ninja looting ALLOWED?

One of THE most annoying things about mmo gaming is being preserved here. True? A scumbag ninja looter is allowed to steal from my kills, and yet I am not allowed to kill him??

Total bullcrap.

 

There is a small time when only the one who made the kill can loot. After that it's free for all.

 

Last hit gets the kill credit unfortunately and yes there are some bungholes that spend allot of time doing that just to annoy you.

 

I would like if they changes this. The character who caused the most damage in summary should get the kill credit and the right for looting.

 

Yeah... this last hit thing gets exploited.

A number of times I have had people standing around watching me fight and then at the last moment come in to give me a hand at finishing off the kill.

At first I thought they was trying to be helpful until I realized they got the loot.

 

In another MMO, one my personas was a healer. Just about every special event included something that was nearly inaccessible because of rules similar to this. I found it a little frustrating, but its a game and I managed anyway.

 

Last hit gets exploited, but so does determining drop based upon the percentage of DPS each player does... Some classes and builds inherently have better DPS over time, or better bursts of DPS than other builds/classes.

So, you can still be the person who fought that monster... and you've whittled it's health down to 60% or so... but then some rogue-type comes along, unleashes some massive combo, and in the blink of an eye, manages to get 51% of the total DPS... all of your effort was for nothing. Loot going to the player who does the most DPS makes unconventional builds and support classes less common.

Personally, as somebody who prefers to play roles that focus more on crowd control, support, healing... I find that loot mechanics all too often favor "last hit" or "most DPS." I think there are alternatives, but they might have "economic" ramifications that the players of SOTA would object to... so, idk...

Perhaps it's too much "pampering" for the crowd here, but there's a reason the cooperative killing and looting of enemies in GW2 was an almost universally praised departure from MMO's of the past. In several reviews of that game, industry experts and lay people alike agreed that it was refreshing to play an MMO where you aren't cursing your fellow players for "stealing your kill/ore node/etc."

This was because, in that game, as you travel the world and encounter players killing enemies, if you jump in and help kill the enemy... then you BOTH get identical loot, credit for the kill, and the same amount of XP as if you had killed it solo. There's no penalty to either player whatsoever, in fact you both get the benefit of killing the mob faster (so you can move along to kill more that much faster, together or apart...).

It makes encountering people less of an annoyance and more something you are happy about because it means you will progress through a various area/quest/whatever just a bit faster (but the game is super casual, so you often never see the same people again).

Anyway, just my vote for a "third way" (i.e., something like GW2 looting rules) instead of loot rules based upon who makes the last hit or which player does the most DPS...

 

Dude, this is a Test system, and all the "rules" are not in place... One of the features of "selective" multi play is that even in OPO mode, you will only encounter players you have interacted with before or strangers who fit some criteria, such as they are in your local area (physical geography) or you have both flagged yourselves PvP...

So in the future (I know not when), you CAN kill them....

 

Unfortunately, looting rules like GW2 essentially dupe the loot. Just thinking about it for a short time. imagine groups of players running around intentionally only killing 1 mob at a time.. making sure everyone gets a hit in until it dies and getting x3 or x4+ the loot. Also we will be using what could be called a fixed item economy. The game will not be generating new items but using player crafted items almost exclusively making the GW2 style rules impractical.

Here's an idea though.

If a player who is not in a group starts combat with a mob.. whom ever lands the first hit on the mob gets the loot.. assuming the player survives the encounter and the mob dies.

If the player runs off.. as defined by no longer targeting said mob for X amount of time.. looting rights fall to the next player that caused damage.. assuming of course that that player survives and so on.

This idea is less about who "earns" the kill.. but intent to put one's self at risk.

Another possibility might be who recieved the most attacks from the mob or held aggro the longest. This would presumably be the one who started the fight. Against based on risk to the player rather than damage dealt or killing blow.

 

I noticed WoW changed looting in the last release to provide class specific items appropriate for the class and talent tree you are playing without rolling, at least in some cases. I thought that was a clever idea. I don't play for the loot, but it is nice to get the reward without at the downer of a ninja and without the guilt of "needing" it. I lost of lot of good stuff I could have needed for being too courteous. I don't have strong feelings about it, but it was worth mentioning.

BTW: The first dungeon I ever did, I rolled for everything. I was simply ignorant of the protocol. Fortunately, I learned quickly... I still feel a little guilty about that. I just did not even know why there were dice in front of me. They were obstacles to the fighting, so I clicked it to get them off the screen.

 

What about a group of 1 ? Is that possible? I would think that there can be a way of fixing the timers so that the original player who attacked the critter, has a long enough time to loot it... Then afterwards, it FFA... So there would be no point to Nija loot, unless the player does run away (forfeiting the loot)... As far as the exp goes, that should always be divided between the players attacking/killing the critter (grouped or not), I'm sure a % of damage dealt can be used...

As far as Loot goes that should always go to the initiator, if someone wants to run in and take it all, then I would go to a different scene (or just watch until they leave) or allow another player in my group to initiate an attack... There are several ways to deal with... Killing the Ninja looter is one way, but as I pointed out before, this is just a Test bed and there are plans in place...

 

Maybe could have a bunch of factors that give weight to each player involved.

Then when it comes to looting all players involved get to take one item at a time with the order based on their weight from the battle factors.

This way one single player would get to loot all at once.

Two players in a battle would have to alternate taking one at a time.

More than two players would take one after the other until all items are gone.


Then after a certain amount of time it just becomes open to all.

 

Yes, it's not good. They'll fix it though. This is not something that will survive for many more releases.

 

Oh yeah that HAS to change of there will be WAR! I hope

 

i did the same thing for the same reason - lol. i still think they are annoying obstacles though.

 

The problem with this kind of allowance on kills - they get to exploit the system, grief players, and have no risk. They might as well be an ass... they have ZERO consequence to it.

This behavior in an alpha test? Whooo boy. I dont want to see the a-holes that are gonna try this one live.