Why full loot? -- (Dev) Replied

This seems to come up again and again. Possibly that it's a badge of how hardcore the game is. Possibly that it's simply that there should be sufficient reward for PvP. Are those the reasons? Because those can be handled dozens of other ways. Taking those off the table, why else do people want full loot? My issues have nothing to do with either of those:

1) Combat requires a large amount of concentration. You're trying to maintain/close distance and LoS on some targets while avoiding others. You're attacking, ccing, healing/dodging. You're avoiding AoE effects, you're avoiding agro from NPCs. You're spinning the camera around looking for respawn, ambushes and the like.

The last thing I want to see is a loot roll, so I'm glad to see games phasing out the hated NGP. I don't want to run around digging through corpses, so I'm glad games are moving to AoE looting. I was happy to see GuildWars 2 move to dropping loot from kills on your location, rather than on where the person died.

2) Most of what someone carries is completely useless to me. I don't want their socks. I don't want their half eaten sandwich. I can't realistically identify their potions, scrolls, random bags of collectables. Do I really want their shredded, bloodied armor which failed to protect them and otherwise wouldn't possibly fit me? I simply cannot imagine wanting to sort through this junk ever, let alone in combat.

Some games automatically credit you some PvP currency or reputation on kill. Some you have to pick up some token. In addition to this GW2 give you a stackable bag which you can dig through later as a "this was the good stuff you managed to salvage from the corpse." This generally breaks down into crafting mats.

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I don't actually care about the consequences for PvP so much as rewarding people who stay alive. They should somehow be more useful to their team than those re-spawning and should somehow be rewarded for it.

There should be some reward for PvP. But I'd much rather see it be objective focused. I don't care how many people you slaughtered to take the bridge. I care that you took the bridge. Doing it through stealth is just as useful (and arguably more). Kills are just a bad thing to reward all around.

 

I desire full loot because it is the most realistic option. If I kill someone in the field, there is a body, and that body has weapons, gear, supplies, possibly a pack full of items. Why should I not be able to strip that body clean, if that is my wish? Anything less than that is an immersion breaker, is it not? We want the devs to be creating a world here, correct? The role players want that world to be realistic, do they not?

Full loot is realistic.

 

Owain by definition you cant have FULL loot because firstly you shouldn't be able to steal things bought for real money but also Chris's comments this morning about not being able to sell things you earn for achievements, if you can't sell them should you be able to steal them?

 

Exceptions prove the rule. Sure, if a guy is carrying his crystal sword, or his pledge crafting tools awarded by his Kickstarter, contribution I shouldn't even see that among the available loot when I search the body. Same for achievements, which I don't think are actual items, but just annotations to your character history. But normal gear obtained through normal game play should be up for grabs.

 

I guess that's my problem. It seems completely unrealistic. (As point #2 above.) Clothing and gear simply isn't going to fit me. Everything the person wears or carries is likely to be severely damaged in the fight. Prepared items like food, potions, reagents aren't going to look the way I'm used to expecting them...so there's have to be some process of identifying everything to understand what it is and what kind of quality it is.

I hear what you're saying and point noted. I just think I'd be lucky if the stuff I looted off someone had 20% of the value to me as it did to him. Even if was the type of stuff I'd normally be interested in.

 

@PrimeRib,

I had to look up what AoE and NGP meant because I don't play games like WoW and Guild Wars! They were fairly obvious, and I've encountered NGP before, but I'm not versed in all these acronyms.

AoE and limiting non-valuable items would ruin the kind of role-playing element you saw in games like Ultima VII. In U7 you often had to sort through different layers of things, look in bags, etc., to find something that was hidden on a body or in a drawer. It would be cool if SotA could carry this concept even further, and, for instance, have bags hidden beneath layers of clothing, where you would have to remove the clothing to find the bag. Keys hidden in pockets, in a person's socks, etc. A powerful gem or a treasure map hidden in some inset in a person's hat. Perhaps even where you would need a knife to tear open the stitching on the hat to get the treasure map. I hope you see where I'm going with this.

Mainly though, IMO, the game shouldn't primarily be about combating mass mobs, looting and catering to looters, which is typical of a lot of MMOs. That's just a formula for combat-grinding. So if most items on corpses are not valuable and of no use to you -- I say, good!

Rather, the game should be about role-playing, and regular items and affects on the person's body opens up avenues that I suggested, hidden items, or items that might not seem valuable at first but have some significance. Naturally, players should be able to do this too, with the same kind of clothing layering in UO.

 

Completely unrealistic? How so? Everything should be available for you to take, or to leave behind. Your choice. Clothes don't fit you? Sell them. Stuff is damaged? Leave it. The guy was carrying a McDonald's Happy Meal, and you prefer Burger King? Are you kidding me?

Either way, it should be up for grabs. If you don't want it, don't take it.

 

I wanna full loot cause im looking for real RPG. How can i come back to life whit my gear ? Plz. More, if i can be looted, i ll had some great feeling when i fight. I ll fight or run for my gear. The feeling of real life is so good when ur in a real RPG.

 

I like it because players try harder not to die. You have to be careful with PvP rewards because they are often exploitable.

The contraband quests sound very interesting to me. I hope they cannot be exploited. I also hope it doesn't become a case of who has the best gear.

It's not a deal breaker for me, but it is one of the reasons I left WoW. To see 50 people flag themselves for PvP and then spend several hours repeatedly killing each other and running back into battle over and over didn't set well with me.

I don't like losing all my stuff, no one does. From a game design standpoint I have to support it though because it sweetens victory in PvE as well as PvP.

 

Owain, in terms of realism, I think destruction of some of the gear makes much more sense than full loot. Armor will get destroyed, weapons broken, scrolls burned up by your fireballs, etc. Full loot just makes PvP heads above any other wealth generating activity. Unless monsters also drop full loot like in Skyrim.

Destruction adds more to the intensity. If you die, you will lose something. In full loot, you don't lose anything if your group wins and they're able to reclaim your corpse. Death only matters for the losers in full loot, with destruction, death matters even for the winning side.

 

I'll add that while I generally despise PvP, when I do engage in it I would expect it to be full loot (minus things like mentioned above). With the way it sounds like this game is designed, opting out of non-consensual PvP is as easy as switching to Friends Only. You don't want PvP, you don't ever have to worry about it.

If I'm in full online mode, and am going to go wandering where I probably shouldn't... well, I'll be wearing my spare armor and leaving the expensive one in the bank. Better to lose that to the cutthroats. And thats a choice I have to make.

 

@Marthos, I'm fine if the loot is damaged, but if gear is badly damaged for me as loot, it should be equally badly damaged for the survivor of a hard fought battle. It is unrealistic if gear is perfectly OK right up until the moment of death, and then suddenly becomes useless when you die. The gear should have EXACTLY the same state it had the moment before death.

Damaged items can be repaired or salvaged. It should still all be up for grabs.

 

one reason full loot works is so that this game doesn't become another WoW. Games that are based on building up your items are annoying. You get the greatest items then what? You wait till they release the new tier, and another tier and a another tier, and another, and another... which equals a bad game. It should not be item focused.

And if they are still looking for a way to make death a hardship for us "FULL LOOT" no brainer.

 

This is one of those issues where I prefer to sacrifice realism to end up with a more pleasant game experience. My preferences are:

- No player looting (unless done like in GW2, where players drop loot out of a loot table as if they were a mob type, but their actual possessions stay safe). If gear loss on death is deemed important for economic reasons, damage or destroy it, but never allow other players to pick any of my gear pieces from my character's cold body. If I'm subject to having any of my gear looted by other players I simply won't ever engage in PvP.

- No loot rolls, no Diablo 2-like "fastest clicker wins" loot. Instead, have the game determine every player's share of the loot, and prevent other players from stealing that share. This sharply reduces drama when grouping, making it easier for players to group in the first place, and making it more likely for players to attempt grouping again.

- Take a hard look at how much work looting is. If the player is spending more time looting than actually killing the mobs something is very wrong. It might even be worth it doing like TSW, DCUO, LotRO, CoH, and other games where looting happens mostly, or even completely, automatically.

 

Owain, I think it's easy enough to make the leap that the reason you died isn't that you "ran out of health" but rather that my mace completely busted through your plate armor. You died because your armor failed you at that moment. So I'm okay with making death have a greater impact on the damage level of your gear than any previous strike.

I really love what EVE Online has done with death, where is serves as the major catalyst for the economy, by having most of the value of your ship destroyed when it gets blown up (there some salvage value, but its a small fraction). A full loot 100% wealth transference system to the best PvPer misses this opportunity to take wealth out of the economy. If death won't destroy items, what will? And if items don't get destroyed, what will the economy look like a year later?

 

@marthos, except you really did "run out of health" :/ And what if you die because of repeated hits by arrows? Your armor is still intact against a hit by an axe, you just have a lot of holes in it.

Personally I think heavy blows in combat should damage armor faster, so a fight with an axeman should severely damage your suit of armor just from a single combat m?l?e, while a rain of lot of arrows with small blows should damage it less. And despite some realism concerns I think its fine to be able to wear the armor, unless the designers decide to make several different sizes of armor in the game, which I don't think would be entirely bad either, but that's another decision the developers would have to make.

My repeated suggestion is just to reinforce it as real risk to go up against someone with expensive armor and weapons, and that risk alone deters big looting; don't let people get overpowered to mitigate the risk. Plus, other player requirements involving realism to further restrain the looting and Pking gamestyle. In the end, just make it realistically hard to get wealthy through fighting.

 

In fact, I think the risk of severely damaging your armor from a close combat m?l?e against powerful weapons would end up being a deterrent itself to the loot-for-riches gamestyle.

 

I want full loot for one reason. It gives me reason to acquire more loot and thus more reason to continually PvE where as most games you PvE until you have the best gear you want and stop. Then they release an expansion that makes the gear you are wearing no longer the best and thus obsolete. In a full loot game even the crappiest gear has its purpose.

 

@Marthos, "Owain, I think it?s easy enough to make the leap that the reason you died isn?t that you ?ran out of health? but rather that my mace completely busted through your plate armor."

That may be so, but even if the helm is dented it, it can be repaired, and the breastplate, leggings, gauntlets, weapons, potions, food, bandages, gold, etc, etc, may be just fine. What is damaged is damaged, and what is good is good. Either way, the body is still there, and I should be able to take it all, at my discretion.

 

Game design wise, having players loot players is very, very problematic. Please note that this is completely independant of having PVP, which can be implemented in a balanced and controlled fashion.

If you have ?only? PVP, but no player loot, devs can tune risk vs. reward - the cost (and risk) of getting PK?d is basically a more or less set amount of time and (in most cases just) a little amount of frustration. Rewards are either supplied by the quest setting or environmental. In the April 10th dev chat RG specifically mentioned ?high value resources? as an incentive for going PVP. In short, from what little we know so far, PVP will be ?worth it? already, even if you look at it not from an inherent fun (or non-fun, if you?re not into PVP) perspective.

Having player-looting however has the potential of overshadowing and tipping the whole game?s feel for several reasons:

1) An annoying and non-fun level of gear management is introduced ? you?d need a safe-mode gear-set and a PK gear-set to manage the risk / cap potential losses.

2) Having player-looting would mess with immersion in general as you?d always need to be twitchy / prepared for an emergency escape. Many people do not want to make that concession / intrusion into their playstyle and plain would not play such a mode (see UO, Migration to Trammel ? trememdous player vote there).

3) High value items become devalued by their limited usability ? if they?re factually only usable in safe-mode, you can?t take the shinies out. The more of the game is player-loot-enabled, the more frustrating this becomes for players (plus it limits design/itemization options).

4) Player possessions keep the player emotionally attached to the game world ? it?s like a bond between you and your gear/house/whatever, however rare or customized it might be. It?s yours, you worked or cared for it, and you come back to it. If players can be looted, those bonds get severed, and you risk losing the player.

5) There?s no hard limit to the potential loss: If caught on the wrong foot, any player could literally lose all of his possessions in an instant. **** happens. It?s completely unreasonable game design for people to be able to lose months of time?s worth in an instant.

6) If you were to argue 5) it?d still be a bad game mechanic as even the most skilled, best PVP player can get ganked/or ambushed by a group of people on the other side. These are teamspeak times. PVP is more of a numbers and coordination game than anything else. Which is fine, and challenging, but due to the wildly uncontrollable outcome individual risk must be contained for PVP as a whole to be viable.

7) Even on even footing, the equation is skewed in favour of aggressors: They?re prepared, their chars are skilled for PVP, they carry minimum PVP gear only, and they have initiative. Both risk and challenge are skewed in favour of the aggressors and carry much greater downside risk for potential victims.

8) If player-looting is allowed, reds / their SotA equivalent will scrutinize the whole gamezone and quest setup; they?ll identify bottlenecks and mousetraps and they?ll specifically set up ambushs in the most lopsided way. They?ll prod holes into design ruining the experience for a large amount of people. It?s just their way of ?gaming the game?. The need to fix those will create extra load on devs and extra unrest on the forums during the whole process.

9) Having player-looting will keep a lot of people out of PVP who?d otherwise engage in PVP. Having player-looting will actually lead to *less* PVP, as those who are in favour of PVP, but dislike player-looting are shifted out.

I?ve prob?ly forgotten a few and may edit later.

I would greatly appreciate a clarification from the Devs on what?s planned for player-looting (hopefully nothing). A compromise I could see: If friends-online mode is NEVER EVER player-loot-enabled, I could potentially live with player-looting in open-online mode (though I?d still doubt its positive effects).


- Calem