In D2 gold had to picked up manually. In D3 there was an improvement and it was automatic. There is an even better way.
Make gold pick up trigger on kill/open. This would make gold appear in the inventory UI instantly without a need to walk around in order to gather it. There are several benefits to this approach.
Players don’t have to run around gathering gold. This saves time and is more efficient.
Gathering gold manually isn’t fun.
Players would never miss any gold they should get.
It’s faster and easier to implement than the older methods.
Gathering gold isn’t a valid decision in the game and automating it is reasonable.
Rendering lots of gold on screen creates visual clutter which could be removed.
Not rendering gold saves performance which can be employed elsewhere.
Probably not a popular opinion, but maybe most monsters shouldnt drop any gold at all?
Let gold come from selling stuff to vendors. And a little from quests.
And once in a while from enemies where it makes sense, like if anything similar to a gold goblin might exist in D4.
This speaks to a larger problem with looting. We kill monsters and there should be rewards for that. Diablo uses a system where some of those rewards are worthwhile and others are not and it is left to the player to choose which to select. This is why we get dropped loot.
Should that system remain? It turns out that the logic for this decision for the player becomes very simple. As you gear up, you learn to ignore gear of certain color because it can never be an upgrade. You ignore certain drops entirely because it is more effort to stop what you’re doing and click than to keep moving. Some games let you filter the drops displayed on your screen so you only see what you’re interested in. If it shows, you want to pick it up.
Crafting mats have a different logic. You always want to pick them up. So, we get the demand from players to have these things auto-loot, which makes sense. There is no meaningful decision being made here. Gold, gems, death’s breaths, etc. And particularly when there is no inventory management because crafting mats are simply counted in the UI, this might as well be automated.
But the developers are right to hesitate here. Part of the Diablo experience is the loot. In fact, it’s a central part of it. If we set up systems to effectively remove 99%+ of the drops from the game (by filtering anything other than top tier gear and auto-looting mats), we’re going to be killing for a long time before we see any visual reward. The junk is filtered and never shows. The currencies all end up auto-looted.
We might only ever see things drop when they’re guaranteed drops from elites or bosses. What then, is my incentive to kill “trash” mobs? We know we get things but we never see it. Would we still consider it fun clearing a zone of monsters for nothing but the UI’s +XP floating combat text as our visual reward? Would players essentially skip the “trash” mobs and just farm the elites and bosses because that’s the only place “good” loot reliably drops from? Would we think this is fun?
Things like Boon of the Hoarder are fun specifically because they drop gold all over the place. Goblins are too and for the same reason. I think we need that visual reward system of dropped items for the game to be fun.
I also think this speaks to a larger issue of a large number of items not being useful. When 99% of the items dropped are trash, it’s just as worthless as if none had dropped. Loot should be engaging and fun when it drops. Filters are fine, but I’m hoping Blizzard has some ideas on board to keep loot interesting and reduce the need for “screen clutter” in the first place.
I’ll support that. Gold is got from selling and quests and looting chests. Good idea. It could potentially add a neat dynamic between selling for gold and salvaging for materials