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What's with the Loot favoring those in teams?
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I hit RA5 3 days ago. For the past 3 days I've been doing the Borg DSE's. The first two days I played through the DSE's unteamed. During this time I was not offered a single item, not one. I saw the looted drops (empty, white floating "containers"), but again nothing was ever offered to me.
Last night, I started out unteamed again. This time around I didn't go dropless. I actually had a chance to loot 2 or 3 items, which in the end I didn't take as the items were batteries I didn't need. But then someone offered me a team invite which I accepted. My how the game changed. Not me or how I played, as I always impulse to, help, and heal those that are overwhelmed. Changing the outcome of a skirmish is more satisfying to me than being yet another ship against an overwhelmed enemy that going to die in seconds. But I digress. I'm talking about the loot drops. They were constant, in my face, a lot times stacked 5 high, obscuring the view of the ships I was trying to destroy. I mean WTF, I'm not doing anything different then when I was playing unteamed. So why is that me and everyone I'm teamed with is being offered 1 to 5 drops at each and every won skirmish and the unteamed people are not getting offered much or anything at all?
The above was need or greed. But after the leader left and the new leader changed the loot to round robin, I was offered an item after almost every kill as I'm sure everyone else in the team was as well.
So why the skewed loot system?
Last night, I started out unteamed again. This time around I didn't go dropless. I actually had a chance to loot 2 or 3 items, which in the end I didn't take as the items were batteries I didn't need. But then someone offered me a team invite which I accepted. My how the game changed. Not me or how I played, as I always impulse to, help, and heal those that are overwhelmed. Changing the outcome of a skirmish is more satisfying to me than being yet another ship against an overwhelmed enemy that going to die in seconds. But I digress. I'm talking about the loot drops. They were constant, in my face, a lot times stacked 5 high, obscuring the view of the ships I was trying to destroy. I mean WTF, I'm not doing anything different then when I was playing unteamed. So why is that me and everyone I'm teamed with is being offered 1 to 5 drops at each and every won skirmish and the unteamed people are not getting offered much or anything at all?
The above was need or greed. But after the leader left and the new leader changed the loot to round robin, I was offered an item after almost every kill as I'm sure everyone else in the team was as well.
So why the skewed loot system?
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\other night we got about 20 drops in a single mission between us. maybe the fact that the mobs were +5-+2 for two of us and +10 or something to one of us helped.
Other games just make the content so hard you can't do it without a group, and solo players feel left out. This game chooses to say "Hey, if you group up with people, you've got a better chance at more loot... but if not, it's cool, you can still meet the challenge."
Pretty standard for MMOs to find ways to softly encourage grouping, and pretty nice of them to do it in a way that doesn't punish solo players.*
*I understand that, to a more selfish view, any reward given to one group is viewed as a "punishment" by the group that doesn't get it. This is, however, an unreasonable approach to take. A bonus given to one side (those who group) is not the same as something being WITHHELD from the other side.
Pure speculation.
I doubt this is an attempt to softly encourage grouping.
Firstly, 'challenging content' is what the devs would use to encourage grouping, if thats what they wanted to do. Like the STFs. Not through intentionally skewed loot drops.
Secondly, If for some reason they did intend to do this through loot drops, they would have announced this as a feature, so as to... you know....actually encourage people to group. I've not seen anything that officially states "Groups will loot more". And they wouldnt rely simply on the chance someone will simple "notice" that they get more loot in teams. That would be pointless as chances are, a great majority wouldn't realise.
Lastly, with the exception of STFs and other deliberate team content, I have seen nothing that suggests Cryptic even care how their players progress through content. In fact for CO they boasted that the game had been specifically designed to be completely soloable (though they were specific that not all content would be soloable, only that you could hit the level cap solo). That doesn't sound like company that design their games to specifically encourage grouping.
For the sake of discussion, please explain how offering increased benefit to teams is not punishing solo players for not being able to find a team? It seems to me that providing better and more frequent drops for a team is punishing solo players.
Have to disagree with you here. If that loot is being allocated to the group over the single player then that single player is having loot being withheld from him. Not purposly of course, but if he never has a chance to obtain said loot because he's always ungrouped with groups (agreed shouldn't happen much but could) then that is withholding loot.
Take the CE for example. If that is that case then a group of people could simply go from CE encounter to CE encounter and deny all others in those instances (that are not grouped) any of the possible loot. This is not only punishment for those choosing not to group but exploitation by those jumping instances. The bonus idea would hold water if the single user had a chance at the loot. If they don't because they're not grouped that's a punishment for not grouping.
The solo player can still play through the content (except the STF which is STOs attmept at "RAID" style content) and is not kept from seeing the story line or gaining exp or credits.
MMOs have always been setup so that those that Group up get better loot, they tend to need it afterall if they are going to go do the Raid content. A solo player will not need the best gear if all he/she desires is to play around solo. In case you want to mention PVPers needing the uber gear... a PVPer does not solo, if he/she wants the gear they group up as well.
You're doing somethign wrong. If you're truly going solo, you'll NEVER get white container drops. They will ALWAYS be yellow.
When you're in a team, if it's white, it means it's for someone else and not you. If it's yellow, it will always be yours (if you're doing the round robin loot option)
But this still does "punish" the soloer for raid content. They are under par and unattractive for when they do want to do high end group content.
This is completely fair and normal and does not need changing.
If thats the case (which I dont think it is) I dont see any reason as a science officer i would EVER want to group and heal anyone.
As a science officer, you'll probably be ODd by tacticals. Therefore your incentive to join a team would be that you could share loot by pooling your damage with another player, instead of getting none ever.
In fact the disincentive to team is on players who typically OD everyone else (including small teams of realtively unskilled players). Healers and slackers, in this system, gain the most by teaming.
I'm not doing anything wrong... "white" means something dropped and has already been looted, and it wasn't yours to pick up/open/see what it was.
I see these all the time when playing un-teamed.
same here.
Did need or greed on Infected Fact or Fiction, before we killed SB 82 Capt, my inventory was filled to the brink. Even got some purples in there too!
Welcome to DSE's. The only way to get drops is to do the most damage. It is just brainless pew pew at a target to kill x number of groups and to give loot drops to the highest DPS.
You will be needed in groups as a Sci ship, just not in DSE's.
I never team in the borg DSE, I get loads of loot. Stack 3 Scrambles and let the groups of Sphere's and Probes have a one as often as you can.