Private vs Public Loot - The Tightrope

General Discussion
1

Public loot has problems.
So does Private loot.

The problem stems from one thing.
When one player in a group play game is more powerful than the rest of the group, or, you are not as powerful as the group. How does the game deal with this very, very, very common situation?

Public loot prevents leeching totally and/or way more than private loot.
Yes you can drop gear in d2 for someone else, but that’s not how people play, to prove this say you’re following some good gear meta spellcaster in d2, you’re whatever, can kill cannot kill, and they get a good item idk diadem.

Is that person going to go “here, have it” regularly?
No. They’d like that item so they keep it.

If this is diablo 3, and a normal rift, and d2’s "diadem’ dropped, it would be waiting for you to pickup, and you didnt even have to attack a monster or do a thing to have that guaranteed to be yours.

This is the problem.

Private loot is gear leech, BUT, prevents gear fight or awkwardly picking up public gear. Public loot is fighting for drops, BUT, also prevents gear leech.

That’s the situation.

So, tell me how private loot stops gear leech better than private loot?
Why is it in diablo 3 when you join a normal rift you can just walk around picking up endgame gear nobody can take from you if they did the killing? Why is leeching gear good for diablo?

Please, be realistic, private loot is saying “doesn’t matter who does the killing here is your loot” and that is gear leech, bc if you aren’t contributing you still get the loot.

Don’t you see the problem?

2

I’m not entirely sure I agree with you about several of your “good” points about public loot.

It’s been my experience through games like WoW, that you’ll often have a player use dkp on rare drops for an alt character, rather than allowing a character who it actually could benefit. People can be selfish. And then you get into situations where everyone is ignorant. It doesn’t encourage talking as much as it encourages resentment.

As far as private loot, there are ways to stop leeching. It could be something like, if you don’t contribute, you get nothing, let’s say something like 10% of the damage or enemy kills on a map.

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3

Drawback to tagging gameplay is you will be very pissed off if a fast moving person joins your game and is racing (natural tendency to do so) like what we saw in both Diablos. You want to play catchup to see loot? Its no different than public loot then in group play, except you actually have to stay close to the group leader to see ANY loot, like you cant be in a different area of the same level bc you wont be tagging too far away. Public loot lets you move away from the leader more. Tagging is not the way, i thought of that too, but it just isnt.

Chaos Sanc is clear b4 you even get to it? Normal rift is 2 levels in and once you join the map the person is already at the door of the next map zooming ahead. If you had to tag, that would suck, it would be “catch me if you can”. I agree on paper its great in practice no way, tagging isn’t happening its going to be a “im faster than you” and we already have that anyway, it would just let that person in front have MORE power to control the followers, the WORST thing we could do to someone who plays all day right give them control?

What ‘positives’ of public loot do you disagree with and why?
Shuts down leechers?
Public loot says a big NO to “join my game walk around get loot” you cant do that with public loot. This is it’s biggest selling point. Public loot says “earn your loot” not “follow others for loot”. Its huge.

Encorages talking about what you just found?
(i see how this could encourage fighting like i saw it first) but still that IS interaction its better than “here” and “pull” and “next” and “ready?” right? Obvoiusly good convos like “yo i got some sick item anyone want?” Is WAY better than “next” “door” “pull” and so on.

And finally the “ok items are up for grabs so, pay attention go as intense as you can in solo parts of a group game so you aren’t taking from others yet you are getting the higher drop chance associated with group games but the item could be taken if you leave it on the ground if someone finds you”. Or in group just you go to a chest lets say and a gg item drops out, you did all the ‘finding’ there, it could be snagged but you feel an urge to get it first since YOU clearly did all the work to get it. That puts a huge intensity into the item hunt in group play and its fair since you did the chest not someone else.

4

Almost 500 replies and counting, should take this over to that thread.

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5

Your example against private loot is ridiculous as there are several ways of preventing that from happening, or at the very least, lessening it.

There is no real negative impact of private loot, while public loot has several (specially the one used in D2, and unfortunately in D2R).

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6

Why not have both options or adopt PoE model that many consider the spiritual successor of D2 where the game creator chooses that game session to be FFA, personal loot, or timed loot. Win–win

The D2R developers are clear that the want to stay true to D2 but give toggable options for the modern community. D2 purists choose to play in FFA parties. Players that prefer personal loot play in personal loot parties. This is consistent with the D2R developers stated ideas.

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Actually , shared loot is worse because the leecher could take it all , at least with personal loot , everyone gets something…

plus ranged characters are not getting screwed, nor slow connection guys… and no more pickit bots…

so based on that , personal loot is better. (with no negatives) while shared loot has tons of negatives… with ninjas ,leechers and bots.

ps. David Brevik is a game dev… ofc he knows more than some random dudes who think that shared loot is better… no wonder why every aRPG on the market uses personal loot instead of the outdated public loot.

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Personal/smart loot is the best thing to happen to Diablo. Ever.

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From a purely developer perspective personal loot makes less sense than FFA when trading is an option since you’d want to know what drops in the game in order to potentially buy it from the one that picked it up if you need it.

That said the optimal scenario for D2 would be to have only timed on game creation with values of 0 (FFA, default) to 99 (practically personal) minutes. In the non-FFA case everyone should see drops for others.

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For D2R I dont mind if they do what I’ve suggested where the drops stay the same but there’s no competing and some people may not get loot.

For D4, keep it just like D3, but reduce the droprates.

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11

and remove crafting.

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12

Leechers come with both forms of loot. I would argue it is worse with FFA loot since more is on the ground.

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Of items agree. I’d rather craft to add sockets, enhancements/enchantments to gear, and supplemental potions /scrolls.

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Except D2 you can trade among party members and the community more broadly. From a developer perspective relative to the trade economy, the biggest difference (hopefully) between D2 and D2R is elimination of duping and reduced botting.

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15

FFA loot serves for more social interaction and anyone that has played D2 can tell you that.

If they decide to add personalized loot in D2 it should never come at the expense of not showing the drops.

Duping and botting are natural consequences of the boring D2 farming. Of course these unethical practices have to be eliminated, but if they don’t build up on D2 so that its core problems are solved the player base would migrate with or without botting fixed.

I would have loved to see a modern version of D2 showing up in 2021. The old one with the new look is just a money grab. All those hyped people right now will fill up the servers on launch and be gone after a month. If they want to truly resurrect D2, they have to add content to it. There is no other way around this. The game is simply outdated.

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This is fantastic news, not joking.

What are the several ways?
The several ways private loot doesnt cause loot follow?

You totally have solved it all if you’d share, please use examples, be detailed, and i’ll post your reply at the very top of the post with credit to your name, if they are accurate.

17

rolls eyes

Player has to participate in combat to a certain degree to get drops. This is done in multiple games.

You’re exaggerating a minor issue of private loot in an attempt to make the actually real issues of public loot not look so bad.

There is no advantage in public loot for players.

There is clearly a side that is better: private loot. And people like you don’t want D2R (or D4) to have a private loot option because you know that barely anyone would play in public loot games.

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18

Personal loot is also the best thing that happened to WoW as well…

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19

It is not either or. Use the PoE system where you can select the loot drop system on a per party basis.

Leeching will occur whether the loot system is private or FFA/global loot. In FFA loot 8 player game, a ninja looter leeching can get half or even more of the total loot. In private loot, these leechers never get more than 1/8.

Advantage: Personal loot

He has stated that there are a few thing that he would love to change about D2. He explicitly stated that he wanted instanced/personal loot.
https://twitter.com/davidbrevik/status/743478825065947137

Advantage: Personal loot

Personal loot is still tradeable. You are confusing bond on account loot versus personal loot.

Advantage: None. Simply a misunderstanding

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20

Not seeing the drops of other players in a game with trading is a huge disadvantage of personal loot, one that outvalues any other advantage it gives.

That said I am not against personal loot as long as drops for everyone are shown.