Maps! (dedicated group?)

[DickScotchfist]

Good guide on the maps, thanks!

I'd love to join you guys once I get past merciless, which hopefully will be this weekend.

We already have a cm windup witch, jk :P

edit: added u to FL btw

[kestegs]

Well, I severely underestimated the difficulty of merciless, but I should finally be ready for some maps now. My Templar is level 66 and pretty hard to kill. I haven't done any maps yet, so I have no idea about how difficult they are or anything.

[DickScotchfist]

You should be fine, Kestegs. I'll look for you next time you're on. We should get on the Unofficial PoE/D3 Incgamers Mumble Chat while we play because it is safer and very cool. I was going to say I forgot the server ip and port information, but you've generously linked it in your signature so that anyone who is intersted in coming online and doing maps together or even starting a new character, like myself, could do so in about 2 minutes after a thirty second mumble download. Sweet. (I'm also okay with other servers, just wanted to shoehorn ours into the convo too)

How's that for laying pipe?

[fBSunny]

Well I play HC, but if I get a character to mapping level and then die I will let you guys know.

[magicrectangle]

Well, I severely underestimated the difficulty of merciless, but I should finally be ready for some maps now. My Templar is level 66 and pretty hard to kill. I haven't done any maps yet, so I have no idea about how difficult they are or anything.

Always good to have another map ready player about. What's your usual playtime?

[kestegs]

Usually I play in the mornings, like from 2-4 hours ago (5:30-7:30 Mountain time) A bit later on the weekends as well. Then sometimes on random evenings around 8-10pm

[magicrectangle]

As we all know the loot system is balls. In practice loots to named person works okay, but the names disappear too quickly, and often things die off screen. Also some white items are absurdly valuable, and don't get assigned to people. For maps, I propose the following loot etiquette:

1) Maps to map opener. This replenishes your maps as you use them.

2) Valuable whites to map opener (IE 5L, 6L - not chrom or jeweler vendor fodder, ninja is fine on that stuff).

3) Loots to named person wherever possible. When a loot drops and nobody knows who was supposed to get it, it goes to map opener. In order to cut down on chatter figuring this out, the map opener will simply assume an item is his if combat has ended and everybody else is walking away to fight something else. He need not check with people, they will poke him if it turns out the item was theirs. If the item is valuable (chaos or better) anybody who happened to see the name should mention it when fight is over, but if nobody knows it goes to map opener.

The idea is for the system to be both fair and quick. Unknown loots to map opener is fair because we take turns making maps, therefor we take turns receiving unknown loots. The system is made quick by the "walk away if it isn't yours" system that tells the map opener to loot without any need for chat. At the expense of a little time, the fairness is increased a bit by having anybody who happened to see the name on the item call it out if and only if it is a good item (don't want to add hassle for items not worth at least a chaos).

Obviously this is honor system stuff, but that's how group loot is always going to be in this game. Apparently the devs think the ninja game is somehow fun, but when playing with friends (rather than pubbies) IMHO that's pretty balls, so here we are.

If anybody has any suggestions that would either increase the fairness or the speed of the above (without compromising the other much) go ahead and post.

[DickScotchfist]

Love everything except number two. We're in no position to completely rewrite the game rules here, and I want my maps to be as fun for everyone else in there as they are for me. ESPECIALLY since it's quite possible that 5L chest piece dropped because they were there (50% increased drops per person). It's as much theirs as it is mine. I realize this is all a grey area since we hand maps over to the opener, and if that gets thrown back at me for going against this, I might have to be against that too on principle I guess. The point is, the map opener is WELL compensated for opening the gate by getting all the map drops and loot with unseen names... Let's not throw him or her a parade and give them everything under the sun.

If it's ever one of my maps and a 5L white item with no name, i.e. everyone's name, drops- you better spring on it quick before I do. And I'd congratulate you for it.

It's one tiny item tier that's left as cut-throat sort of, and it adds flavor to the game.

[kestegs]

Sounds good to me!

I agree the 5/6L stuff needs a designated place to go, since they usually won't have a name. It could be a pain to work out who gets an item worth many exalts.

I can see your point, Lostman, but I's rather not lose a friend over someone getting hurt feelings over a drop they didn't get. And I say that as the person who is usually closest to the drops. Getting all click happy and grabby on items just isn't something I like to do when I'm playing with friends.

[magicrectangle]

We're in no position to completely rewrite the game rules here, and I want my maps to be as fun for everyone else in there as they are for me. ESPECIALLY since it's quite possible that 5L chest piece dropped because they were there (50% increased drops per person). It's as much theirs as it is mine. I realize this is all a grey area since we hand maps over to the opener, and if that gets thrown back at me for going against this, I might have to be against that too on principle I guess.

Nobody is going to throw the maps to opener in your face. The logic for that is both obvious and unique, the same logic doesn't apply to 5L/6L (there's no "replenishing what you used" going on there).

Besides, that's far from the only way we defy the developer's intended looting system. There's an epically long thread on the official forums that sheds a little light on what they intend. The opening post is by GGG.

Basically, they wanted a completely cutthroat system, and only added the names because ranged characters were getting the shaft to melee characters who could grab quicker. They made the timers short because they wanted everybody grabbing for the items, the timer is just long enough to give the player a chance to get it - the timer is longer if you're far from the item, and short if you're close.

My point is that not just in on one particular detail, but overall and fundamentally in spirit, we are already defying their intent for the loot system.

And I'm fine with that. FFA is fine and dandy for PUGs but when I'm playing with my friends, I'm like kestegs, I don't want to feel like I'm in competition with / at odds with my party members for loot. That's a level of social stress that I just don't want. I play to relax, after all.

The point is, the map opener is WELL compensated for opening the gate by getting all the map drops and loot with unseen names... Let's not throw him or her a parade and give them everything under the sun.

The vast majority of loots worth having will have names on them. Including 5L and 6L blue and yellow drops. In all my time running maps, I've only seen one 5L drop, and it was a blue, and thus had a name and went to that person. This suggestion doesn't run the risk of funneling too many drops to the map opener.

More to the point, we're all taking turns being map opener, so we'd all be taking turns having an incredibly small chance at a 5L or 6L white.

If it's ever one of my maps and a 5L white item with no name, i.e. everyone's name, drops- you better spring on it quick before I do. And I'd congratulate you for it.

It's one tiny item tier that's left as cut-throat sort of, and it adds flavor to the game.

I understand you like that, but not everybody does - and I really hope you decide to go with whatever the majority of people decide on, because having two different loot systems depending who opened the map is unnecessarily complicated. I understand my suggestion isn't perfect either, but I don't think there is a perfect solution out there, save for GGG sucking it up and adding the ability to set loot rules when you make a party (IE instanced loot or FFA loot as a dropdown option or something).

This is a rare case we're talking about, that will only come up once in a blue moon - but it has the potential to generate a fair amount of butthurt if everybody isn't already agreed on the etiquette beforehand. I don't like butthurt, so I wanted to get it settled.

Getting all click happy and grabby on items just isn't something I like to do when I'm playing with friends.

This is precisely my feeling. But I'll go with whatever the majority of people want, because it is more important to me that we have an agreed upon etiquette than that it be the particular one I suggested. If we don't have a mutually agreed upon (and pretty please universally accepted, even if not liked) etiquette beforehand, when a 6L drops, there's the potential for a spectacular cluster****.