Introduce first hit wins loot, not highest damage % ? or maybe this.

[Caloss2]

This mechanic, exists in most and by most I mean 90% of games so most right ? yes.

Why, because because a class "shade" has OP damage, and lets face it they do, I play one, and yes still see that they do.
Pros = no more can someone using a shade out damage someone/s and win loot rights even if they don't start fighting until another player or team has been fighting for 10 seconds before they deem to sneak/back stab instantaneously and win the loot despite doing nothing more than using sneak and then attacking, when they feel like it.

Cons = shades are that one v one class they survive by damage, taps and drains but against multiple adds they don't do as well.

In the world of AO, perhaps the % damage should include the adds around the desired dyna, that is team/soloist goes in, kills all the adds and keeps killing them as they wait for the dyna spawn.

Now if shady shade wants to come to the same dyna, they would have had to contribute to killing of adds in addition to killing the boss/dyna.

No more sneaking their way in, waiting until the fight starts then using OP damage to get loot having done the minimum of work to get to the dyna.


Discuss.

[Oliveerz]

Walk in camelot
Hit Tarasque
???
Profit

[Tryptophy]

In situations where you need loot from many mobs at once, profs with AOE attacks would have a huge advantage. Profs with multiple pets who could send them around would have a smaller but noticeable one. Also, I think you'd need to have XP still based on damage rather than first hit to prevent even worse forms of powerleveling than we see today.

I do feel as though this could be made to work, somehow. I don't see the point concerning Tara - surely the losing side is wiped out of lair before it becomes vulnerable? And you still need your whole faction to show up to clear the lair, so the usual concerns about reputation should take care of same-side ninjalooting. Someone could try and go in sneak but there are ways of detecting that.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

/thread

competitive instance mechanics don't support OP's idea unfortunately.

[Cyberleet]

Walk in camelot
Hit Tarasque
???
Profit

Loot from cameloot could come via a 'return to npc' system.

[Traderjill]

Another thing worth noting regarding multiboxing in AO versus other games is that most games that I play (outside of AO) have a system where the first person that does damage on a mob will get the lootrights. That means that a solo player has just as much of an opportunity winning loot as a multiboxer. Not a lot of games, these days, have systems in place where the most damage on a mob= winner of lootrights.

Bump for this suggestion. See above. I mentioned this exact thing in a multiboxing thread the other day. If Funcom is going to continue to allow multiboxers, this seems like a reasonable compromise.

[Phatkeep]

I am looking forward to winning loot on AC in 42 on a single toon.

If you like shade dmg, then roll one.

[Caloss2]

.....

Why, because because a class "shade" has OP damage, and lets face it they do, I Play one one and yes still see that they do.

I am looking forward to winning loot on AC in 42 on a single toon.

If you like shade dmg, then roll one.

Too busy with glib answers to bother reading ?

[alfora]

It might work in most other MMOs but I doubt it would work in AO.

Competitive scenarios (Tarasque, Desert Rider) would not work.

AoE attacks + AoE calms would be a nice way to "mark your" mobs and kill them later at your leisure. The loot is yours because you were first. If you have trouble soloing an important mob just calm it and wait for your mates to help you kill it. It is still "your" mob even if an "enemy" group kills it in the meantime.

Or just join a "real pande" raid and right before the tank runs to The Beast leave your team and fire one bullet. The Beast is yours!

Maybe it would work if it was based on time. You have to attack a certain amount of time (with damage > 0 to handle roots/snares) and then the mob is "locked" to your toon (or team) IF nobody else applied damage to it during that time.

Which means:
* If you damaged the mob long enough and the bad guy comes later and out-damages you the mob is still yours.
* If both start to damage early enough then the current rules (most damage wins) apply.
* AoE attacks still "lock" the mobs.

[Pafpuf]

Did anyone consider that all this suggestion would do is change stress caused by getting outdamaged into stress caused by getting outtagged? If you want to copy loot mechanics try ones that don't cause camping stress, such as WoW where every player or team tagging the mob have their own separate loot. Yeah fighting dd wars against shades or multiboxers is stupid but losing any chance of loot because of few milliseconds difference in latency is just as bad if not worse. Besides this would mean more items overall which is what AO's high demand economy sorely needs and of course more activity because players wouldn't be discouraged from farming and everything that comes with it.

[Traderjill]

Did anyone consider that all this suggestion would do is change stress caused by getting outdamaged into stress caused by getting outtagged? If you want to copy loot mechanics try ones that don't cause camping stress, such as WoW where every player or team tagging the mob have their own separate loot. Yeah fighting dd wars against shades or multiboxers is stupid but losing any chance of loot because of few milliseconds difference in latency is just as bad if not worse. Besides this would mean more items overall which is what AO's high demand economy sorely needs and of course more activity because players wouldn't be discouraged from farming and everything that comes with it.

Not a bad idea.

[Psikie]

It might work in most other MMOs but I doubt it would work in AO.

AoE attacks + AoE calms would be a nice way to "mark your" mobs and kill them later at your leisure. The loot is yours because you were first. If you have trouble soloing an important mob just....

TRAIN IT on a group of players, let them kill it for you and circle back around to loot it on the run FTW!!!

Why stop there AOE the entire playfield in Ely and just run off to lose agro but don't zone, eventually someone is gonna kill those hecks for you while you sit and collect xp nearby since you hit it first FTW. Finally a new reason to play NT again Thanks OP.

Even better use crat pop monster, calm it and just wait for some team to come kill that dyna boss for you! It's your loot you hit it first FTW.

Or lets go lazy shade, stab Tara, then use new mid fight conceal smoke bomb and sit in hide mode until its time for you to loot FTW.

Sooo many ways to BREAK this idea do I need to give you more???

[Caloss2]

TRAIN IT on a group of players, let them kill it for you and circle back around to loot it on the run FTW!!!

Why stop there AOE the entire playfield in Ely and just run off to lose agro but don't zone, eventually someone is gonna kill those hecks for you while you sit and collect xp nearby since you hit it first FTW. Finally a new reason to play NT again Thanks OP.

Even better use crat pop monster, calm it and just wait for some team to come kill that dyna boss for you! It's your loot you hit it first FTW.

Or lets go lazy shade, stab Tara, then use new mid fight conceal smoke bomb and sit in hide mode until its time for you to loot FTW.

Sooo many ways to BREAK this idea do I need to give you more???

Once a mob is hit, it's HP/difficulty bar turns gray to other players as it does in other MMO's, they then know not to bother attacking right then, however the "gray" status (someone else's kill/already in agro) is not indefinite; so each mob would have a cool down timer on the "gray" status a few minutes would do. 2mins for regular mobs 8 for dynas; as I was suggesting a combination of the current system + ones used in other games in the first place I would also say the original attacker would have to do a % of damage to retain loot/xp rights.

So yes please do provide more ways to break the idea, as I want as many as possible to refine it before presenting it as complete idea to Mitch.

[Psikie]

Once a mob is hit, it's HP/difficulty bar turns gray to other players as it does in other MMO's

I would say this would be interesting, but I doubt AO's code is up to doing anything like that. Server client synch aside, AO has trouble keeping geometry and pet pathing smooth lol.

But this could prevent kill stealing, but open up other forms of griefing such as...

Guard training. "I am kiting this guard and since the server says it's my mob to kill, I can't help it that it aggro'd you while I was kiting it around." There is no proof you had to even fight the guard since you get no credit because it is keyed to me.

How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center?

[Caloss2]

I would say this would be interesting, but I doubt AO's code is up to doing anything like that. Server client synch aside, AO has trouble keeping geometry and pet pathing smooth lol.

But this could prevent kill stealing, but open up other forms of griefing such as...

Guard training. "I am kiting this guard and since the server says it's my mob to kill, I can't help it that it aggro'd you while I was kiting it around." There is no proof you had to even fight the guard since you get no credit because it is keyed to me.

How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center?

Tricky to code but as is :- sided guards/other sided npc (with enough faction in SL) only attack opposing sided players on sight (rather than when agroed)
So agro does not break following attack from other attacking player for 2mins unless a)player zones (as is) b)dies (as is) c)enters 100% gas (as is), unless another player attacks, and then inherits agro.

[Amickson]

IMHO much better way of handling loot is separate loot for everyone who did damage on mob. LOTRO had the tagging system mentioned in OP. Few years ago they've changed it that everyone who hit a mob or is grouped with such person got a loot - their personal share of gold and some items. Even group instance bosses drops loot by this method, only in few cases there's additional treasure chest. No more drama over mobs, everyone help each other with killing. There was some problems, like extremely low droprate of some tradeskill recipes (like 1:10000) that lead to extremes as full 24 man raids mowing through landscape killing everything on sight. But overall are players happy with this.

[Psikie]

Tricky to code but as is :- sided guards/other sided npc (with enough faction in SL) only attack opposing sided players on sight (rather than when agroed)

Clan player A aggros clan guard, roots/snares inside Omni tower field... watches fireworks. Difference is since clan player is "tagged" as the attack initiator, no server side record of Omni players attacked, and if there is it would look like the Omni player tried to kill steal and failed since clan player still gets loot rights.

In fact we can take it another step, let me drag my lvl 300 AI boss straight over to my player city guards to kill for me and I ftw profit. Every player city will have guard house now parked right next to controller.

Or s10 let me just drag all these "tagged" mobs to the guards.

S13 how about I just fence the mobs at the end and loot at leisure? Or just have 2-3 players drop unicorns on top of the AOE boil blood "tagged" general or other mobs anywhere in the zone? Probably not a way to program out the axp from that but still give you first hit loot rights.

Or let me attack mob A and "tag" it, then charm it then allow it to almost die pvm, release charm and whack it so I can still loot it.

Can I tag mobs and make them fight each other and still loot both? Sided mobs in particular that accidentally heal you and get agro etc.

Can you not see how far down the rabbit hole this could go? This is just the tip of a big ice burg.

I know you like to call me a Mensa, but for 2 years I was a paid play game tester for TSR, Microprose, FASA, and WoTC, it was my job to have a "Big Picture" mentality that yea, most players don't get and take things to the most crazy outcome or most logical conclusion. I was paid to try and break games and find flaws in game play.

At the end of the day, sure there are ways to program around game abuse mechanics, but the company is going to ask is it worth the trouble of introducing something that has to have a dozen work arounds to keep it from breaking something else. That's the "Mensa Big Picture" Devs and programmers have to deal with.

Do you honestly think with everything else on their plates THIS is going to get priority or even a serious look? Only for them to have to constantly monitor how it can be abused and patch around it...weekly. It's too much work imo.

[Freor]

Problem with separate loot for all damagers is that the boxer gets 6x loot, normal player 1x. I'm not sure if that 6:1 is better than 1:0 in the long run... depends on the items camped i suppose. First one to do dmg would turn dd race into latency/clicking race. Don't get me wrong, something has to be done, but these suggestions might just make things worse / open up new ways for these people to annoy others.

Would be much better to fix the underlying problem instead of these symptoms one by one.

[Cratertina]

Exactly, total failzor.

Maybe if more than one team attacks a.mob, make second team flagged.

Then get medieval on teh shade.

[Honorbound]

As many others have pointed out, the abuse potential of any kind of "tagging" is way too high to even just consider anything like that.

The "instanced" solution, however, sounds considerably more interesting from a different aspect too. We know that anything considered valuable has a horribly low drop rate, and by now we can pretty much be sure that they won't be changed, ever, to even just marginally saner values. However, if that insanely low droprate was at least applied not per mob killed, but per person participating in a kill (as in, everyone who contributed a few percent of the mob's max HP in damage or something along those lines, would get their own personal instance of the loot window, with their own separate rolls on all items the mob has a chance to drop, but with the same per person chances as before), then while the drop rate itself would be the same from a single person's point of view, it would still become higher in regards of the whole playerbase.

Potentially, more items would get added to the game per kill if/when more people are doing the killing, but for a single person it would still be the same low droprate as before so campers/farmers wouldn't really benefit of this change. It could also (at least ideally) encourage teaming... and maybe you could even involve team level into it somehow, to make it finally do something meaningful.

Yes, there's multiboxing to increase "your" drop chance, but seriously, name something, anything that can't be abused by multiboxing. So this should be excluded from the potential drawbacks, otherwise nothing could ever get changed if it would give unfair advantage when multiboxing. But actually it's multiboxing itself that gives unfair advantage, so that's what would have to be eliminated, or at least significantly reduced. (Just restrict connections to two per IP address. You can have your main and your froob mule/bank/whatever logged in at the same time, and that's it. Yes, people can use multiple ISPs/connections, but not everyone has access to that. Even this should cut back on the hardcore multis at least a little.)