What You See Is What You Get Loot System

[Sarex]

In all fairness, BG2 had a defacto infini-inventory once you started getting gem bags, potion cases, ammo bags, scroll cases and (especially) bags of holding. And you use those whenever and wherever.

 

LoL, no it didn't, at least not for me.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Maybe those enemies sent their equipment to their own stashes right before they died.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[Ozida]

I want what Sensuki says but with a bit of a twist. During mortal combat items get destroyed so I want WYSIWYG to determine base list of items and then a roll to see what items survived combat. Armors and shields should have least chance to survive fights while items like rings, amulets should have greatest.

 

I strongly agree to that, except for the special items from boss fights. The last thing I want to happen after killing Super-Monster Orc King is to find out that his only and one Helmet of Awesomeness was destroyed because I’ve bashed him too hard on head.

[Lord Wafflebum]

I would like to echo the sentiment of disliking the unlimited inventory system. I realize that is unlikely to change, but I just think of the super dungeon they're putting into the game. At the end of that dungeon I feel I should have to make a hard decision on what I'm going to lug out of that place. I shouldn't be able to packrat out every single door knob and trinket. If I do want to lug out every door knob and trinket in the mega dungeon, it should take me a very long time to do so.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Lord Wafflebum

[Hiro Protagonist II]

In all fairness, BG2 had a defacto infini-inventory once you started getting gem bags, potion cases, ammo bags, scroll cases and (especially) bags of holding. And you use those whenever and wherever.

 

In all fairness, you have no idea what you're talking about. Bags of holding, gem bags, potions cases, scroll cases had a limited amount you could put in them. And I always had to have a couple of scroll cases, gem bags, etc over a few characters to be able to pick up everything and even then I would fill them up.

[Clean&Clear]

 

Immersion is maybe an overused term on these forums but limitless stash accesible from anywhere (so Dimension door is actually present in PoE, but only works on items??) and absence of WYSIWYG loot is probably sitting on the top of my immersion killers list. :-/

Afaik, the stash is only accessible while resting (Inn, camping).

 

 

 

But while resting in every inn and on every campsite = still anywhere...

[Shevek]

 

 

In all fairness, BG2 had a defacto infini-inventory once you started getting gem bags, potion cases, ammo bags, scroll cases and (especially) bags of holding. And you use those whenever and wherever.

In all fairness, you have no idea what you're talking about. Bags of holding, gem bags, potions cases, scroll cases had a limited amount you could put in them. And I always had to have a couple of scroll cases, gem bags, etc over a few characters to be able to pick up everything and even then I would fill them up.

I guess I never ran into that issue considering the amount of space those containers gave, how numerous they were and how they 100% negated item weight issues.

 

I was never of fan of those containers btw and I am not a huge fan of the PoE stash either. However, the notion that BG2 had some kinda meaningfully restrictive inventory system is silly (unless you truly were picking up every single regular battle axe and shortbow that dropped).

[Lephys]

I'm familiar with the concept, yes. I still contend, however, that picking up everything but the kitchen sink and selling it is a terrible gameplay mechanic.

Agreed. If its only purpose is money from selling, then I'd rather just find money, to be honest. I mean, it's one thing to find 5 common longswords in an entire area, and another to fell 73 bandits, and end up with 73 longswords. You've obviously got something equivalent or better on anyone you'd like to have an equipped longsword, at that point, so I just don't see the reason for even having all that pick-uppable. "For realism/immersion," sure. But immersion to what end? You could program in the ability to pick up and closely inspect rocks and blades of grass, but what's the point if it doesn't lead to some interesting use of that?

 

I mean, honestly, the immersion argument leads to both the following, regarding this:

 

1) The equipment of anyone you kill should be there, available to take.

2) Your party of adventurer's would, realistically, never say "alright, guys, we really need to make sure we get all 73 of these longswords, because it's totally worth it" and pick them all up.

 

So, in one line of reasoning, it's self-defeating. "Let's make sure you can pick up and sell 100 longswords in one bandit camp, in a world in which it isn't feasible to do that."

 

*shrug*

 

I agree, though, that it's kinda silly to kill 50 people, and only like 3 of them ever drop weapons or armor. Honestly, though, with the stronghold mechanic in place, I think you should just be able to send word to people to come pick the battlefield clean, so that they can actually be used as arms/supplies, or even melted down to make other things, rather than just being junk items for you and your adventuring party to always sell for 7cp a pop.

 

There are definitely more interesting ways to do it than just "all physical objects that would exist in the world should be there and available to pick up and interact with."

Edited November 25, 2014 by Lephys

[Sensuki]

Nope, If I kill 73 bandits I want 73 sets of their gear. However due to the limited inventory space in the IE games I never picked up mundane weapons except at the very beginning of BG1 because that 10 gold from the first round of weapon sales was useful then.

[Zeckul]

I can imagine that this could create balance problems - they might want to pit you against enemies equipped with great gear but not necessarily let you get their gear - as well as generating a ton of crap loot that players will have to sift through if they don't want to miss actually useful items. Is the only argument for this familiarity or expectation based on prior experience? That doesn't seem like a very good reason.

 

The only thing that would really bother me is enemies dropping nonsensical loot (i.e. Diablo - bats dropping full plate), but I wouldn't mind the game filtering out the generic crap for me.

[Sensuki]

they might want to pit you against enemies equipped with great gear but not necessarily let you get their gear

 

In this style of game, this is a stupid notion - ESPECIALLY because the side content is not scaled, you could go to the same area at level 4 or level 8 like in the IE games and you are supposed to be able to reap the rewards of going there early. That's the whole ****ing point of doing content in a non-linear fashion.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Sensuki

[Silent Winter]

Diablo - bats dropping full plate

Ah, the Dark Knight!

 

----

 

Would like to see enemies dropping the gear they're using (would also not mind if some mundane gear in an area were damaged in battle)

Not the end of the world if it's not in though, so long as the drops we do get make sense.

Would hate to see wolves dropping short-swords/gold-necklaces or a common bandit dropping mighty-avenger+5 that they had tucked away but didn't use in battle since their short-sword -1 seemed like a good idea at the time.

[archangel979]

I can imagine that this could create balance problems - they might want to pit you against enemies equipped with great gear but not necessarily let you get their gear - as well as generating a ton of crap loot that players will have to sift through if they don't want to miss actually useful items. Is the only argument for this familiarity or expectation based on prior experience? That doesn't seem like a very good reason.

 

The only thing that would really bother me is enemies dropping nonsensical loot (i.e. Diablo - bats dropping full plate), but I wouldn't mind the game filtering out the generic crap for me.

Now that you mention Diablo, another aRPG called Grim Dawn has this WYSIWYG system. You can run into heroes with unique gear that has a chance to drop after you kill it.

[Rahkir]

 

I'm familiar with the concept, yes. I still contend, however, that picking up everything but the kitchen sink and selling it is a terrible gameplay mechanic.

Agreed. If its only purpose is money from selling, then I'd rather just find money, to be honest. I mean, it's one thing to find 5 common longswords in an entire area, and another to fell 73 bandits, and end up with 73 longswords. You've obviously got something equivalent or better on anyone you'd like to have an equipped longsword, at that point, so I just don't see the reason for even having all that pick-uppable. "For realism/immersion," sure. But immersion to what end? You could program in the ability to pick up and closely inspect rocks and blades of grass, but what's the point if it doesn't lead to some interesting use of that?

 

I mean, honestly, the immersion argument leads to both the following, regarding this:

 

1) The equipment of anyone you kill should be there, available to take.

2) Your party of adventurer's would, realistically, never say "alright, guys, we really need to make sure we get all 73 of these longswords, because it's totally worth it" and pick them all up.

 

So, in one line of reasoning, it's self-defeating. "Let's make sure you can pick up and sell 100 longswords in one bandit camp, in a world in which it isn't feasible to do that."

 

*shrug*

The first point you list seems perfectly fine to me and I can't tell if you oppose it. I certainly want to be able to loot what my enemies are using; to kill a dude with an awesome flaming sword and then receive only a pair of boots is immersion breaking (in a non-trivial way) and sort of lame (you can find more on why I think "make every enemy using a cool flaming sword drop his cool flaming sword" isn't an adequate answer in the next paragraph). If an enemy I see is wearing sick +1 Leather Armor and wielding a unique looking sword, I want to be able to take those when I triumph over him. A system which requires me to reason externally when those items aren't available is not fun for me. ("Oh, the armor must have been damaged beyond repair and the sword must have been pretty crappy since it disintegrated on contact.") It also seems like 'challenging encounters' can be achieved in ways beyond giving the computer strong equipment that the player doesn't have access to.

 

To your second point, I actually don't think it is self-defeating. Consider the time when it's more frequent that you come across enemies with magical items. You fight an adventuring group with 5 magic swords, but giving you 5 magic swords is probably overkill, you probably won't use them, so they only drop one. That is a very 'gamey' way to look at the system; what if I want to use 5 magic swords? What if, by chance, no one else that I fought used a magic sword prior to now and I could use all 5 even though I had the opportunity before now to acquire 10 magic swords? Or, should all "noteworthy" equipment be dropped? The question then becomes: what is noteworthy and when? Are 'fine' weapons noteworthy in Area 1 and 2, but not in 3? Normal items in area 1, but not 2 and 3? Designing a system wherein loot is perfectly balanced such that you never feel like "Man, I REALLY wanted that item he was using but he didn't drop it because -insert roleplay excuse here-" seems quite hard. The simplest solution is to make enemies drop the items they have equipped always.

[prodigydancer]

 You fight an adventuring group with 5 magic swords, but giving you 5 magic swords is probably overkill, you probably won't use them, so they only drop one.

Well, maybe I like to collect magic swords and throw them on a big magic swords pile in my castle. The point is that I should decide. If I fight five guys wrapped in magic stuff from head to toe and I win - I want their stuff, all of it. This is only honest.

 

Rather than restricting loot, developers should think more about their encounter design and how it fits (or doesn't fit) the setting. For example, a +2 weapon in Forgotten Realms isn't a big deal because everyone and their dog has one. But in a less magical setting enchanted items may (and probably should) be quite rare so it won't make any sense if enemies have plenty of them. And when they don't drop them to boot, it only adds insult to injury.

 

Random loot works for ARPGs because in ARPGs you naturally farm the same levels again and again in hope to find better gear. Getting the same loot again and again would make no sense. But random or incomplete loot in a CRPG is just lazy design.

Edited November 26, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Gfted1]

 

 

Immersion is maybe an overused term on these forums but limitless stash accesible from anywhere (so Dimension door is actually present in PoE, but only works on items??) and absence of WYSIWYG loot is probably sitting on the top of my immersion killers list. :-/

Afaik, the stash is only accessible while resting (Inn, camping).

 

 

 

But while resting in every inn and on every campsite = still anywhere...

 

 

Pretty much, but those options require the expenditure of resources. You cant access the stash while just walking around or in combat.

[prodigydancer]

Pretty much, but those options require the expenditure of resources. You cant access the stash while just walking around or in combat.

A reasonable tradeoff. I've played many games and can't remember any where backtracking to your stash was fun.

Edited November 26, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Gfted1]

 

Pretty much, but those options require the expenditure of resources. You cant access the stash while just walking around or in combat.

A reasonable tradeoff. I've played many games and can't remember any where backtracking to your stash was fun.

 

 

Hell, Ive never played a game with unlimited inventory! I agree its a reasonable tradeoff but ultimately kind of pointless imo. After 2-4 weapon sets and the individual inventory that every toon can access, how often would people really be going into the stash to find something they need right now?

[serenityangel]

I'll just include my thoughts in this.  When I worked on mod projects and had to give loot distribution when a mob dies, I followed one very simple rule.  If the mob has a Proper Name (ie: The Big Bad Wolf of Red Riding Hood) then whatever it had is what you get, everything~!  If the mob was generic and multiple copies of it existed in the world (Ie: a grey wolf) then the loot was a percentage chance of getting whatever it had for not all wolves are made or killed equally.  You can realistically explain the percentage chance by combat chance of destruction, the value is sub par and not worth taking, anything and everything but most people that play don't miss out on generic bad guys for loot, but get really upset to get only 1 or 2 coppers from a Named bad guy.

[ctn2003]

Yea im not going to suger it - thats bull **** not geting the stufff that i can CLEARLY see on hes body!

[Zeckul]

 

they might want to pit you against enemies equipped with great gear but not necessarily let you get their gear

 

In this style of game, this is a stupid notion - ESPECIALLY because the side content is not scaled, you could go to the same area at level 4 or level 8 like in the IE games and you are supposed to be able to reap the rewards of going there early. That's the whole ****ing point of doing content in a non-linear fashion.

Getting the visible items on the characters you fight is not the only possible type of reward for defeating them. What I'm saying is that this system puts more constraints on encounter design in terms of what you fight vs what you get. You can't give an enemy some ridiculous weapon if the player will end up with that and it completely breaks the game for him.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Zeckul

[Lephys]

The first point you list seems perfectly fine to me and I can't tell if you oppose it. I certainly want to be able to loot what my enemies are using; to kill a dude with an awesome flaming sword and then receive only a pair of boots is immersion breaking (in a non-trivial way) and sort of lame (you can find more on why I think "make every enemy using a cool flaming sword drop his cool flaming sword" isn't an adequate answer in the next paragraph). If an enemy I see is wearing sick +1 Leather Armor and wielding a unique looking sword, I want to be able to take those when I triumph over him. A system which requires me to reason externally when those items aren't available is not fun for me. ("Oh, the armor must have been damaged beyond repair and the sword must have been pretty crappy since it disintegrated on contact.") It also seems like 'challenging encounters' can be achieved in ways beyond giving the computer strong equipment that the player doesn't have access to.

 

To your second point, I actually don't think it is self-defeating. Consider the time when it's more frequent that you come across enemies with magical items. You fight an adventuring group with 5 magic swords, but giving you 5 magic swords is probably overkill, you probably won't use them, so they only drop one. That is a very 'gamey' way to look at the system; what if I want to use 5 magic swords? What if, by chance, no one else that I fought used a magic sword prior to now and I could use all 5 even though I had the opportunity before now to acquire 10 magic swords? Or, should all "noteworthy" equipment be dropped? The question then becomes: what is noteworthy and when? Are 'fine' weapons noteworthy in Area 1 and 2, but not in 3? Normal items in area 1, but not 2 and 3? Designing a system wherein loot is perfectly balanced such that you never feel like "Man, I REALLY wanted that item he was using but he didn't drop it because -insert roleplay excuse here-" seems quite hard. The simplest solution is to make enemies drop the items they have equipped always.

I apologize if it was my fault in being too vague, but you misunderstand me. The points I was making were in regard to everything you see always dropping everything it has on it.

 

So, if you kill 73 typical bandits with typical gear, you get 73 sets of leather/chain/padded armor, 73 pairs of boots, 73 rather-used short swords/maces/daggers, 73 sets of smallclothes, 73 non-valuable rings, 73 hats/helmets, 73 cloaks, etc.

 

I'm not saying they'd all be wearing the same thing. And I'm not talking about 73 bandits all in a row or something. I just mean, out of all the enemies you fight, EVERY bandit can't be running around with a +7 magical flaming sword and some spiffy enchanted jerkin, or there's no point in ever even finding magical stuff. And I certainly don't expect to only ever face 10 bandits in the whole game.

 

So, it's quite immersive to go "Whoa, I can just pick up and take all the stuff they had!". But, really, it's horrendously un-immersive for the only real potential value in that to be that you can gather it all up (which no team of 6 people would ever do... not that amount of stuff) and take it back to town to get extra money from. Especially in PoE, because what are you gaining by "conserving" your stash space?

 

So, you can't merely look at the availability of all the equipment always being on the ground as "Oh, that = +1 immersion!", because there are other factors that are collaboratively involved. As I said, if there are many different things you can actually do with various bits of non-monetarily-valuable equipment (dress up as bandits, show proof of how many bandits you've slain, arm your strongholdians, salvage things for resources, etc.), and/or if the manner by which your inventory limitations function within the world are also supporting of immersion (you have a pack mule, perhaps, but the more stuff you load it with, the bigger a target it becomes for the eyes of highwaymen, etc.), then it's nice. But, just "yay, there'll be tons of stuff on the ground!" alone doesn't contribute much at all to immersion, because, to what end is that occurring? "I'm so glad I get to roleplay my party walking away from a bunch of not-worth-it junk on the ground, instead of having to roleplay a party who doesn't even have any useless junk to leave lying around, u_u..."

 

That doesn't make much sense. The very argument that supports "The stuff should be there and lootable," ALSO supports "you really shouldn't ever loot all that stuff, because it's preposterous." That's what I'm saying.

 

I don't want you to not-get +5 magical swords, or spiffy jerkins. 8P

[ctn2003]

I think TOEE had the same thing if you killed guy in the game that you knew had a key or somthing it whould never give it to you. lol always made me mad

[Karkarov]

I mostly concur with Sensuki (I am even the one that pointed out to him Medreth no longer dropped his armor), but I wouldn't mind if the enemies don't drop EVERYTHING.  I just don't want some insanely retarded system like Torment where you would fight armies of dudes who never dropped anything, Merchants would yell about selling swords but not actually sell swords, and enemies could use all sorts of weapons against you (sometimes even brag about them) but never ever dropped their weapons.

 

In the immersive counter defense there is always one other argument for enemies not always dropping all their gear.  Stuff breaks.  I mean, I did just stab a guy to death.  Is it unreasonable to assume maybe his leather armor isn't worth salvaging?  Or that a guys sword maybe broke during the fight?

Edited November 27, 2014 by Karkarov

[Hiro Protagonist II]

FFS. Oh how this game has turned out. There was the argument from those who were against kill xp that the reward for engaging in battle was the loot. Now Obsidian gives us trash loot or no loot and just a few coppers and we now have people saying they're okay with this.