Personal VS FFA Loot in D2

Diablo II: Resurrected General Discussion
1

Alright I’ll go into more detail about why I think personal is a mistake in D2R.

[General Information]

When leveling in Diablo 2 you would generally want to start with a Sorceress, gives the most movement in the game. However regardless of character choice, once you hit Hell you will need to start finding gear, this involves solo MF runs.

Now why solo? because once you start adding others the game becomes more difficult, could you do it? Sure. However you now need to ensure all players can kill efficiently enough to make it worth it over solo runs. In the old system these people at best will run around trying to not get killed and maybe ninja a drop or two, but guess what just switch up the party and kill that guy, or make a new game. The new system you will never know what these guys are leeching off you, you know they are effecting the drop rates, unless you make a damage amount a requirement. You have decreased my drop rate on all kills by his amount if he is nearby. You will see more games just fragment, 8 man games where everyone goes somewhere separate so your not getting their kills.

When sorcs hit 90+ and really don’t need other players for anything besides drop rate boost, why would they keep any player not able to contribute? You are now not only taking XP but my drops as well. Could you ninja? sure but you gotta at least get up close and personal, to get it.

Your removing reasons for any rushing by stronger players, tons of games are set up where I’ll rush you for the drops on the way, now I have no way to know that’s in good faith. All these personal item requests would work on a game where I don’t run a fixed room where effort is bare minimum before for most but is now bare minimum with a drop chance taking away from useful players, again giving less reason to rush players for various reasons. This game has lots of rushing, and your removing incentives to do them.

Sure personal loot, but that now needs a Sherpa mode, or some way of balancing a persons drop rate against others due to level or effort applied. This is heavily incentivizing cutting off lower players and only rushing friends.

The drop rates would need to change, the boss areas change, the glitch areas fixed to decrease multiple accounts on follow getting increased chances against people with single accounts. This would be a dramatic change to how leveling, rushing, game creation, teammate choices, almost every facet of how we played the game before… could it be better? Sure but it would not be so simple.

[Let’s figure out a better way]

----------------------------------[SEMI FAIR WAY TO DO IT------------------------------------
----------[Personal tied to Act(Monster)Levels - Act 1 Hell Level 67]--------------

We go rushing/farm/looting. Me 62, and my buddies 71, 80, 57, 55.

If we all stay together somehow so we can see this math easier, and we find 500 items, the split would look like this.

80 - 100% of his personal drops
71 - 100% of his personal drops
62 - 90% of his personal drops
57 - 5% of his personal drops
55 - 0% of his personal drops

They still get whatever XP there is, which depending on their level is bad or decent, but now those decreased drops for leechers, and you in no way can say they are contributing in hell with that many people, are given to the more useful or worthy to even be in this act players.

80 gets 100 + (10/2) + (95/2) + (100/2) = 202.5 or 40% chance of the drops
71 gets 100 + (10/2) + (95/2) + (100/2) = 202.5 or 40% chance of the drops
62 gets 90 or 18% chance of the drops
57 gets 5 or 1% chance of the drops
55 gets ZERO or 0% chance of the drops

Those two clearly deserve more, at best 62 can do a little damage, so he has almost no penalty, but 57 and 55 are in no way helping, they are getting an XP boost and WP gain, they deserve no loot for their work, or lack thereof. If 62 gets to 63 then he hits 100% personal loot and will now split with the other two strong guys.

So it becomes:

80 gets 100 + (95/3) + (100/3) = 165 or 33% chance of the drops
71 gets 100 + (95/3) + (100/3) = 165 or 33% chance of the drops
63 gets 100 + (95/3) + (100/3) = 165 or 33% chance of the drops
57 gets 5 or 1% chance of the drops
55 gets ZERO or 0% chance of the drops

A quick thirdish example. Act 5 Hell Level 85
Players 92,88,87,85,80,77
600 items to keep math easier

92 gets 100 + (10/4) + (50/4) = 115 or 19% chance of drops
88 gets 100 + (10/4) + (50/4) = 115 or 19% chance of drops
87 gets 100 + (10/4) + (50/4) = 115 or 19% chance of drops
85 gets 100 + (10/4) + (50/4) = 115 or 19% chance of drops
80 gets 90 or 15% chance of the drops
77 gets 50 or 8% chance of the drops

Players 80+ doing Hell baal runs will be your precious 12.5% drop rate split with my model, so the vast majority of the endgame will be like you want it, but this hopefully keeps the useless leechers now wanting drops to a minimum.

---------------[If the act level is higher than all players]------------------------
The only trick would be situation like level 67 area with 63, 61, 59, 55.

There you can do variable % as you clearly are with friends.
Make 63 be the new 67 and work your way back

400 items found

63 gets 100 + (50/3) = 117 or 29% chance of drops
61 gets 100 + (50/3) = 117 or 29% chance of drops
59 gets 100 + (50/3) = 117 or 29% chance of drops
55 is now (63-55) 8 levels lower than highest. - gets 50 or 13% chance of drops

or since this is clearly a set of friends just FFA, or give items you find to eachother… still holds up the rules generally well but allows for varying levels. If a 67+ entered they are now considered the top for item distribution, you can invite him or not.

Make it you can choose FFA or this type of setup, splitting it evenly is madness compared to possible contribution. Also if your friends enough to be carrying someone throughout content doing all the work you clearly can trust them with FFA.

Alright last example: :slight_smile:

Act 5 Level 85 area, full team, 97,92,91,88,87,85,83,81

97 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
92 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
91 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
88 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
87 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
85 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
83 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops
81 gets 100 or 12.5% chance of the drops

3 Likes
2

Yawn…I’d say timed loot for uniques, sets, runes. 15 seconds, all see it on ground. Be the only middle ground in the war of this. Needs no drop rate recalcs, just a simple instantaneous server roll to see who gets loot locked to em. Maybe weighted bonus if class specific item

3 Likes
3

How does timed loot do anything? If your nearby will you not pick it up within 15 seconds? you now no longer even need to worry about running in, just be within screen distance of the XP and drop chance. Nothing about that helps at all. You and everyone else never address how badly this makes leeching easier and removes any benefit to a rusher, which I guess you don’t know, is a major component of D2.

4

What… Timed loot? Thats even more rediculous than all the snowflakes wanting individual loot.
FIRST CLICK gets the loot, that is D2.

7 Likes
5

I seen a reply from someone against ploot saying how they ninja looted in cows due to person not noticing drop because they were busy fighting…ya know, playing the game. Leeches exist, players adapt. If something is time locked for a moment, gives ranged a chance if something drops from their kill, or those that have frame lock animations a chance. In any case, not my biggest wish list anyways. I’d rather see a balance patch post launch.

3 Likes
6

I agree, the only thing the timed thing does is give range players a better shot.

Its the idea I hate the least of a bunch of ideas I hate.

1 Like
7

First of all, I find it extremely presumptive that people would automatically play a sorceress. Sure, they make the best item snatching seagull-like class in the game because they can teleport, but some of us like other classes, like summoners. I really think that these anti personal loot advocates are incapable of imagining playing the game differently than they do. Not everyone has enigma or teleport. Let that settle in. Now imagine how many fewer items you would get in a group of strangers? Game rushing is actually not meant to be part the game, it’s exploitative. It’s sad that anti personal loot people cannot imagine people playing together on purpose and enjoying it for the sake of killing hells minions and synergizing abilities. Simply make it a game creation option, keep the loot rate the same, random shuffle among players with 10 second timed to become free for all. It would lead to people playing together which I always thought would be amazing if human greed didn’t ruin the experience.

6 Likes
8

Well said generally, and if you played Diablo 2, you would know that is overwhelmingly the case. Now could this hypothetical Diablo 2 work, sure but is it now anything like Diablo 2 was before? nope, there is no way it could be, you have completely changed the loot table, and rush incentives. You think about the game how you imagine it should be, I played the game, I watched the games be made, I saw the players I rushed… what game do you want? because the game your advocating for is not Diablo 2, it’s some new age I don’t want to put in effort to get items but have everything handed to me… again you don’t address how this will not heavily encourage more leechers… you know a huge problem in the past you never seemed to notice. Did you play online at all?

9

AS a range character, you accepted all of those risks, missing out on something amazing because you are out of range as your character is designed for.
Play with players you know and whom will share with you if that is your goal, dont change the game to cater.
Same risk the melee guys take, is being the most likely to die, therefore they get the higher % chance of the loot if they live.
9/10 players likely play public just to level up their characters in player 8 games.
MF is largely done in private games to secure the loot for yourself.
That is all, That is D2.

4 Likes
10

My Lord, you people never happy…stop creating topics, all you people are doing now is trolling the topic to death, and antagonizing. Pro ploot complains everyone in a loot thief, sometimes to the point of complete whining. Anti ploot complains everyone is a leech.

2 Likes
11

We have repeatedly addressed this.
Let’s assume 8 player game there is 1 leecher.

In a personal loot game on average, the leecher will get 12.5% of drops. In a FFA loot game, that leecher get 0%-100% of drops.

You claim that FFA is better because the leecher will get ≤12.5%, while we state that the leecher on average will get ≥ 12.5%. We know if the leecher is using a pickit, it will be easily ≥ 12.5%.

1 Like
12

The leecher will not be accepted into a group anymore, as at least he was a minimal threat to drops, now he is guaranteed to take 12.5% and will have to be worthy of a group… again your shutting out players more than actually helping them, they now won’t be invited and get 0% of the drops. I won’t forge rush because I can’t get a drop. I won’t boss rush because I can’t guarantee drop. None of these factors you address with that simple equation.

Sure, friends but you do see how a lot of games are quick pickup helps for items or boss drops right?

13

You’re right, a fair loot system would totally change the game. People would be motivated to play with strangers. Keep the option to play the way you want. Kick leechers! I did play online with friends or in my own solo bubble in public games. Solo runs were what I had to do. I think we need to be inclusive in our views of how games are played. Because things are done most commonly does not mean that is all that should be considered. You should play with shared loot. I’ll accept some people getting items when I am doing more work to a point but easy game kicking may be necessary for such things as leechs. I think more people than you think would play together and carry their weight though, and it would be a far better game experience than you are giving with your consideration. I truly believe the original game creators intended people to play together, why else make so many synergies? A paladin alone with an aura is a waste. Reduction of resist to break immunity is needed, making it synergize in group play. Too bad anonymity and human behaviour is what it is.

2 Likes
14

Leeches are not something people usually like. Let’s discourage leeching and encourage others to willingly help each other through a more positive multiplayer game experience.

3 Likes
15

I would agree but Diablo 2 isn’t setup for excursions with people, tons of games are quick rushes with an easy drop zone to put characters in, it’s not like they need to help much on the way. It would work but Diablo 2 would need an overhaul.

16

Honestly, if group play was better, it would change the motivational calculus of risk and reward. It could well pay off enough to kill trash in certain spots together with the potential increased killing speeds. Would be different from boss runs, more like section runs. Could breath new life in all sorts of exciting ways. Boss runs are kind of tedious and exactly the same. Boss runs are a good slot machine pull though, which is why people and bots love doing them.

2 Likes
17

That’s why I do kind of agree with you but all these other changes would happen from personal loot, and in the end how much of the old game, despite the issues it gave you, kept that game going so long in it’s many bartering ways. It is because of it’s loot system, side jobs and whole lives dedicated around rushing bosses. How much of everything we used to do from rushing for forges, to getting quick Baal runs in will be changed because of personal loot. It would never be the same.

18

Pretty much all of what you’re saying is exploitative of the game. Bartering will still happen, the drop rate would remain the same. People would be playing the game the way it was meant to be played. What you’re talking about is the ultimate outcome of millions of people maximizing the game to save as much time and increase the number of slot machine pulls. A gaming of the system, short cuts and near cheat like behaviour. How about killing demons together? That sounds actually way better to me.

1 Like
19

That’s Diablo 2 bud :slight_smile:

20

So is 800x600 resolution and muling. It wasn’t perfect, far from it. Let’s resurrect D2, with the option to be better than she was, for some players at least. Why would you prevent others from enjoying the game the way they like?

1 Like