Feedback on loot and the looting policy of enemy drops

[sitfesz]

This feedback about looting is global, but Railjack was the main motivation of this post.

First, I start about Railjack:

Currently the loot in space is shared, which is almost okay, but people are constantly missing out on loot if there isn't a janitor doing the chores of sweeping the 3 dimensional space.
I always go for loot as a pilot (ship drops and meteories etc too), because that's the most rewarding task to reduce idling with the ship. The vacuum range is so low, the pilot have to move back and forth to collect everything one-by-one. Careful looting takes at least one player from the squad doing the chores for everyone and we are still missing out on a lot of things, because most players hate being a janitor and they simply don't take the time and concentration to look for the fake stars in space.
Death animations and loot physic yeets are insult to injury. Just give the loot on enemy kill and keep vacuum to debris looting. The current looting process in Railjack is exhausting and rage inducing.

Looting on boarded ships/platforms are even worse, because that loot is not even shared. This means the boarder gets extra loot, which makes other activities less rewarding, inferior. I suspect that this is not intended, because always boarding as 4 ruins the idea of roles in Railjack combat. However it may not be intended, it is important to talk about this, because it will stay this way for sure if we don't.
Railjack is constant fear of missing out on loot for me and totally drains me as I have to sweep the whole 30 cubic km space to drifted enemy drops and even have to run around in the platforms as fast as I can, so squadmates won't get upset and I can still make the mission efficiently.

Looting in general:

I got used to regular mission looting, because it's far less obnoxious, but Railjack made me question it as well. The most efficient way to loot is to always stay as 4, just like gathering affinity. I get it, this is an incentive to stay grouped and stop roaming. Except it doesn't to it's job, because many players ignore it and roam anyway in survival, and it is the opposite of what we should do in excavation or interception.

While "picking up stuff is satisfying", chasing roaming players and ignoring the objective to not miss out IS NOT.
Why did players had to fight DE to get vacuum on companions?
Why was companion vacuum mod the answer instead of passive looting?
Why do we have to do the same thing in Railjack?
DE, why are you so stubborn about looting?

Even though I have 16 millions of nano spores, I will pick them up, because there might not just be nano spores at that area.
I want to play the game in proxima missions, and I want to get my rewards without flying around to collect what the careless players left. Looting takes as much effort as killing enemies, but killing enemies is fun.
Please increase playtime by adding difficulty and stop trying to lengthen it on looting. Keep loot crates as incentive to explore and share enemy drops.

[Miyabi-sama]

Oh I came here to read some rant and ended up reading feedback.

Looting system in RJ works but ultimately unfun. Need some tweaks for sure. At the very least stop to show common resources in separate window as rares.

[kapn655321]

33 minutes ago, sitfesz said:

most players hate being a janitor

I would adore this role, but I feel like if I go in with that task in mind,
I'm about to be dressed down in very colorful language about not
being more suited to the task of helping in other ways.
Any support role is an invitation to be demeaned.
Some game modes with real ambitious folks just ain't worth it.
Especially new and challenging game modes.
 

33 minutes ago, sitfesz said:

many players ignore it and roam anyway in survival, and it is the opposite of what we should do

Amen. Oddly enough, this got worse with Affinity Range display.
I'm at a total loss how to solve this, as it seems DE might also be.
 

33 minutes ago, sitfesz said:

had to fight DE to get vacuum on companions

When folks don't have to pay attention to what loot they get, or
where to get it, then it means nothing to them.
I've noticed being on headset with newer players using vacuum,
they don't have the same level of awareness of what they pick up,
or where. ..fewer rares get marked or noticed, the regular drip of
accomplishment isn't the same.. and it may play a role in Why
players scatter more, and care less about party loot shares.
 

33 minutes ago, sitfesz said:

increase playtime by adding difficulty and stop trying to lengthen it on looting.

There's a drawback to this, as well. More casual players who are less driven by
conquering, are more drawn to loot. It's impossible to foster a perfect balance,
but there's a detriment to throwing one out wholesale to benefit the other a little.
I don't personally want this game to be any harder than it is, unless done in a way
through more mechanical nuance, and less just damage and risk of instant death.
...Until things like AI aim, damage, and health systems can make use of our loadouts,
and our loadouts can make better use of combat in general, asking to increase drop
chances along side loot might be every bit as destructive to the game as scarcity
and easier combat, across the entirety of players and their approaches to the game.

Ideally, yeah. Having more fun challenge and undoing the 0.03% drop chance rng
nonsense would be wonderful. Making things, "harder," as is, for higher drops,
might just be a 0 sum or total loss for everyone but the most die-hard players.
...If there's already a problem with meta elitism, it's certainly not going to get
any better by rewarding try-hards and punishing casuals.

Edited December 22, 2019 by kapn655321

[sitfesz]

20 hours ago, kapn655321 said:

When folks don't have to pay attention to what loot they get, or
where to get it, then it means nothing to them.

I don't think it's about the looting behavior. It's more like direct attention to read the description of looted items in the threshold window it shows.
While collecting loot, I barely read them, because I'm focusing on the mission and there is an end mission result screen for that.

 

20 hours ago, kapn655321 said:

If there's already a problem with meta elitism, it's certainly not going to get
any better by rewarding try-hards and punishing casuals.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean the current attitude to difficulty and being one-shot is far from the goal I meant by difficulty. I'm pretty sure there will be a trade-off if we don't have to spend this much time on looting.

[kapn655321]

1 minute ago, sitfesz said:

I barely read them, because I'm focusing on the mission

It's a minor thing, but just an odd pattern I've noticed.
Barely noticing is still noticing.

"Where's that thing?"
"You must have already got it."
"Oh. I never notice because my vacuum."
-actual conversation I've had several times in the last 4 months with 2 new players.

If the balance of barely noticing and not noticing is 15m of vacuum in mission,
it might explain some of the scatter and disintegration of party cooperation and sharing.
I don't assume it's the whole picture, but it would make sense to an extent that it's a factor.
 

 

6 minutes ago, sitfesz said:

I'm pretty sure there will be a trade-off if we don't have to spend this much time on looting.

This is purely speculation, but I'm wondering.. if I'm onto something with the other factor,
what if the more difficult drops and vacuum range is attempting to correct for the result
I think I've witnessed? ...they can't roll back the vac, so reworking the scarcity might be
an attempt to strike the old cooperative balance. ...maybe.

I'd be all for, if not a direct trade off, at least an improvement in harder enemies meaning better drop chance.

It could be that it won't be worth while to pay attention to players until they're at a certain challenge level,
where they feel paying attention is fitting. There's also factors like ADD, which make focus on things like
a sea of drops just not matter unless the gameplay around them hits a high enough peak of excitement.

To some extent, they have better drops from eximus and endless mission checkpoints, but the drop chances
of regular loot does not change with difficulty. Perhaps that's somewhere they could flex into with little
consequence in the future... Something far more likely to be a thing if they do successfully cull the broken
cheese meta into lvl 150+(++) endurance runs. ...though on behalf of those players, I'm not sure it's
worth it to them. I'd welcome their feedback on the subject.

Thanks for the discussion so far, btw. Hope you're having a good day. 😃

[Steel_Rook]

I'm of the opinion that it's high time for one of two radical changes to happen to the game. Either:

Make all loot shared, where anything anyone picks up anywhere on the map is shared with everyone else regardless of distance.

or

Drop loot directly into our inventories, where loot doesn't exist as physical drops on the ground (or in space) we have to approach to pick up, but rather goes directly into our end-of-mission rewards.

I'm personally in favour of the second, and for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it makes Vacuum redundant, which it should always have been. It means we never miss any drops because they never drop to the ground. Anything killed, any lockers or containers opened, anything that falls anywhere on the map, we instantly pick up. No more running around collecting garbage off the ground. Loot detector would still matter at that point, because it marks containers (and could also mark lockers). Exploration still matters because you still need to open those lockers and break those containers to GENERATE the loot which drops for everyone, but you don't run the risk of leaving loot on the ground.

The only exception I'd make for the above is Ammo, Health Orbs and Energy Orbs. I'm of the opinion that those should still be drops, because picking them up is part of the gameplay loop. You want to leave ammo, heath and energy that the player couldn't pick up when they dropped, so they can be picked up later. Realistically, anything with a potential cap that we can't pick up an infinite amount of should still be a ground drop, but that's a VERY small list of things.

To this day, I see no real benefit to ground drops whatsoever. There are some minor cosmetic ones, but I don't believe any of them outweigh the sheer tedium of "cleaning up" after a fight and the amount of crap we leave on the floor because we didn't notice it.

[kapn655321]

2 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Drop loot directly into our inventories,

The sea of loot on the ground has a role in a player's satisfaction with killing enemies that don't leave persistent bodies.
Also tickles the reward and pleasure parts of our brains. 😃

I wonder what would happen if they tested that... other than players not knowing what loot drop from which enemy/where.

[Steel_Rook]

2 minutes ago, kapn655321 said:

The sea of loot on the ground has a role in a player's satisfaction with killing enemies that don't leave persistent bodies. Also tickles the reward and pleasure parts of our brains. 😃

Right - as I said, there are some minor cosmetic benefits from dropping loot on the ground, especially when it forms large piles. The thing is, though, that actually collecting it can be such a pain in the ass (especially in space) that I don't think it's really worth the minor benefits. I've played games which drop loot directly into your inventory, and I found "drops" to not be something I miss when they aren't there.

[kapn655321]

19 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

(especially in space)

That part I agree with fully.
Archwing missions, and (from what I've heard of) Railjack, loot pick ups are not a good time.

We have enough vacuum in ground missions right now that players sometimes go without noticing it.
I'm not sure if that counts as best of both worlds, or not enough of either side.
I'm happy to plow through piles of loot drops, and don't use vacuum hardly ever.

Though, if they wish to experiment with it in the future, I'd hardly be effected..
My loot's already been gathered over many years.. so I'm not sure I can really speak to the experience
of what it's effect is on new players.

I'd be interested to see some market or neurological research on the subconscious effects
in a side-by-side of a game with, and one without.

...I also consider that if loot share is map wide, it would re-enforce players scattering beyond affinity range.
May be that if they did the one, they'd have to do the other.. and the overall loss to that certain target
stimulus could be a detriment to performance review.. perhaps not.

Most likely if it's neither here nor there what the benefit is, could just be a stylistic distinction.
Seeing Warframe unique icons constantly may help immerse players in the world.
"What makes this loot different from any other loot?" Being flooded with those images
twice per drop may ease us into Warframe's universe in a more complete way.. but this is
speculation on my part.

So what might be the result of universal loot pick up, global affinity share, and removing a layer of
player absorption through drop profusion? Would be interesting to know. Could work out fine.
How integral are these components, if at all, to players getting into Warfame's headspace?
Might be those are some of the threads holding it together, might be they're vestigial from a time
before we had this depth of customization and individual player choice.

What do you think?

Edited December 23, 2019 by kapn655321

[Althaline]

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I've played games which drop loot directly into your inventory, and I found "drops" to not be something I miss when they aren't there.

I strongly agree. In fact, I've played an MMO that made that switch, with the exception of some old quest items. When I encounter those, I don't think "wow, a bunch of loot!", I think "ugh, one of the ones they never updated". There is very little to be gained by forcing players to loot every corpse, especially in a faster, more hectic game like Warframe (and even more so in the 3D Railjack spaces, where you can easily miss loot in all the emptiness).