via this method, so you can build a set of very rough looking armor, but have the stats you want on it, but you have to go and get the broken pieces from your targets, first. Or, there may be appearance slots, and once repaired to be equip-able, that style of armor can go right in there.

On the other hand, salvaging everything you get for raw resources and building what you want from scratch, too, seems reasonable, if you want the task loop to have even more steps.

And it all fits in either single player or multi-player. Also, my personal view is that all raw resources, no matter the source (harvests, loot, or salvage), should never be directly sellable to NPCs for currency.

 

So in general we agree. I think it makes sense to have (perhaps the majority of?) amor/weapons and similar items looted need repair. But I think all of such loot needing to be repaired before being usable is going too far - to the point of needlessly detracting from realism.
On a related note, I really like the idea of being able to collect a set of armor/clothing/weapons that is specific, for example, to an orc tribe or band of pirates or _______ <- pick your fancy. Could they also be ingredients needed for a disguise kit? Here's the place to discuss it.

 

Would you accept a mechanic whereby if the item had no stats (it was plain) it might not need repair, but every item with stats, modifiers, bonuses, enchantments, enhancements of any kind, always needed repair before it could be equipped?