Magic find leeching?

[Es Mors]

Magic find leeching?

I know discussing potential issues in D3 at this time is pointless, but it's not as if we have a new class to discuss or anything. :crazyeyes:

Anyway, since every player in the game will get individual loot, it struck me that magic find leeching would be very wide spread in a system like that. By that I mean a group of players, where one has a very well equipped character and can take down a certain boss very easily. So this character runs this boss over and over again, as many like to do, while the rest of his party just tag along and get their individual loot after each kill without doing anything, but watching!

How would Blizzard stop this? Must do such and such damage to the boss in order to get drops? What if you have a character specialised in party buffs and crowd control (if that will be possible), helping the team out, but not dealing that much direct damage? Thoughts?

 

[sinned]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Since loot drops for everyone individually, I would assume that the player who has a lot of MF would get better loot than his companions who don't have any MF, regardless of who dealt the killing blow.

 

[kavlor]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Since loot drops for everyone individually, I would assume that the player who has a lot of MF would get better loot than his companions who don't have any MF, regardless of who dealt the killing blow.

So everyone tags along with huge MF while one person does all the killing,same problem.Its actually quite difficult to get round but like people said in another thread keeping MF levels much lower so its less depended on,that could help a little.Most tristram runs are not really leeched(in fact Id say the high level is leeching for gratitude when they are not really needed)so maybe something is signicant in that(maybe something to do with the tighter level/power range).

 

[Krugar]

Re: Magic find leeching?

How would Blizzard stop this? Must do such and such damage to the boss in order to get drops?

I would assume you would have indeed to cause damage to the boss in order to get loot. I'm just not sure it would be wise to have it so that your loot was a direct consequence of how much damage you cause, because then you have another problem: Buffed characters would provoke a lot more damage and could "steal" loot from weaker ones. From loot leeching to loot stealing.

There's just some aspects of the game, the developers will have to put on the hands of players and let them manage themselves. Especially because a player can choose who they party with.

What if you have a character specialised in party buffs and crowd control (if that will be possible),

Won't happen anymore on D3. They have announced no more party buffs. Every character is fully DPS. There's however some skills that may indirectly provide party support... like Time Stop. But it's left to be known how this will work against Bosses (chances are it won't).

 

[5zigen]

Re: Magic find leeching?

I've thought about this problem too. The problem is that no matter how it's done there's always going to be a way to "game" the system. HOWEVER, I'm not sure it will be that bad.

For example, if someone is doing all the work in say, a 3 player game and the other 2 players are using all the mf and doing nothing (or say, doing a minimal amount of damage to guarantee drops) then I think there is sort of 2 unmentioned implications.

First, the player doing all the damage has to be ok with the other party members being mostly worthless, because it will depend on his compliance for the others to profit. Sure, you could have people group together with some kind of agreement that the loot drops would be split, but that would then require a large amount of trust between the parties, and at least a very generous person doing the damage.

I think that the players will be the ones that ultimately decide how much this will be exploited because it isn't necessarily exploiting the system as much as it is exploiting the player.

This is also of course assuming that killing mobs in multiplayer games will be more work than doing it alone, and thus if one player is doing all the work, he will be doing the work for two people, so the total loot amount / quality shoudn't be that out of whack unless the drop system is really screwed up.

In all, I don't think it will be a huge problem, barring excessive bugs or character power imbalances.

Won't happen anymore on D3. They have announced no more party buffs. Every character is fully DPS. There's however some skills that may indirectly provide party support... like Time Stop. But it's left to be known how this will work against Bosses (chances are it won't).

Have they really confirmed that there will be no party buffs? That would be a huge design mistake imo, at least removing a lot of the positive synergies that the game could have in grouping or designing characters.

Have they also confirmed there will be no debuffs? That seems like it would be intensely constrictive on game variety as well.

I know that all characters will have dps skills as well, I would just be surprised if they completely removed all the support skills from the game

 

[jacobgold]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Why do you consider magic find leeching a problem?

Just because you can gain an advantage from someone helping doesn't mean that the advantage is a problem.

I like the idea of being able to help my lower level friends. This sounds like a good thing to me.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Magic find leeching?

I think that the players will be the ones that ultimately decide how much this will be exploited because it isn't necessarily exploiting the system as much as it is exploiting the player.

The Single Player Forum (SPF) helps organize LAN based games on its MP subforum. One of the things the SPF rules for MP establish is that players must agree to a how they should divide the loot.

But this is only natural right? So why am I saying this?
Well because that's quite interesting that sometimes the answer is right in front of our noses:

I'd rather much have blizzard introduced a game mechanism for party members to agree on loot division and have the game apply this decision to drops. So, players could for instance agree to 2/4 drops for John, 1/4 to Peter and 1/4 to Mary. This would be introduced with the help of some simple party menu. Monsters would then drop like that, until the number of elements in the party changed, or they decided to set another division.

I've not given this much thought yet. But from a cursory look it seems to me it should work just fine. And it handles just nicely one of the most important aspects of team play that should be respected: they set their own rules.

Have they really confirmed that there will be no party buffs? That would be a huge design mistake imo, at least removing a lot of the positive synergies that the game could have in grouping or designing characters.

Have they also confirmed there will be no debuffs? That seems like it would be intensely constrictive on game variety as well.

They have indeed announced it. I share a similar concern to yours, although I must say I'm not (and will not be) a multiplayer. We shall see if they can keep their foot away from their mouth on this one...

As for debuffs, that's part of the DPS concept I would wager. None of the skills we've seen so far are debuffs, though. So I don't know ho to answer that. However, if anyone asks me if a skill that slows down an enemy or makes them weaker is part of a DPS concept, I'd answer yes.

 

[Kiroptus]

Re: Magic find leeching?

*Ugh* the "chance to find magic items" mod *Ugh*

*vomits*

The disgusting and repulsive Mf Mod, one more reason to remove this mod from D3.



But thats another topic.






This is one of the problems/exploits that surely have a solution, no worries about that, Blizzard will find a way to prevent that.

 

[stillman]

Re: Magic find leeching?

It sounds like the problem would sort itself out. For example, if the leader killer is wearing a lot of mf gear, he's not going to be much of a leader killer, the kills will be too slow, impatient useless underling leechers will leave. If the leader is wearing his best gear for killing (no mf), fewer good drops will occur.

Though I think Krugar's idea above sounds fun. Let's say you get more exp for more players in your game like in d2. You could lure more people into your game by designating more loot to them, that is if you are mainly interested in leveling since you are already rich. I think such a system should work where the maker of the game decides the portion of drops he gets vs everyone else, on bosses only, or when other players are on the same screen as you only, or something. Of course, this would be a deterant to join some games because players would greedily choose most loot drops for themselves, so how to handle this problem?

It also would slow down players with the menu and arguments over who gets bigger shares, so I think it might not happen that way.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Good points there stillman. I have no answer to those. The following one is particularly devastating:

this would be a deterant to join some games because players would greedily choose most loot drops for themselves,

This would indeed be a big no-no for a game that depends on other players joining player-made games.

 

[Bad Ash]

Re: Magic find leeching?

I think the biggest arguement is this. 4 lvl 70's. 3 are decked out in nothing BUT MF gear and the 4th is decked out in power gear to actually kill X boss.

How would they stop this? I think the best thing we've heard is implement an amount of damage done to the boss to receive some sort of loot. From what we've heard I DONT think this is the case, but this kind of thing is what betas and what not are for

 

[jacobgold]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Or you could just see that it's a non-problem. If players want to do that, why stop them? How is it better than 4 guys dressed to kill and slaughtering 4x more monsters because of it?

 

[sbn]

Re: Magic find leeching?

I fully expect to see players who will deck out in just MF gear stand and leech in the background. People will either have to accept it happens, or devise a method to prevent it (unparty leechers?).

I really could care less, that is until I get into the game where I am the only one fighting and everyone else in the party just sits on their arses.

 

[stillman]

Re: Magic find leeching?

^ There is no 'unpartying'. You are in the party as soon as you join someone's game, or when someone joins your game. Blizzard said the party screen was just an unnecessary step they don't want us to go through and they want to strongly encourage co-op play.

Maybe the problem will go like this: A player with good mf kills a boss and the loot goes evenly to all the players. So the boss drops an average of 8 items. With 4 players, each player gets 2 drops, with 2 players, each player gets 4 drops, and of course, one palyer gets all 8 playing solo. Now, if the guy who lands the killing blow has high mf, then everyone gets better quality stuff, but the high mf guy worries that people are 'taking' his good stuff. Afterall, those other 3 players would get junk if it weren't for the mfer's gear. The high mf guy would be better off farming alone...

So to eliminate this worry, playing in parties scales the quality of drops upward for more palyers. At least the high mfer guy who lands the last blow is happy because it is worthwhile for him to be in a party. And the leechers are REALLY happy. So if the mfer were killing a boss alone, he would get 8 drops based on his mf, but in a 4 player game, he would get 2 items that have a much better chance of being higher quality, like unique shako instead of rare shako.

I guess it's like getting a mf bonus for being in a party. So number of players ups your mf. Just an idea. Of course, this idea means we have another problem of leechers getting great stuff just by being there doing nothing. Hmmm...maybe monsters like to pick on the weaker (leechers) to cause deterants here. More leechers die and when they are in town, the don't have drops distributed to them.

It's a pretty complex problem I see. You know, if they make the game HARD then leeching will be unacceptable. Remember back in the early days of d2 where leeching was frowned upon? Maybe Blizzard can go for that.

 

[Enigmers]

Re: Magic find leeching?

I think this is the kind of thing you'll have to sort out with your friends on a personal level. And really, what's the difference between two people in MF gear, or two people with killing gear, that kill twice, or three times as quickly?

This really shouldn't matter if regular monsters drop good stuff and you're not just running bosses over and over again, because you can agree beforehand how you're gonna split the drops. I don't see this as too big a problem.

 

[Es Mors]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Well, the scariest situation that could arise, as I see it, is one comparable to D2 today. Every once in a while you will join a Baal run game without a bot. And what happens there? Everyone starts spamming "Who goes?", "Sorc tele" and so on. Up to 7 people stand there doing practicaly nothing, leeching xp, while ~2 high level characters do all the work. Now imagine if the leechers also got item drops. That would have potential to be as wide spread in D3 as botrun-leeching is today, provided it is possible. So I really hope it isn't.

 

[vinke07]

Re: Magic find leeching?

if you don't want people to steal your drops, just create a single game!!

if you want to be in a party and you are the only one who is killing, just exit the game and that's it!

and why do you create parties where the max amount of players is 8, if you know that they will get all your loot?

in d2 i just go to a bot run and get the loot i can, and what's the problem with that?

if YOU want to get YOUR loot, create aSINLGE GAME, and end of the problem

 

[Kiroptus]

Re: Magic find leeching?

^What?

This is about Diablo3, in D3 everyone gets their own loot, no more drops stealing....

 

[zaxxon]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Why do you consider magic find leeching a problem?

Just because you can gain an advantage from someone helping doesn't mean that the advantage is a problem.

I like the idea of being able to help my lower level friends. This sounds like a good thing to me.

It's an economy and gameplay issue. If everyone only kills bosses with high mf, then you have a market that gets flooded with top quality stuff. So the only way to compensate is to decrease the drop rates, which in turn forces everyone to magic find. This is a lose lose scenario for everyone, and is really restrictive on gameplay.

That being said, at this time I don't have any kind of constructive alternative. So essentially my post is somewhat worthless. :whistling:

 

[5zigen]

Re: Magic find leeching?

Well, the scariest situation that could arise, as I see it, is one comparable to D2 today. Every once in a while you will join a Baal run game without a bot. And what happens there? Everyone starts spamming "Who goes?", "Sorc tele" and so on. Up to 7 people stand there doing practicaly nothing, leeching xp, while ~2 high level characters do all the work. Now imagine if the leechers also got item drops. That would have potential to be as wide spread in D3 as botrun-leeching is today, provided it is possible. So I really hope it isn't.

That's really assuming that it will be profitable for a high level (lootwise and expwise) to solo in a max player game. If the balance is done right, soloing in multiplayer games will likely be more difficult in that is in D2, at least that is one solution I see to this problem.