Loot System Discussion

So this topic is gaining a lot more traction as Rod has tweeted about it as shown here: https://twitter.com/RodFergusson/status ... 96546?s=20. So this definitely is a possible addition/change to the game.

I would like to see what you guys think about it and if perhaps there's a better alternative to just shared vs. personalized. I have seen some concerns over bots creating 8 player lobbies and farming them so there's that to consider as well.

Personally, I think that no matter what, bots will bot whether it's 8 lobbies with 1 bot or 1 lobby with 8 bots. The runes they can get will be the same. I also think if any change happens, I would like to see a loot system where you have a chance to get an item (RNG roll) that is dropped from a monster killed within your party and if you are chosen, you and only you can see this one item. I think this should maybe be limited to bosses/mini-bosses. Otherwise, this could be overwhelming as you wouldn't know where the loot is. I also think this should absolutely be an option and that needs to be very clear and easy to find.

What do you guys think? Is this a step in the right direction or would you rather see it not changed?

They already ruined Ladder for me, to some extent (playerbase wise), by giving Non-Ladder all the Ladder only items (yes, I know I'm the minority here but that's because I play Hardcore Ladder only and I know how low the playerbase is. It's gonna be even worse now). That's enough.

Leave the loot as it is. It's part of the game experience. There are enough Leechers on public games already. I don't need them to be rewarded for doing absolutely nothing. If you want loot really that bad, go to private games and/or get some buddies to play with.

Stormlash wrote: 2 years ago

They already ruined Ladder for me, to some extent (playerbase wise), by giving Non-Ladder all the Ladder only items

Here's a summary btw of what was said on Twitter:

Nivea Miranda wrote:

Hello Rod! Any chance to put a loot setting for co-op? A way for everyone to see their own loot, instead of having everything shared by the group.

Blizzard wrote:

Not for launch but it's something the team continues to discuss. - Rob Fergusson

I mean, if it's an option, then you can always just ignore games that have this weird personal loot thing activated (hopefully they'll remember to add some sort of filter for this in the bnet Lobby). If it were to make the cut after launch, I'd also want to see it stated very clearly when this option is on in-game too.

But there is something savage and primal about everyone clicking like mad to try and pick up the

Annihilus for example, and that moment where your heart skips a beat and the adrenaline rush etc. That's really cool and I hope that stays in the majority of games. Pandering to carebears who want their own loot would kind of suck if not implemented properly, but Blizz have to think about their promises concerning accessibility and controller play too.

IMO not having that in every single game wouldn't be a deal breaker for me (I'd just not play in those types of games), but if I suspect someone is using an automated tool like PickIt then I'd not mind turning it on if it were my game.

Krythic wrote: 2 years ago

Stormlash wrote: 2 years ago

They already ruined Ladder for me, to some extent (playerbase wise), by giving Non-Ladder all the Ladder only items

bb04d9d7-8d67-4f23-a578-fa2bcee07b79_text.gif

How do you do this sorcery.

I will say, I agree with keeping to the diablo experience. I really don't and never have or will like the ffa loot system as it just pits everyone (random groups - majority of them) against each other.

I am trying to find people to play with that are cool with like 'oh heres this super rare item but its an upgrade for your build so take it'. Visa versa. Like everyone saying hey this is what dropped, and if its not a direct upgrade then its keeps.

However, the only way I would accept a loot option is having it a lobby option, and the same exact loot drop table be present, just randomly divided amongst the players present.

The change sounds like way more bullshit at the last minute than is possible or warranted. So ultimately, leave it be. If they do it right, then sure.

Seems like the Devs just tweeted that they won't be doing personal loot, just discussing it.


You can go on d2 battle.net right now, and find bot games for

Enchant leveling, and hammerdin bots doing exp runs. Could you imagine a personal loot system set up so that you didn't even have to play the game? All you had to do was leech from the hammerdin bot, and get all the gear & loot you wanted in total safety.

I think this would change/break the game too much. Being forced to venture out on your own to hunt your gear is an important, and dangerous aspect to this game.

havelox wrote: 2 years ago

Seems like the Devs just tweeted that they won't be doing personal loot, just discussing it.


You can go on d2 battle.net right now, and find bot games for

Enchant leveling, and hammerdin bots doing exp runs. Could you image a personal loot system set up so that you didn't even have to play the game? All you had to do was leech from the hammerdin bot, and get all the gear & loot you wanted in total safety.

I think this would change/break the game too much. Being forced to venture out on your own to hunt your gear is an important, and dangerous aspect to this game.

people do exactly that with FFA on as well. right now on battle.net Diablo 2. i think it would be good to have both options. as long as the number of items dropped stay the same. you say people need to earn their gear. but what about all the thousands of fools that will join most low level game to just give you any item you need, and then rush you to Ancients act 5. not everyone likes doing thousands of solo Pindel runs, or fight loot picking scripts. and having to compete on clicking first items with classes like sorceress who can just perfectly

Teleport into position to grab all loot.

What happens when you get the average non-pc gamer involved in giving their opinion of "favorable" changes to the game? Diablo 3 Personalized loot system in D2R xD

Leechers are bad enough, it is best to keep the loot system the same or it will change the game too much in the wrong direction for me.

If you are skillful at looting more quickly then others you should be rewarded. The game is pretty much all about looting monsters anyway.

The quick looters are most likely to be more attentive and active in slaying demons anyhow. Gives more incentives for people to help out others if they can score some sick loot along the way too.

I introduced a friend of mine to D2 one year ago.
He was on the urge of quitting and not getting hyped for D2, because he was not able to get Loot from his

Baal Runs and other ppl would just be quicker.

It was until he grabbed a

Vex Rune and was excited as a little kid on christmas eve.

Shared loot is the bitter sweet feeling D2 gives me every time, when people missclick on items and so do you, when they panically check their inventory for trash to throw out to grab that beautiful shiny golden

Shako that dropped from Diablo.
No - for me it's shared loot all the way. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Make the best of out it.

If you dislike it: farm Meph/TC85 alone and enjoy your personal loot!

Sabcoll wrote: 2 years ago

I introduced a friend of mine to D2 one year ago.
He was on the urge of quitting and not getting hyped for D2, because he was not able to get Loot from his

Baal Runs and other ppl would just be quicker.

It was until he grabbed a

Vex Rune and was excited as a little kid on christmas eve.

Shared loot is the bitter sweet feeling D2 gives me every time, when people missclick on items and so do you, when they panically check their inventory for trash to throw out to grab that beautiful shiny golden

Shako that dropped from Diablo.
No - for me it's shared loot all the way. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Make the best of out it.

If you dislike it: farm Meph/TC85 alone and enjoy your personal loot!

If they do personal loot at all, it should be a tickbox during game creation. Period; there should be no exception to this, because it's forcing a mechanic that many people may not like. Diablo 2 is a harsh game, and that's why it's so beautiful. Diablo 2 is perfect in all the ways that it's imperfect.

they could just have a choice of the 2 loot systems on the create game part.

personally id prefer the game to assign loot to people like round robin in wow.
maybe if its not picked up in 60 seconds it becomes FFA?

atleast then if your doing ball runs where you wanna kill

Baal you have equal chance on loot because you know people will have hacks, blizzard cant even ban bots.

I normally don't chime in on things like this, but I figured since this forum is new I'll take a shot on a hot topic.

The thing I see a lot of people misunderstand is the difference between 'personal loot' and 'allocated loot' compared to 'public loot' in Diablo 3's case. Currently we have public loot, as it has been for years. Diablo 3 has 'personal loot' where items drop for each player only. If an enemy in Diablo 3 drops loot, the loot gets multiplied per player. Example: Normal boss drops 3 items with 1 player in the game, but would then drop 9 items if 3 players were in the game with 3 items going to each person privately. That is what 'personal loot' is, items are multiplied by the player count so each person gets an entirely personal loot experience. With Diablo 3's lack of trading, it makes sense.

Now on the topic of 'allocated loot' using the same example. If Diablo 2 had allocated loot if a normal boss dropped 3 items with 1 player in the game, that person could pick up all 3 items. However if a normal boss dropped 3 items with 3 players in the game, only 1 item would drop for each player. If a fourth to eighth player were in the game, players 4 through 8 would see zero items drop. Now granted the chosen players would be randomized, or round robin to make this work. The end result is you see a lot less items drop, but the total drops remain the same as they are now with public loot.

Because of the economy driven design of Diablo 2, a 'personal loot' system as described above using Diablo 3 as an example would destroy the economy very quickly. In my above example, EIGHT TIMES more items would be dropping in 8 player games, 4 times more items in 4 player games and so on. It would accelerate the economy so quickly that value would be nothing after mere days. I fully understand the "want" for personal loot, but most people don't seem to think about the game as a whole.

Allocated loot would in theory work. However it too has its flaws with how it works. If allocated loot was an option, do you set it to round robin, random, or something else? Do you let the game creator decide and give multiple options within allocated loot? Where does that choice stop? It could in theory work, but would need some adjustment on how the loot chooses the player to drop for.

Another small thing to think about with allocated loot is do you let all players see all loot but only pick up the items allocated to them? Do you put all items on a global timer so they become free for all after a certain time? If you don't let all players see items, what happens if player 1 doesn't need an item, but player 2 does. Then if the item player 2 needs, drops for player 1, but player 1 doesn't say it dropped player 2 would never know and still need it even though it dropped and was skipped by player 1. If items are always visible, then player 2 could tell player 1 to pick it up to re-drop it for player 2, but that becomes a hassle.

Leaving it as an option at game creation between personal loot or public loot, creates the same problem as stated above. You still end up with more items in the market than normal. If only 20% of the games used personal loot, that's 20% more items added to the global item pool still. It would need to be either all or nothing because of that.

This is why I am sadly against the idea of public loot, or allocated loot. Allocated loot IS the correct way to handle it if they were to go that route, but just creates other problems. Leaving everything public has its issues too, but carries less overall issues with it in the long run. You want an item that someone else doesn't? Pick it up. Yes it does create a situation of people being loot ninjas in public games, but that's part of the experience. You don't go into

Baal run games expecting items, you go into them expecting exp, with getting items as a bonus. If you want to MF in large games, you tend to do it with groups of friends who are already sharing items anyway. If you want to MF without people stealing your items you MF in private games. Personal loot as a concept already exists, you just make a game with a password and then all of that loot is personal. Yeah I know that's not what people want to hear but that's the reality of how it works and how it in my opinion should work in this game.

I am definitely open for conversation on the topic, it's not a open and closed book in that regard. I just feel like it doesn't get the full thought from people who seem to campaign for the idea of personal loot. Allocated loot would work, personal loot would not. Maybe you have a different idea of how something should work? It's all up in the air at this point.

@UnrivaledPiercer well explained in regards to "personal loot" vs "allocated loot". Never heard the distinction between the terminology before, but like it and think it's important to set the right context in a discussion like this. It's too easy to misunderstand someones meaning with ambiguity in how personal loot might be interepreted.

I think the problem of how the items are divided up in the case of "allocated loot" is also problematic. In the case of shorter games, such as

Baal runs. There is only a couple, if any, worthwhile items dropped per game while also having the potential of dropping any item in the game.

Even if you assume the same 8 players do X number of runs, whatever scheme used to try to best equally distribute items would effectively be reset every few minutes when a new run starts. Assuming none of the 8 players are using pickit or something to cheat, your odds of getting any decent item are lower than if it was with a shared loot FFA.

However the biggest issue I see with "allocated loot" is the inherit way drops are calculated in D2. The MF% applied when rolling the drops is dependent on the player that gets the killing blow. If a player has high end mf gear, the majority of their drops will go to other players. However the drops they are assigned from other players with less mf will be less likely to be rare/set/unique. Albeit that depends on whether magic/rare are assigned to a player, or if it's just set/unique. As well as whether the assignment is random, round robin, or weighted in some other way.

Also the mlvl of the monsters also causes problems. If a player kills a super-unique who has those drops assigned to others, while the items they are assigned are from regular monster, it can drastically affect what potential items that can be dropped. Combine that with the state of say a round robin assignment being reset every game, it doesn't really seem appealing to me.

Maybe there is a clever way to address that, but I imagine the most obvious would be doing "personal loot" and give everyone drops every time, which I agree would kill the economy, imo worse than botting ever has or potentially could.

@Noemard Well said! I hadn't even considered the impact of MF on kills myself. That opens up so many more problems... They would have to re-work how MF scales or something with MF being scaled based on player count and total MF across all players or something. Yeah that would be interesting to even consider trying to find a fix for...

Looks like they're officially not doing personal loot:

https://twitter.com/RodFergusson/status ... 1736963073

I wonder what it would be like if they added the Classic WOW loot need/greed loot system into D2, with some tweaks. If items of a certain value drop, everybody nearby who was in combat with the mob that dropped the item gets to roll for it. Not personal loot, pretty much the same loot system the game already has, just with the 'who can click the fastest / who is running auto-clicker software' aspect removed. You'd still need to be in combat to roll on it, so no leaching. Maybe no separate need/greed since loot doesn't bind like in Classic WOW, so no 'you can't use that item' arguments, so there's no reason to ever click greed like in WOW... But at least a system to make people involved in the kill /roll for the item instead of frantically clicking on it or cheating with 3rd party software.

I'm definitely fine with leaving the loot system the way it is, but I'm still curious how it would play like with a /roll system.

Personally, I am heavily against personal loot implementation, including having it as optional on creation.

My primary top 5 reasons off the top of my head are:

1. It takes away player agency. Besides the engaging scramble of trying to grab loot first (which many of us enjoy) you would no longer necessarily even have to try to get loot, just follow other’s runs and get guaranteed 1/8 the loot. Watch Netflix while sitting in

Baal runs & in enough time, Griffons and HRs will eventually be yours just for leeching.

2. Its easy to abuse and greatly benefits players who buy multiple CD keys. Every player gets guaranteed 1/8 the loot? Nice ill buy 4 CD keys and bring in 4 boxes to AFK in

Baal/Chaos runs and get half the drops! D2 just became a little more pay-to-win.

3. It hurts the atmosphere by removing the sense that we are all playing in the same “world”. eg. That

Shako that dropped was there for everyone to witness and have an a chance at obtaining. I felt like this grounded the game in a certain realism.

4. Say for example that I am running public

Baal runs. If I’m teleporting and doing most of the carrying, I expect at least the chance to grab any of the loot that drops. With Personal Loot, that option is removed. I only get 1/8 of it and am automatically removed from 87.5% of the drops.

5. Say for example I’m running private

Baal runs. It is easy to find a group of players who acknowledge they only want to leech for XP and agree to give me drops in exchange for the carrying them. This is a common occurrence and is mutually beneficial. If someone disagrees with the arrangement I can make a new PW’d game and not invite them. Private loot removes this mutual agreement and trade of XP for loot that players often partake in.

@BMAY I agree with all of your points. Changing from one shared loot pool that is shared among all present players to a personal loot system seems like it could dramatically change the game due to all of the reasons you listed. Just for the sake of discussion though, what would you think about a /roll system for items that drop? Specifically one where only players present for the item to drop get to roll for an item, players not in combat wouldn't get to roll. It would keep the same 'one for all' loot table, the only thing it would change would be the race to click on the item first. Similar to a 'Need Roll' in WOW Classic.

@Beardozer Still against such a system as really all of the above stated reasons would still apply. However for the sake of discussion, a system that tries to "intelligently" discern players to allocate to, whether via 'in combat' or another method is precarious at best.

Though not very useful, a Sorceress with Thundersorm sitting "afk" is certainly in combat still, right? Similarly, a low level Trapsin who simply has to recast traps every so often. "In combat", but not much damage.

What about support characters like a BO barbarian? or Sage Druid?

Conviction Paladin? More useful than the above characters, but hard to define qualitatively. Other methods of assignment, such as based on damage, would only harm build diversity, and effectively nerf any creative/experimental builds.

Example A) Assigning loot based on damage dealt - Then if you want any hope of loot you'd better only make a Blizz Sorc, Hammerdin or a LF/CS Zon.

Example B) Assigning loot "randomly" to anyone who has damaged a mob in the past X seconds - This would similarly greatly benefit trapsins, sorcs & any splash damage dealers while harming melee builds like zealers, kicksins, etc. Not only stifling build diversity, but inversely, no one would want the trapsins/sorcs/javazons in their game for getting an unfair amount of loot.

Additionally, the points raised above by @Noemard explain negative ramifications of an intelligent allocation system well. Specifically in regards to how MF calculations would work and the issues with "round robin" allocation tables being reset before being practical with relatively short games such as

Baal runs.

BMAY wrote: 2 years ago

Example A) Assigning loot based on damage dealt

Example B) Assigning loot "randomly" to anyone who has damaged a mob in the past X seconds

I feel like it could be done more easily than that. You don't need to be in combat with anything to get loot now, you just need to be in range to click on it. You can already be a complete leech and pick up loot by having the lowest ping in the game by standing there when things drop. My /roll system would automatically do a need roll for anybody who is in what is currently clicking range. Maybe clicking range plus some milliseconds of distance, I feel it could be fine tuned.

BMAY wrote: 2 years ago

Additionally, the points raised above by @Noemard explain negative ramifications of an intelligent allocation system well. Specifically in regards to how MF calculations would work and the issues with "round robin" allocation tables being reset before being practical with relatively short games such as

Baal runs.

Why would there be any difference to how loot is dropped based on magic find? There is already a loot system which drops items based on however they're dropped.