for me to explain that i need to explain the current loot situation.
and how d2 is currently played…
right now the player who kills the monster is closest to it and is looking right where the monster is when it dies, this gives said player about an 80% change of getting the loot from their own kills. (although it does depend on ping and ranged classes may go down to around 70% or 60% on a bad day)
now “personal loot” would distribute loot evenly amongst players.
now while in theory this sounds good… in practice thats not how d2 is played.
right now as the game is… there are rarely EVER more than 2-4 people actively contributing to the party and killing stuff , there may be instances where u could get 6 or 7 players in norm at the start of ladder but in general the VAST majority of the work is done by 1-2 players… sometimes 3.
and this is in an 8 player game.
because how loot functions now… those 1-3 players get MOST of the loot. because they are doing the work. therefore they are closest to the monsters and look at the ground and have the highest chance of getting the loot.
the people who don’t do the work. we call them “leechers”
because they are making the monsters have more HP and they not contributing
and the reason we agree to put up with this annoyance, is because more players in the games mean more exp. and because we get MORE items in the game if they join… because the total amount of times dropped increases. ( not remotely close to 8x but more than we would get alone) and because they players are stay back and not contributing ( so they dont die) they only manage to grab 20% of the loot. leaving the majority of the loot for the people doing the work.
now if you add personal loot… we have a problem… because now… the players doing the work… they get 1/8th of the loot, which is LOT LESS… and the leechers? the ones NOT contributing they get MORE loot.
so while “personal loot” may distribute the loot “evenly” is does NOT distribute it “fairly”.
having personal loot would incentive leechers, and would actively punish the players doing the work by taking the loot they were previously getting for carrying the people who were staying back at a safe distance and it would give it to those players.
this is extremely unfair to the people actively pulling thier weight it it rewards those who dont contribute… which is a very toxic thing to do.
if people are not getting enough loot in FFA drops? why is that? is because they are killing anything… they aren’t up there in the action, otherwise they ARE getting the loot.
obviously boss drops all players are stacked on top of each other ( or at least more of them, players still hide in the corner) and it really is luck of the draw there… as to which clicked it first… but no one expects to get loot from a boss… if u are expecting to grab the loot from the boss thinking “its yours” well you’re wrong… its NOT yours.
a lot of players try to say " well we want more loot or were being greedy" when this is infact the exact opposite.
we want loot to go to the players who contributed to the fight… and right now… FFA does already does this… and personal loot does the opposite… it encourages players to sit back at a safe distance and come in and take loot afterwards.
its the “personal loot” people being “greedy” because they want something for nothing.
we just want to get the loot we did the work for.
and yeah if everyone contributed equally then it wouldn’t matter which system… but that’s not the case, it never was the case and it never WILL be the case… because if people can sit around doing nothing while other people do the work and they can get rewarded… they take that option… “personal loot” gives them that option.
they are already getting “free exp” and in return the players who did the work get more exp and they get slightly more loot.
taking away our loot would near instantly kill the game, as it would reward players for not contributing and punish those who DO contribute by giving the loot that would have otherwise gone to them to someone who didn’t contribute.
THAT’S why so many people are so vehemently against personal loot
because 80% of the loot from monsters you kill is WAY more than 1/8th fo the loot IF you are actually contributing to the party…
personal loot redistributes loot from players doing the work… to players NOT doing the work
it distributes the loot evenly yes, but NOT fairly.