Loot Distribution in Co-op Play

Outside of leveling and progressing through acts, I always used to approach D2 as a single player experience. One core reason for that is the fact that MF runs tend to be rather quick-paced and are not the greatest avenue for group play, but more importantly the loot system makes fair and organic loot distribution a challenge. Doubly so for public lobbies, but even with friends it's not necessarily clear who should get what.

Objectively speaking, the loot system is inherently imbalanced - rewarding players who happen to be (or attempt to be) closer to the mobs as they die, as well as players who click faster and who prioritize looting over cleanly finishing fights. There is a certain beauty to witnessing the same drops along with everyone else, but there is a lot of potential for conflict here. More modern ARPGs like Path of Exile attempt to solve this issue by automatically assigning loot to players, so you do not fight over the same drops.

But my question is this: How do you generally approach this question in your farming sessions with friends? Especially these days with

Terror Zones where one can trigger the

Herald and the other spawns him. If you decide on a "first come, first serve" basis, if you are unlucky you can end up always being the one triggering but never spawning the heralds. So what to do? Do you take turns? Go by act? Pool all the loot and distribute fairly at the end of the session? Have you found any system that works better than others?

With friends generally just sharing loot is best I feel. Give stuff to whoever needs it to strengthen the group. In pub games it's just a free for all, which I don't really mind either.

use wow greed need system.

If you play with friends for fun, just build a real world dice. who win, get it.

For real world friend, it may much easier.
The winner takes all loot, the loser get free lunch meal from winner.

D2 loot is usually less than 0.5 USD

In pub games it just is what it is. I play a lot with friends and we talk about our plans and needs for the chars and such and so it makes it easy to distribute the loot, if something really valuable drops ( we both trade online ) we barter a bit back and forth and come to a deal that is usually quite good for the person having to give up the item.

Whoever has the biggest use gets it. We usually all play different classes or skilltrees so there is no problem in sharing items. If we find something everyone needs we decide who plays the most and deserves it in order to help the less playing friends more in regard of overall loot. If we find something we dont need but is valuable or a rune, one player gets it and trades it and gives everyone a fair share. And something like worldstones we give one to everyone one after each other and repeat.

in my play circle. The equip is share among all players. who want to play, just use it.

So there wont have any conflict, we share everything.

With a trusted circle, we were selling everything for runes, then divide the runes evenly (if we were running as a single group through the same area)

If one player runs Pits, another Tombs etc then whoever finds a thing, keeps it. I think this is the simplest variant honestly, because you don't need to artificially divide anything. Just run different areas each game. You will still benefit from P3, P5 etc when it comes to MF

I'd leave heralds up to luck

Generally the less sharing, exchanging, dividing loot etc the better chance friendships will last

If in a random lobby game. It's always respect whoever is in that area first. If you see someone in your map, you leave.

As for the

Herald situation, it's mainly luck. If someone drew it but it hunted you, then good. If you drew it and it did not hunt you then respect who got hunted. Ofcourse there's always those aholes (not all but mainly Sorcs players) who goes to your area.