Further thoughts on loot locks

[Arindor]

I am a bit concerned that the new loot mechanics might not be beneficial to gameplay. Perhaps the problem is that I'm not understanding the mechanics correctly, and if so I apologize in advance, and please feel free to correct me. I do like the *intent* of the new "close corpse" loot mechanic, and think that is all fine as long as it gets implemented as described. My concern is what seems to be the new "tag it" and it's your loot mechanic. I've already run afoul of that with a few trains in Kur Tower - where I get trained, have to kill the mobs, only to find that I get no reward despite getting trained. This new mechanic seems to be a vector for abuse, (in addition to encouraging folk to train mobs onto others).

With this new mechanic, I can easily see some malicious players "tagging" a target, and then letting another player or group kill it for them. If it really works this way, a player with a ranged ability could follow another player (or group) around "tagging" any target the player moved toward. I remain convinced that the most fair mechanic was the "most damaged" mechanic that existed previously. Sure, abuse of the new mechanic can be handled by reporting the abusive player. But why add a mechanic that creates a slew of abuse tickets?

Another concern I have is players that run through an area and cast area-effects on every mob around, and then just move on without looting. I'm sure this is great for levelling up an ability, but for folk grinding for materials and/or gear, not so helpful. Not burying the corpses (as we all know) slows down the respawn rate. So folk have to wait for the corpses to disappear, and then the respawns, before they can resume grinding. Why not put a timer on each corpse that after a certain amount of time, anybody can loot/skin/butcher the corpse and/or bury it, before it disappears on its own? At least that way, having somebody come through and nuke everything around and not loot would not be such an incredible downer.

As far as the druid event issues, it seems certain mobs need to be exempt from the new loot-locks. That would seem to be relatively easy to implement, but perhaps I'm oversimplifying...

In summary, I feel:

Fix the "close corpse" mechanic.
Leave the basis for the loot locking mechanic as it was (e.g. "most damaged" vs "first tagged").
Consider a loot expiration timer.
Exempt certain mobs from loot locking.


Thoughts?

[Crissa]

I dunno, I accidentally stole loot from newbies by smashing a mob that was under my level but over their heads for some reason. 'Most damage' isn't always what you want, either. 'Most hits', maybe?

Still, there's alot of ways for this to work, and hopefully the bugs will be worked out.

[Niph]

Maybe use "most damage", and the first to aggro gets a x2 multiplier, to avoid kill steal (if not the first to aggro, you would have to do 2/3 of the damage to get the loot.)

[cratoh]

I'd prefer full combat lock.

It needs to be that once the mob is tagged, it is locked to the individual that tagged it till either they, or the mob is dead. No outside people can damage it, no one ca 'help' the person by taunting it off them, or healing them etc.

I recently ran alts through crypt prior to changes and some other areas and was amazed that now it is a bit busier how many people would just come and start wailing on the mob I was killing. Rude! Locked loot goes some way towards this but without full combat log it won't work.

I know it is cookie cutter of what EQ2 implemented but it worked.

If it is combat locked and liek that till either person dies that removes a load of the problems.

EQ2 also featured 'call for help' for if you were fihting and got in trouble with the mob, you could break combat lock by calling for help which also made the mob no-loot. Perhaps developing something similar here but maybe if you called for help then whoever did the most damage got the loot.

Finbarr

[Crissa]

Ugh, combat lock is ... Ugh.

I want an open world to be an open world, where I can interact with others.

[lilibat]

Well in EQ the loot tag would time out. Kind of like the bit where if someone opens the loot window and leaves stuff it becomes fair game but if someone killed something and just let the corpse rot after so many seconds (20? 30? I forget) the MOB would then be untagged and fair game for all. If this new system does not do that, it would help with some of OPs concerns for that change to be made.

[cratoh]

I want an open world to be an open world, where I can interact with others.

That's all well and good but when you are fighting away and someone comes running past at 90 on speed buffs and in passing nukes your mob it's really annoying ;p

[Crissa]

That's all well and good but when you are fighting away and someone comes running past at 90 on speed buffs and in passing nukes your mob it's really annoying ;p"Take the win."

[BuddyLove]

Ugh, combat lock is ... Ugh.

I want an open world to be an open world, where I can interact with others.

I agree !!! was a lot more sociable and friendly as it was before the changes

[lilibat]

My problem was when I was trying to get mats and I'd have a MOB almost down, a higher level would float in, kill it, and take the stuff. I could not care less about the xp but I need the mats because I am very crafting focused. I would say something to them, and they were like , 'you got xp, stfu". NOT THE POINT A'HOLE. So higher levels could just steamroll lowbies trying to get mats.

[Arindor]

My problem was when I was trying to get mats and I'd have a MOB almost down, a higher level would float in, kill it, and take the stuff. I could not care less about the xp but I need the mats because I am very crafting focused. I would say something to them, and they were like , 'you got xp, stfu". NOT THE POINT A'HOLE. So higher levels could just steamroll lowbies trying to get mats.

Hmmm... I thought previously whoever did the most damage got the loot - I could be wrong.

I did notice that today's hotfix implemented "fix corpse-closing" and "loot expiration timer" from my original post. I still think that "first tagged" is the wrong way to go - you should have heard all the complaints about this in chat today during Kur Druid event.

[Yertle]

Ugh, combat lock is ... Ugh.
I want an open world to be an open world, where I can interact with others.

I agree, it seems like the Devs are against 'instances', but are working towards the looting and group size as a different type of 'instance'.

[Crissa]

My problem was when I was trying to get mats and I'd have a MOB almost down, a higher level would float in, kill it, and take the stuff.
That's odd, I never got loot from a corpse someone had been fighting awhile.

[rastaah]

Yertle I agree on that after reading all of the posts lately and also playing the game. The whole concept of the game is somewhat undone by these loot rules.

[Greyfyn]

The Devs are not against instanced dungeons. They are constrained by what the server can handle.

Here are the essential things players should know from August 2016: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?286-Gameplan-Old-Forum-Discussion

And here's the relevant Citan quote from that post:



(If you're wondering how we can have instanced housing but not instanced dungeons, this is a special case. The server can handle instances where no combat is allowed. So you won't be able to fight monsters inside your house! But you'll be able to craft and shop and have visitors and much more.)

And the reason the loot locks happened in the first place was that the way players were doing dungeons didn't fit with game design: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/entry.php?15-Dev-Notes-March-10-2017

And the relevant quote from Citan:


Group Size and Loot

We're still gathering feedback on the new dungeon, but one change is clearly needed soon: we need to lock down group sizes and looting rights. Right now, we're incentivizing everyone to group up into clumps of as many players as possible. That doesn't just sap the challenge from the dungeon, it's also just a lot more boring.

I mentioned recently that we were waiting on this change until the new GUI was done, but I've changed my mind -- I'm implementing it now and it will be in the next snapshot build. (The GUI display will be rudimentary, but good enough for now.)

Here's how it will work:

Hunting groups will be capped at six players instead of 10.
When fighting elite and boss monsters, only the first group that attacks it will be able to loot it.
The monster will become "locked" to the first attacker's group, with a little lock icon visible to other players and groups to let them know.
Each member of the locked group will get their own share of treasure, just as they do now, but no one outside that group will be able to loot the corpse.
This applies to elites and bosses only! Looting rights for other monsters will continue as they are now.
This only affects loot. Things like XP, combat wisdom, and curse removal remain as they are now.



That's it. It's actually a pretty small change, all told. It doesn't change other game mechanics, because right now I'm mostly concerned about the proliferation of loot.

This change is really important for group dungeons like Labyrinth and Gazluk Keep, but I'm also eager to see how this affects druid events. Right now, it seems that druids group up into mega-groups, sometimes with over a dozen people killing the same hapless monster, even when it would be much faster to split up. If druids start grouping in more sensibly-sized groups, several of the events will become much faster -- possibly too fast, it's hard to tell. That's information I need before adding the next batch of druid events.

We'll take it slowly and see the ramifications of this change, then make other changes as necessary. We’ll be watching our metrics, of course, but -- as always! -- we will need your feedback.


There aren't going to be instanced combat situations, so all this feedback is essential.

One underlying issue driving the need for mucho loot resides in the price of skills and breaking caps. The average 91,000 councils needed to break caps from level 60-70 is quite daunting, for example. And if that cost remains exponential for subsequent level cap breaks, that will require a huge amount of time spent raising funds. If the loot will always have relatively the same vendor value, the amount of loot (and other fundraising) will be mindboggling.

Having loot rules for just the large group dungeons only would solve a lot of issues. Open world events like druid emergencies, halloween celebrations and named bosses should all have free loot rules. It helps the newbies and fosters cooperation. Spontaneous grouping in open world situations like Manticores is fantastic. I'd love to see more of those.

[Greyfyn]

Oops, my reply got posted in the middle of this thread. :eek: It really belongs at the end:

https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?372-Further-thoughts-on-loot-locks&p=3203&viewfull=1#post3203