Petition : Make Looting functions optional.

[Voss]

Maybe not everyone cares. But some of us do, and are concerned about spiralling downward trends in the genre of isometric rpg gaming. 

Welcome to over a decade ago, when it died.  

 

Grasping tightly to the decade-old corpse of the genre won't bring it back, especially not obsessing over the pinkie toe being slightly out of alignment for your liking. 

 

If the genre is going to come back, it needs more than nostalgia or buggy, worthless messes like Wasteland2.  It needs to have good games, first and foremost.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Voss

[Gairnulf]

if you go to the technical section there was a topic about implementing area loot for a long time.

I honestly didn't know it was even an issue for someone. Maybe it's been kept mostly to the technical section which I really don't visit that much.

 

area loot is better than single corpse loot, mostly because it spares you the trouble of pixel hunting for individual enemy bodies (that may be hidden behind something and you cant see them)

Weak argument. That's what the tab key is for, it highlights containers.

 

what bothers me is when the developers decide to use something superior and others go "NO BECAUSE MUH NOSTALGIA" (and that behavior annoys me even more when people think that a problem was actualy a feature and dont want it changed).

No, I'm not about nostalgia at all. I want improved gameplay and I don't think area loot counts as an improvement.

 

what also bothers me, is when people start asking for features without thinking of the implications because "MUH IMMERSION".

Sources of immersion are subjective, because immersion is personal. Good writing and story give some people more immersion than graphics, for others it's the opposite, etc. So, judging people by what they consider to be breaking their immersion leads nowhere.

 

features that may look cool the first time you see them, may look nice and give a realistic vibe the second and third time, but will inevitably become a bother that everyone wishes was not there (even those who demanded them)

I agree, but individual loot containers are not a feature that I see for the first time. I think they create a whole lot of problems while solving none. Edited March 15, 2015 by Gairnulf

[Azmodiuz]

What we want is not what we always get. We can live with this, sure.
What we were told, is that this is a old-school -like game to be modelled heavily after those old-school isometric games like PST and BG and IWD etc..
Many new features are improvements, some welcomed some not and maybe resisted as too much change, some are even just optional.

Looting is something that, I personally believe, should be handled very carefully. Simple, and not to complex, easy to master and get without much explanation, like how it was in the old games. But, now we have some advanced and convenient features, that help us loot faster and easier. They also remove small elements that many have come to expect as given and enjoyed and now miss. We already can not choose freely who we are going to steal items from (Thieving) but not we can not easily determine who dropped what items when we loot an area ( If the implementation is a 3m wide area for instance..).

 

We spend less time now arranging our loot. But there is also probably much more diverse loot too, but its a give and take scenario with who likes what.
This is why I believe it should be optional. OR changed in some way to allow option for greater control. Just like the "LOOT ALL" button is there to help, we can still click one item at a time, or drag and drop (I think we can still do that, right??)  

When I play BG or IWD, i specifically have certain characters loot specific types of enemies or things. I do this to organise who carries what and such. This type of play is largely removed now. I can no longer pretend one fighter found the specific item in question on the body he killed. I used to use my imagination and add even more adventure to the game by doing this, by almost roleplaying each character as having they're own say in who gets what, instead of just auto- controlling it myself and assigning what makes most sense, i would pretend whomever got the last hit, gets first pick. 

This is not typical playstyle, sure, but my first few runs through these rpg's was with one of my friends in multiplayer, so we RP'd our own conversations alot as if we were playing PnP. 
The habit stuck, so I continued to play that way, which would give me soo many more laughs and giggles over stupid things. It makes these games more fun, I can take my time and enjoy them much more. Theres so many random creative quotes that come to mind that we came up with that i still 15 years later quote when we're hanging out as a joke. We grew up on the old games, and its our heritage almost, its our cherished past. So naturally, some of us care very much how certain mechanics are handled. 

Too many publishers got in the way of mechanics and improvements over the years, and completely lost touch on what the old school genre had to offer in its simplicity.
So, I implore you, if you read this, to at least under stand that why we can all the imagination in the world to improve things on paper, systematically making things more efficient with our time, if ultimately telling the story as quickly as possible was the goal, then this would be a movie, with maybe a questionnaire at the beginning to determine most varying factors.

[Flow]

  

[CaptainMace]

When I play BG or IWD, i specifically have certain characters loot specific types of enemies or things. I do this to organise who carries what and such. This type of play is largely removed now. I can no longer pretend one fighter found the specific item in question on the body he killed. I used to use my imagination and add even more adventure to the game by doing this, by almost roleplaying each character as having they're own say in who gets what, instead of just auto- controlling it myself and assigning what makes most sense, i would pretend whomever got the last hit, gets first pick.

 

Why couldn't you still do this ?

[BAdler]

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

[ManifestedISO]

I understand now, how easy it is to become emotionally incensed when faced with a perceived slight. I'm starting a petition to ban the use of Pillars of Eternity portraits as Obsidian forum avatars. I am not unserious, it ruins immersion, because every time I go to choose that portrait for a character in-game, all I can see is the identity of that forum poster. I don't want to be someone else, I want to be me.    

[Valsuelm]

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

 

A slider would be grand!

[Sensuki]

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

I don't mind that area looting is in, but I would prefer it to be optional. I think there are also people that enjoy area looting but like to see which loot came from which corpse - so ideally you'd want to tab the loot UI to show where the loot came from, but have the take all button grab all of it, and then of course, have an option to turn it off (loot area = 0m, I suppose).

 

That may be more involved, but it's probably better to do it properly rather than to quickly get something in before release.

 

I don't mind that some features may take a while to get in (splitting Effects into SFX, Ambient and UI sounds or sliders for VO playback frequency) as long as they are done properly.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

This is dumb...

 

It'll be optional through mods soon anyway.

[Sensuki]

So will unit clipping

[coffeetable]

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

could you also track the stats of how many people actually turn it to zero, and for how long they leave it there

 

because im betting 'almost no-one' and 'for five minutes'

[AndreaColombo]

but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

 

That would be great!

 

So will unit clipping

 

Thanks for that!

[teknoman2]

 

if you go to the technical section there was a topic about implementing area loot for a long time.

I honestly didn't know it was even an issue for someone. Maybe it's been kept mostly to the technical section which I really don't visit that much.

 

area loot is better than single corpse loot, mostly because it spares you the trouble of pixel hunting for individual enemy bodies (that may be hidden behind something and you cant see them)

Weak argument. That's what the tab key is for, it highlights containers.

 

what bothers me is when the developers decide to use something superior and others go "NO BECAUSE MUH NOSTALGIA" (and that behavior annoys me even more when people think that a problem was actualy a feature and dont want it changed).

No, I'm not about nostalgia at all. I want improved gameplay and I don't think area loot counts as an improvement.

 

what also bothers me, is when people start asking for features without thinking of the implications because "MUH IMMERSION".

Sources of immersion are subjective, because immersion is personal. Good writing and story give some people more immersion than graphics, for others it's the opposite, etc. So, judging people by what they consider to be breaking their immersion leads nowhere.

 

features that may look cool the first time you see them, may look nice and give a realistic vibe the second and third time, but will inevitably become a bother that everyone wishes was not there (even those who demanded them)

I agree, but individual loot containers are not a feature that I see for the first time. I think they create a whole lot of problems while solving none.

 

the tab key for highlighting was there in BG2 too, but there were often times when an enemy body was in such a position that you simply could not click on it

 

i don't know about you, but i don't see how individual body loot improves gameplay in any way compared to area loot (because, let's not forget, that the area loot is about dead enemies not chests and other containers)

 

this is why i said that they should make certain features optional, with a tracking to see who of those who asked for it managed to play the whole game with it on and who turned it off halfway through. i bet most would turn it off after 2 or 3 times because it would become annoying

[Zack Fair]

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

Do I know it right that if an enemy dies, its corpse has a sparkling, shining(or somekind) effect on it? Will that effect disappear, if I open the loot window for that corpse? Because that way I could see which corpses were looted in the 3m wide area loot, and which ones should I check again? Edited March 15, 2015 by Zack Fair

[teknoman2]

i think it's obvious that the effect is there to indicate the presence of loot. so it is also obvious that once the loot has been taken the effect will go away

[Midas Touch]

 I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

Hmm, if you're going to add a slider for adjusting the range of area loot, would you consider setting the upper end of the slider to 30 meters?  That way the no-area-loot petitioners can pass on the area loot, and a player like myself would only have to click one body in the combat area to sort all the loot.  I confess, I do like myself some streamlining.

[Gairnulf]

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

I don't mind giving it a chance, but I'm pretty sure I'll run into the problems I've described above. IMO, if you can spare the resources, best to make it adjustable.

 

the tab key for highlighting was there in BG2 too, but there were often times when an enemy body was in such a position that you simply could not click on it

Yes, I remember when loot highlighting was added. It was in ToB for the first time. Personally I liked it, although I've become addicted to it somewhat.

 

i don't know about you, but i don't see how individual body loot improves gameplay in any way compared to area loot (because, let's not forget, that the area loot is about dead enemies not chests and other containers)

 

this is why i said that they should make certain features optional, with a tracking to see who of those who asked for it managed to play the whole game with it on and who turned it off halfway through. i bet most would turn it off after 2 or 3 times because it would become annoying

Well, yes, it's a matter of preference. That's what I said too. I don't see how area loot improves gameplay, but that's me. Edited March 15, 2015 by Gairnulf

[Zack Fair]

i think it's obvious that the effect is there to indicate the presence of loot. so it is also obvious that once the loot has been taken the effect will go away

What if I open the loot container, but don't take the loot (because I don'T need it)? Does the shining still disappear?

[BAdler]

 

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

Do I know it right that if an enemy dies, its corpse has a sparkling, shining(or somekind) effect on it? Will that effect disappear, if I open the loot window for that corpse? Because that way I could see which corpses were looted in the 3m wide area loot, and which ones should I check again?

 

If a corpse no longer has loot on it, it will not have sparkles. Just like previously, you cannot interact with a corpse that has no loot on it.

[BAdler]

 

 I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

Hmm, if you're going to add a slider for adjusting the range of area loot, would you consider setting the upper end of the slider to 30 meters?  That way the no-area-loot petitioners can pass on the area loot, and a player like myself would only have to click one body in the combat area to sort all the loot.  I confess, I do like myself some streamlining.

 

I don't think this is something that we will do in the options.

[Azmodiuz]

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

That would be perfect, adjust to taste, that would be perfect innovation, within keeping to the old school way of it.

[Zack Fair]

 

 

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

Do I know it right that if an enemy dies, its corpse has a sparkling, shining(or somekind) effect on it? Will that effect disappear, if I open the loot window for that corpse? Because that way I could see which corpses were looted in the 3m wide area loot, and which ones should I check again?

 

If a corpse no longer has loot on it, it will not have sparkles. Just like previously, you cannot interact with a corpse that has no loot on it.

 

I suspected that. What I meant is if I check a corpse, and I leave the ****ty loot in it,will it still sparkle? Or the sparkling only stops if I loot every piece of item from the corpse.

[gkathellar]

 

 

 

I was a big proponent of group looting. In fact, I am the one who moved that suggestion to the top of the bug queue.

 

I have been using it for a few builds now and, to me, it feels much better. How it works is that when you click on a corpse it pools loots from any corpse within three meters. The UI has not changed. There is no indicator of which piece of loot came from which corpse, but I haven't seen it as much of an issue while playing the game this weekend. There is still lots of looting (because not everything dies within three meters of everything else), but it definitely cuts down on some of the repetition.

 

I understand that some may not like this new feature, but I would ask that you give it a chance. I am not sure what kind of options we will add for it, but there was talk of an loot distance slider that could go from 0m - 3m. If you want individual loot back, you could just turn it to 0m. That isn't currently in, but it is probably something we could add into a day one patch.

Do I know it right that if an enemy dies, its corpse has a sparkling, shining(or somekind) effect on it? Will that effect disappear, if I open the loot window for that corpse? Because that way I could see which corpses were looted in the 3m wide area loot, and which ones should I check again?

 

If a corpse no longer has loot on it, it will not have sparkles. Just like previously, you cannot interact with a corpse that has no loot on it.

 

I suspected that. What I meant is if I check a corpse, and I leave the ****ty loot in it,will it still sparkle? Or the sparkling only stops if I loot every piece of item from the corpse.

 

 

(a) You have a stash to hold that ****ty loot.

(b) There's a Loot All button. It makes dealing with vendor trash pretty effortless in practice.

[dorkboy]

Does the cursor (on hover) indicate if a container/corpse is lootable? Are the loot sparkles optional?