Wonderful topic.
Now, if any of you can come up with a way that is more fair then random wonderful. Right now I can not see any way other then random to do it. A perfect system would be able to put an accurate price value on every object and calculate not only the price but who gets the most out of a given piece of loot based on skills. Then it comes up with some calculation so that over an hour each player has gotten an equal share of treasure, both monetarily and usefulness, and if certain people get nothing useful to them they get the biggest money gain.
However to do this all prices need to be static, and in this game it will be anything but that, prices will fluctuate in all sorts of manners, so how does the system keep track, and how useful is a shiny mallet, when the character already has 15 in storage. So with all those variables in play, it seems easiest to be random.
If anyone can come up with a 2 line script that would check usefulness Vs. value on all group members and distribute correctly?and not slow down the server in a noticeable fashion, since this will be occurring hundreds of times per minute on the server?please inform me.
But on a more serious note, it is a basic attempt at fairness to distribute loot as fairly as possible.
I had a concept that all mobs would drop everything they are equipped with, and depending on who loots them they might see more or less?do players really want to take the time to dissect the giant Lizard and see if he has anything cool in his innards?
But in many ways it can also be said that it would ruin the experience for a lot of people, as party members will be running to sell items every 3 or 4 kills, and if in a remote location, you have 20 minutes of fun killing and 40 of running and selling?not cool.
Another alternative is to just have most the mobs drop money, and the unusual drop that is useful for something or another. In that vision, we take the ?go to town to sell? out of the equation. Quest items drop for the person doing the quests at the appropriate time, automatically into their inventory. The cash value of the mob is based on how the mob is equipped the value is roughly 20% of his goods. That may seem like a little, but vendors usually only give that to people selling and that is what this takes out, for the cool drop it is distributed randomly.
Yet another alternative:
For every kill based difficulty and activeness during the battle, each member in the group gains group points. And all loot is put in a virtual ?group hoard? the weight is distributed evenly among all players based on active str bonus, so as they start getting weighed down they are losing certain abilities, so eventually the group will want to distribute loot, if people vacate the group they get a couple random items of small value based in the weight they where carrying (you get the things the server deems of least value to equal the weight) then once the group decides to distribute loot.
Every player sees all the loot available (that they where part of the group when that creature was killed, so new members don?t see what they are not getting) and they then use their character points to bid on (no one knows what others are bidding) once round one of bidding is done, those items go to the person who bid the most for them, then round two?once a player has no more group points or is not interested in anything he clicks done.
Once all the points are gone, or all the wanted items are accounted for, (everyone clicked done) then it randomly is distributed. Some players might not want the random crap items and can select to not accept it, and the stuff goes to others, and those who saved group points keep them for the next item distribution.
But after 5 distributions, the points saved from then get killed.
This system is nice in that people get what they are willing to give for. The problem with the system is it can take a few minutes. Specially if some in the group are slow, or there is a lot of loot to go through. And at the end?you still will want to go and sell so even longer to start killing again.
Now that we have a few ?fair systems? them being
1. Random
2. convert to cash
3. group points
we can also have combinations of this, like one round of group points and then random, or one round of group points and convert to cash, or one group point selection and then convert to cash, (lets 5 members select the same item, the one who bid the most gets it and the 5 losers can select other items but their original choice is no longer available) and once that round is done?rest is random, or rest is cash. So we now have
1. random
2. convert to cash
3. group points till done then random
4. 1 round of group points then random
5. 1 round of points then cash
6. 1 round of points (all getting one item or opting out) and random
7. 1 round of points (all getting one item or opting out) and cash
The random rolling for each item would really take forever so I am not entertaining that.
Now?what if we had all 7 possibilities, who chooses?
Well I?d have to say the group leader.
For him to change the setting 50% of the group has to agree, for the group to change leader 30% (at least 2) have to agree that a change is needed and a vote is taken, majority rules, whoever gets the most points. If there is loot in the group loot it is distributed randomly at the point that a leader changes.
Ok, there are some stupid ideas I came up with based on this thread?are there any other ideas that can augment this list or perhaps top it?
And if you took the time to read this all?I?m impressed :-)
But this is an example of the thought needed to apply to a system like loot distribution. Or almost anything?cause and effect.
