Ninja Looting

Atheraal · December 2005

I despise this. When you've worked for hours to kill a huge npc, and one idiot runs in and grabs your hard-earned items. It's especially bad when you've worked with a group of people to kill the npc.

So, my solution to this: When you click on a corpse, your character walks over to it, kneels down, and starts looting. A loading bar comes up on your screen, with a message along the lines of;
"You are rummaging through so-and-so's backpack."
And your character would be actively shown searching through the corpse's stuff. The load bar would take 15 or so seconds to complete, and when it did, you would be shown a list of the items on the corpse that you could loot. You would then, and ONLY then be able to take stuff. So, during this whole time, you can't be doing anything, you're just kneeling down. An easy shot if you're just a random guy stealing a group's items.

As for how to combat ninja looting in non-PvP areas, I have no idea. Nor do I really care, as I won't be in them. ::::02:: Some AO-style loot permissions sytem, I'd assume.

Falendor · December 2005

I think htat taking time to loot a item is a realistic way of solving ninja looting, but ninja looting is also realistic. there are plenty of creatures in real life that will litraly snach a catch from a hunters mouth. you should just be able to handle ninja looting in the game like big creatures handle it in real life, hunt them down, kill them and take the prize and there stuff.

Tymora · December 2005

I like this idea. Some things in mmorpgs are not fair. They may ruin the fun for some players, but I am a believer in a moorpg that holds to more-or-less realistic features. I don't like it when someone ninja loots, but if I had the opportunity to hunt down the culprit and takes the items that were rightly mine, it would only make the game more fun, in my opinion.

sinoth · December 2005

While we're trying to improve upon current MMO's, there are some things that have already been perfected.. looting being one of them. I really don't have a problem with the current looting systems. There are two major systems I can think of that work... WoW works on one where whoever attacks an NPC first will get looting rights. This works most of the time but leads to people 'pinging' mobs, or just hitting them with a quick weak spell so your group gets the reward for the kill.

Another option is the damage system which I know Neocron uses. Whoever does the most damage to an NPC gets looting rights. I like this system best because you can get partial credit for helping kill a monster. For example, if someone had an NPC down to 50% health, and you started to help them kill it, and at the end you did 25% damage and they did 75% damage... then they would get the looting rights, but you would also get 25% XP for the kill. The only problem with this system is when you're fighting a hard monster and someone high level comes by and finishes it off, they might easily get looting rights since they do so much more damage than you. This doesn't happen very often though.

Edgtho · December 2005

This is another good idea, Atheraal. I've never liked systems where people simply point at an object and automatically acquire it. Players should be vulnerable while looting - this will make it easier for the hunter/victor to defend the loot from prospective thieves.

As for group rewards, I don't think there's a catch-all system, since every group while have different dynamics.

Atheraal · December 2005

Ninja looting is NOT realistic. Do you really think that the time it takes to remove, say, a ring from the rigor mortis-stiffened hand of a corpse would be negligible? Of course not. 15 seconds to loot everything a player is carrying is a ridiculously small amount. And the problem with hunting people down after they loot your stuff, is that it doesn't work. All they have to do is hide long enough to log off for a few hours, or run to a non-PvP zone.

Cthulhuvong · December 2005

First off, rigor mortis takes several hours to set in, so at that point you've given up ownership of the body. Before that, grabbing a gun out of someone's hand or the helmet of their head should take no more than 15 seconds. Now not everything should be able to be looted in that time, but everything except clothes and whats inside them (can't loot whats inside a backpack, but you can take the pack with you). Ninja looting is a realistic as full PvP, and as such needs to be atleast semi-regulated so as not to scare off all but the "hardcore" or "obsessed" players.

Hardware-DC · December 2005

Two very EASY ways to prevent ninja looting:

1) Highest damage done to the mob wins looting rights

2) In a group, anything removed from the corpse gets announced.

"Hardware has looted 1 BFG from Targall's corpse".

That way, when the assigned looter goes to see what the loot is and it is missing, everyone knows who stole form the corpse and can boot that member out of the group.

adrir · December 2005

Originally posted by Hardware-DC
1) Highest damage done to the mob wins looting rights

While it would seem like an obvious solution, there can be various problems associated with this. While this setup may prevent people who didn't "earn" the loot from taking it, it could encourage the "Nuker" skill sets that will always win looting rights (as seen in SWG at the kryat yard with riflemen). It would also encourage mob theft especially bottom feeders griefing those with lowly skilled characters (especially crafters!).

My personal preference at the moment is having the group who initiated combat recieve loot priority. Should another group / character render assistance or attempts to steal the kill, the original party / character maintain their rights.

Originally posted by Hardware-DC
2) In a group, anything removed from the corpse gets announced.

Personally I thought the lottery system in SWG was very innovative. It was one of their better features. No matter who did the actual "action" of looting, it was placed in the inventory of a random member of the group, announced to the rest of course.

Another interesting side effect of this could be to encourage hunting with friends and guilds rather than adventuring with random groups. Teamwork and cooperation strikes me as critical to survival in a post-apocalyptic environment and it would be interesting to see what develops in game.

Rabiator · December 2005

Originally posted by sinoth
There are two major systems I can think of that work... WoW works on one where whoever attacks an NPC first will get looting rights. This works most of the time but leads to people 'pinging' mobs, or just hitting them with a quick weak spell so your group gets the reward for the kill.Another option is the damage system which I know Neocron uses. Whoever does the most damage to an NPC gets looting rights.

Maybe a combination of both would make most sense:
A modified Neocron system in which the first attacker gets a bonus. Say, 25% of overall damage are awarded to the first attacker, the remaining 75% are distributed according to actual damage.
In this case, a ninja-looting nuker would have to do more than twice the damage of the first attacker, making kill-stealing a lot more difficult. On the other hand, weak pinging would NOT secure looting rights, the "ping" would have to do substantial damage.

Venalicius · December 2005

I would like the timer because your not going to be taking the armor of a real body in the middle of a firefight... I would rather than have it be always 15 seconds to have different items have different loot time (with some minimum to avoid ninja looters) of course the best items should take a long time to loot but it would be fun to kill a big boss and know your team wont be able to last the monsters it spawn so you have a mate searching through the pockets while you and your mates defend him... Id loveeee to play that

Hardware-DC · December 2005

The problem I have with the group that starts the attack, gets the loot....is what if they suck and are going to take 2 hrs to kill something (back in the old Krayte days). If I can hunt an animal much easier and faster because I am stronger, than I should have that right. Lowbies tying up mobs they should not be attacking is detrimental to the game as well as bottomfeeders that grief.

Edgtho · December 2005

Originally posted by Hardware-DC
Two very EASY ways to prevent ninja looting:
1) Highest damage done to the mob wins looting rights
2) In a group, anything removed from the corpse gets announced.
"Hardware has looted 1 BFG from Targall's corpse".
That way, when the assigned looter goes to see what the loot is and it is missing, everyone knows who stole form the corpse and can boot that member out of the group.

I like idea #2. Idea #1 sounds like it would make it too easy for players to get an unfair amount of loot through technicalities, and personally, I much prefer the idea of having players sort these issues out themselves rather than having it solved automatically without any input from us.

Rabiator · December 2005

Originally posted by Hardware-DC
The problem I have with the group that starts the attack, gets the loot....is what if they suck and are going to take 2 hrs to kill something (back in the old Krayte days). .

Then the games sucks too, because of bad design.
1) A fight should not last 2 hours either way. If a mob is strong enough to absorb two hours' pounding by newbies, it should also dish out enough damage to kill members of the group. Which will then rapidly become too weak to fight on.
When 2 hour fights become the rule, the devs should buff damages and nerf hitpoints all around. This way, something will give within a few minutes.
2)The game should have enough mobs for all players in the first place. If necessary, create extreme risk areas with dozens of high level mobs. Newbies will not survive in there, so the high levels have their playground.

Atheraal · December 2005

Originally posted by Rabiator
Originally posted by Hardware-DC
The problem I have with the group that starts the attack, gets the loot....is what if they suck and are going to take 2 hrs to kill something (back in the old Krayte days). .

Then the games sucks too, because of bad design.
1) A fight should not last 2 hours either way. If a mob is strong enough to absorb two hours' pounding by newbies, it should also dish out enough damage to kill members of the group. Which will then rapidly become too weak to fight on.
When 2 hour fights become the rule, the devs should buff damages and nerf hitpoints all around. This way, something will give within a few minutes.
2)The game should have enough mobs for all players in the first place. If necessary, create extreme risk areas with dozens of high level mobs. Newbies will not survive in there, so the high levels have their playground.

You're thinking in traditional MMORPG terms. This game won't be the usual "you attack, i attack, you attack, i do hotkeyed special, you attack, i attack, you die" kind of deal. It will use advanced physics, terrain deformation, and a FPS combat system to allow people to use very advanced tactics to kill their target. Considering this, it should be completely feasible for a newbie to think of an interesting tactic and spend a fair amount of time using it to take down a much higher level opponent.

The reason I think the 15 second wait before you can start looting (during which you can't do anything) is the best system is because it adds so much to the gameplay. Anyone can potentially run up to you and steal the loot from the creature you just killed, but you would have an incredibly easy chance to kill them for it first. This would then lead to people developing new tactics; ie killing something, leaving the corpse on the ground, and hiding. Then, when someone comes by and stops to loot it, shoot them in the head. ::::02::

Rabiator · December 2005

Originally posted by Atheraal
You're thinking in traditional MMORPG terms. This game won't be the usual "you attack, i attack, you attack, i do hotkeyed special, you attack, i attack, you die" kind of deal. It will use advanced physics, terrain deformation, and a FPS combat system to allow people to use very advanced tactics to kill their target. Considering this, it should be completely feasible for a newbie to think of an interesting tactic and spend a fair amount of time using it to take down a much higher level opponent.

Actually, I'm thinking in terms of "high level mobs have ranged attacks too". Take Neocron for example, all mobs above mid-level will throw some kind of grenade/fireball/poison at you. Now a skilled player can evade those most of the times, but eventually the mob will get lucky.
For a complete newbie (the sort who would need 2 hours to kill the mob), this means a one hit kill.
If the char is a bit tougher, he may be able to take the occasional hit between mostly successful duck&cover tactics. But the same char should have sufficient firepower to take down the mob in a few minutes instead of hours.
Now, I think such a scenario actually makes the game more worthwile, because players can use their intelligence to get kills that would be beyond them in a traditional MMORPG. I admit this might still create some impatience in other players, but that is what my second point was aimed at:
make sure there are enough mobs for everyone.

Atheraal · December 2005

I made a post earlier, I can't remember in which topic. It was about how I hoped that increasing levels of difficulty in mobs would actually be better AIs rather than just a mob that used the same tactics but had better stats. This, combined with the fact that it's FPS combat, therefore anyone who has played an FPS before isn't a complete newbie, would open up quite a few possibilities. I know that when I start playing, I'm going to kill a few 'newbie' mobs to get used to the controls, then wander off into the high level areas to use skill to bring down the more difficult mobs. It'll take longer, and I'll probably die more, but to me that's more fun.

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