Looting limits

[divsky]

First off let me just put my bias on the table. I'm not a very good PKer and I die a lot. So, at the risk of being called a crybaby, let me just say that getting full looted sucks. It takes you out of the game for at least 2 hours while you get re-equipped and restocked. I think it's one of those things that keeps people from signing on good characters, too. How often do you see characters die from inactivity that were naked or only partially equipped?

I actually added up all the inactivity deletes on the first page of the graveyard. 14 were fully equipped, 13 were only partially equipped (in the process of re-equipping) and 2 were naked. That means over half of the time, when someone gets so bored of a character they just forget to play it anymore, it was while they were in the process of re-equipping or had just been looted.

I personally have 4 characters at levels from mid 20's to mid 40's that I have stopped logging on because I don't want to deal with re-equipping them.

I know this is going to me an unpopular idea to some, but I propose we set limits on how much can be looted. My idea, the number of non-rare items that can be looted is equal to your level/10 (truncated). So 1 non-rare from levels 10-19, 2 from 20-29, 3 from 30-39, 4 from 40-49, and 5 at 50.

Some stipulations:
-All rares can always be looted.
-Gold can always be looted.
-Wanted criminals can be full looted by Justice
-Anyone who doesn't pay protection can be full looted by Legion
-Anathemas can be full looted by Knights
-Keepers can full-loot players with high PK-rankings. Honestly I don't know much about how Keepers work.
-You can be full looted for 5 minutes after and while holding a cabal item.
-You can be full looted for 5 minutes after and while on cabal grounds.
-Similar to anti-PK-record-padding measures, you become fully lootable after a certain number of PKs at a single level.

I just think this change would make the pacing of the game better. I know we really want this to be a hardcore PK mud where death is a serious consequence that is to be avoided. But allowing for full looting at all times seems a bit draconian. With this change being killed would still be rough, causing you to loose all rares, several of your non-rares, all your gold, a reduction in your PK ranking, one of your finite numbers of death before deletion, and a chance to lose 1 constitution. That's not all sunshine and happiness.

This would significantly increase the pace of the game, allowing people to recover much faster from death and return to doing the things we want people to be doing in the game. Ranking and PKing. As a result I think this would actually encourage more PKing, making a more exciting game and making it feel a bit more like it was a decade ago when you had to expect PK at low levels. At the same time, free looting of gold and rares keeps the incentive for PKing in. And I think you would see more people signing on. There are other things I can do with my free time, afterall, and when I think of going on AR just so I can spend 2 hours re-equipping, well, there are other things I'd rather do.

[Vevier]

You also need to consider when looking at the amount of equipment on inactivities who was stocked with rares and didn't play enough so they got purged before the character got deleted. Though to be fair, that also means that the person logging in still needs to reequip the lost rares.

Anyway, I like the idea except for the last bit about becoming fully lootable after so many PKs. I think that is too dependent on OOC factors and might actually work contrary to keeping active PKers. Also I don't like the idea of counting your kills before you decide to stop pking.

I doubt it will happen, but I really like the idea.

-Signed Another no good at pking crybaby.

[Fireballer]

honestly, and having been full looted at low level before when I was wearing a decent setup, it does make me rage. some people say blah blah eq is ephemeral, but the reality is that eq is time of your life youre trading to gather. A PK happens so quickly that gearing for it takes 100 times longer than the effect.

I think full loot would be a lot less destructive if there was something on the order of a minimum of 4 players in group range/pk range at all times. people could group up to re-equip and probably cut that time in 1/4th to 1/16th the time, pk loot pinatas for a fast re-equip if they had a rp reason to do so, etc.

The number one thing that stops fast re-equip is a lack of knowledge on how to efficiently do it. is it gasteride that has the thick and segmented steel? This stuff is like red dragon armor and its easy for a high level character to kill those things compared to a red dragon. And you can mix and match the armor too for the most beneficial hit/dam balance.

bronze dragon set, malicious beast, takes approximately one hour to one and a half hour for gaining with a character with low parry. I hazard to say that this set is much faster to gain with a fighter or rogue.

re-equip come in multiple forms.
1. outfit at your guild trainee. This requires gold though so you might have to pull in a bit of trash to sell at shopkeeps. This also reafirms the importance of gold in the game, and perhaps is a reason to be gathering gold if you have noone to group with, until you get your guild reward for the day.
2. Item Sets. this is the clearly better option to outfitting, however it takes more time, particularly with a character that isn't capable of going vs mobs very well, which probably means they're a mage, in which case outfit suits them better probably. outfit does give health items and a health bonus, I think.
3. gathering a random (not gambled) set of eq. This option places between outfit and sets. it wont be as strong as a set, but can be more clearly shaped towards a specific goal than outfit, and as a bonus doesn't cost any gold and is much faster to get.

back in '04-'05 you could rely on just standing around waiting to vulture any of the very active 50's who fought constantly. Now its become of war of waiting. people don't fight until the moment they feel they have to. Its smart, but also reduces the vulture regain component.

Issues that make it harder for gathering eq:
low levels require a lot of time spent to gather mediocre stuff because of low moves and defenses vs mobs.
high levels require a lot better stuff to stand competently against other players.
In the past with more players on, you had a much higher chance to be killed as you make that perfect EQ set out of good randoms, gambled, and rares. Now anyone can make perfect EQ sets, so having a bunch of random gear is more underwhelming.

I don't feel we need any full loot limiter, and perhaps full loot practices could be limited by always having a negative k'd ratio, so that once you pass a threshold for minmum kills AND also have a positive K;d ratio, then you're able to be full looted. however, If this full looting does turn people off from the game, Id much rather have a restriction in than play alone.

The keys to re-equipping are:
Learning the most efficient routes to take for your regains (i.e. travelling salesman problem).
Learning the best mobs to whack as PvE loot pinatas in an area.
having some gold stored up.

I know you're an old player so you have a lot of game knowledge behind you, so perhaps there is an issue. Maybe you can shed some light on what you think made it easier to re-equip in the game in the past rather than now. If we understand the core problem it'll be easier to come up with a more elegant solution that I think everyone will be happy with. I'd like players not to get full looted and turned off.

get 1. corpse spam still full loots players so thats not a deterrent. Right now I've honestly got a pretty fun character Im ignoring for the moment due to him having a very decent eq setup at level 30, with a nice rare or two included. The character being such an RNG dependent class, I know that when I lose I will be stuck in much less competitive gear for a while, which could snowball into eating more deaths, particularly with a high exp combo hole as it is.

[Mirdrayn]

I like this idea alot too. We can also consider the following situations:

1. Some of the gambled equipment can be as good as rares, do we count that into the limit?
2. All Justices, Keepers, Knights & Legion can be full-looted as this will be a tradeoff for being in a guild?

[Pops]

I have to come out as completely against this idea, and here's why:

1. Limiting non-rare looting.

Every alignment has a fairly easily obtainable non-rare set that sets you up ok. If you think it takes too long to run and grab malicious beast or treant thews, you simply need more practice re-equipping. I'm not calling anyone a crybaby, I'm just saying maybe you arent as good at re-gearing as you could be. I'm far from great at this game, but I almost know that run blinded. Effective re-equipping is probably the first thing you learn on the road to being a good PKer. You should take pride in how efficiently you can re-gear yourself. Even if you suck, folks will respect the fact that EVERY time they come for you, you're gonna be armed to the teeth and ready to rumble. If you think non-rare sets arent good enough to PK in, you're wrong, it happens all the time. Play a less gear dependent class (i.e. mage) if it bothers you that much though. I'd think an elite invoker wearing a non-rare set could beat a good warrior in titanium tenor any day (at fifty of course).

2. Limiting anything else.

It should be understood that the risks associated with having a character in AR are a huge part of the value players find in the game. If you ask that the game be made less risky, you are in the same breath asking that it be made less rewarding. For those of us who've played WoW, (don't even try to lie about it) this should be readily apparant. Individual characters hold very little value in that game. The only thing it means when you get a max level character is that you've "put in your time". You havent "run the gauntlet" like you need to do in AR, theres no feeling of accomplishment when you get there, just relief that you can stop grinding ranking quests for a while. The same thing goes for getting a full set of end game gear. You put in the time, you get what you want, and you keep it until an update comes out to raise the ceiling of whats possible and allow you to chase that transitory feeling of accomplishment you keep hoping for. If you get a great set in AR and HOLD it, that absolutely says something about your playinjg ability. Its the ability to lose your gear at the drop of a hat that gives AR gear its unique allure.

[beia]

This solves the exact reason I stopped playing this game in 06 and almost again this year. If something could be coded or made like this I think it would be detramental to the player base, perhaps even intrest some older players and newbs who quit to try again.

[Erlwith]

This is a great idea at heart, not sure about your examples...

I never understood why items that took you weeks and weeks to get could all be looted in a fraction of a second. I personally thought they should've either lagged you after each rare item loot, or give you a long lag afterwards (like old request) on full loot based on how many items were looted.

But what I've seen is the get all, drop all, sac .1 spam is the type of masturbatementality that drives most of the pkers that have played here so it'll probably stay just the way it is.

[Smotpoker]

well for the Vets playing full loots are fine. Granted I hate being full looted but also it is good to full loot someone who attacks your group causing the ranking to lag behind and the only way is to full loot them so they wont bother you for awhile.

But how about having the NEWBIES (those who are new to the game and/or those people who pick to have the newbie (who new) at character creation) to have a loot limit on their corpse?

The number 1 turn off for a newbie besides getting killed by a silent trash character is going to your corpse (if you are lucky enough to find it) and seeing it empty. So if that trash character does kill a newbie they can only loot 1-3 things that way it really helps the newbie out.