ROLLING

[The Man In Black]

Remind me to carry a d20 around with me, so I can roll the owner of the next good-looking Lexus I see.

I lol'd....Or rather I would have if I didn't have a cookie in my mouth. It's the thought that counts, right?

Thothie - if it isn't too hard, go back to Arty chests. Even if people still roll, chances are you're going to have someone FAIR handing the item out, rather than a nub-ninja who DCs right away.

 

[Thothie]

Well, I did add hp requirements to stock the chests a ways back. So a nub won't get any nifty items unless a l337 sees them first - but when everyone on the server is l337 - the definition of nub gets skewed some.

 

[Sabre]

Remove rolling, revive artys, says I...

Rolling is awesome for items that, while still valuable, are not hot-ticket items (eg The fire resist helm[Which seems to be popping up more often]).
However, everyone wants to roll for items...But what really gets me is that people want to roll for items that they're getting for a friend or a sibling, and that is f*cking ridiculous. It was a good system while it lasted

 

[Blasto121]

I say migrate the the chests to client side and set it up so when someone opens the chest its different from the next. Base how good the items will be via HP, so basically if I have 200 HP and open a chest I maybe have 15 percent for the rare, where as if I have 300 HP it jumps to 17 percent chance to spawn. Of course you do hit limits for some items, that way you never reach 100 percent spawn chance for items.

Though I don't know if its possible, but it seems like it should be. Just make the server set the items on the clients.

just an idea

 

[Picadilly]

Blasto's idea seems cool.

Thothie: If it would inspire you to start using artifact chests again, we'll start strictly enforcing a "no roll on artifact chests" policy in our server.

 

[The Man In Black]

Blasto's idea is incredibly hard to pull off, and likely filled with many bugs that I'm too tired to think of (no offense)

 

[Thothie]

Well, it'd be neigh impossible client side, as most of those functions are server side (the client, just ain't that dynamic, and communication is one-way for the most part.)

Howevah - it *might* be possible to make one inventory show for each player that uses the chest.

It'd still lead to rolling though, as one player would find a nifty item, and another player wouldn't, and thus the "ROLL FOR IT!" requests begin.

 

[Moira]

On a personal level:
Well, this doesn't concern much of anyone since most players go with a balanced build, but the idea of basing the chest contents on HP (a concept I accept as being a valid compromise to the alternatives) discriminates against specialist players. Perhaps when/if parry is dropped, it could refer to level instead?

For quite some time I had high arch+SC and was doing decent damage despite having very low hp. I would use speed pot, circle strafing, peekaboo-corner-sniping etc intensely to kill low-to mid level bosses and run maps solo.

Also, it seems to me that the offensive spells have been weakened since the last patch and that several stronger weapons have been introduced, as a result spells aren't used offensively anymore except for their "area of effect" damage. So spell caster specialists and archers relying on lightning spells (CL & LS) for heavy artillery are out too.

When I started playing several people told me that I couldn't specialize as an archer, that they game wasn't tailored for it, but I managed all right, I'm having fun and I'm soloing maps that I "shouldn't"... Clearly I don't have/get much rare gear, and most of what rare gear I do have I've been straight out offered and given by other players (thank you Piccadilly for a plethora of treasures, Jelly for Fire helm, and Dudeman for Raven).

I understand (though I don't wholly agree with) the reasoning behind promoting group play with the current chest systems, however I don't understand why we're promoting balanced builds against specialist builds when we could have both.

Setting that aside...
---------------------------------

The problems
-Anonymous ninja looters
-Rolling gives equal chances to get items Vs. unequal merit in clearing maps
-Rolling in inappropriate situations
-People rushing at chests

I do agree there's a problem when essentially two high level players out of a group six clear a map and everyone systematically rolls the same dice for the rare item. Clearly this system doesn't recognize the merits of different parties involved, in spite of the fact that it should.

If I've understood correctly, chests have the best chance of producing good items if they are first opened/looked into by a person with high HP:

Thothie: "Well, I did add hp requirements to stock the chests a ways back. So a nub won't get any nifty items unless a l337 sees them first.

This is all good and well except that a lot of low to mid and even new upper middle level players aren't aware of this and rush to the chests in the idea of securing items before ninja looters (in the best case), or simply with the objective of ninja looting.
-

Possible solutions?
So perhaps the following would help:
-Make it and state it in an official rule that people who are chosen by artifact chests (if they come back) and those who buy their rares can do what they will with items, including keeping them, putting them up for grabs by rolling, and trading them for the equivalent amount of money.

-If possible, make the ALL retrievals from chests public as they were from artifact chests. So that if someone ninjas they cannot do it anonymously and they WILL be made to face the consequences of their actions. This will solve the ninja problem. Or perhaps, if it is further possible, only doing this for "boss" chests.

-Make it and state it in a rule that the player with highest HP systematically opens the chests first. Perhaps, if possible, make a command that would display the name of the person with the highest hp. Something such as typing "/opener" into the chatter to display the name of that person on the server with the highest HP to everyone present. Perhaps having the boss chests only open to that person? It would be in everyone's best interest if it were like that way anyways.

-If it isn't possible/convenient/feasible for whatever reasons to make the chest/item distribution system intelligent (such as artifact chests), then perhaps Mikkel's solution of rolling dice that reflect a player's level would be an acceptable compromise. Supposedly a person with a higher level can contribute more to the clearing of a map than a person with low level. This however, doesn't solve the time present issue, but although I'm loathe to say it, I can't think of a simple solution better than relying on player sense. If a high level player comes into the server and finishes off the boss quickly and effortlessly should they roll? Considering that the group of low/mid levels present struggled for a long time and lost exp and gold to get there?
-------

Perhaps these rules could be added to MOTD or better yet coded into the game and called up with a command (typing "/rules" into the chatter)... If it's explicitly stated as a rule, then even if low level people expect to get an equal chance to roll for an item, eg "the rubber chicken of doom", they can justifiably be turned down on the basis that the rules are concrete and written down and easily accessible. At the moment most players are playing grab as grab can, since there is no legislation and no clear line of conduct. Making chest retrievals public will stop ninja looting, and will allow the players and more importantly the admins to enforce some kind of order on this whole item mess.

Expecting people to be selfless or even logical about it is naive and unrealistic: for every reasonable person there are six unreasonable individuals; beyond that each person perceives things differently and disagreements will be inevitable.
If hard coding an effective solution (such as artifact chests) is too complicated/impractical or whatnot, than a human solution is needed: a set of rules to adopt and refer to systematically when the situation comes up; and people being people, the means for players/admins to enforce it. Either majority vote kicking/banning or having the server admins with the authority to enforce the rules.

Essentially:
-Deciding on and setting one way officially may solve part of the problems.
-Making use of peer pressure and [FN] admins (with authority in all fn servers) to enforce honesty may help as well.
-Making acquisitions public will unmask ninja looters.
-Making the players' dice reflect their levels would represent a compromise solution to the contribution to chance discrepancy.

 

[Jon]

^
Too much to read >.>

 

[Moira]

Then only read the last four lines.
Though frankly, the paragraphs have titles that are either in bold or in italic. If that's too complex a system for you to use to find what you want from a mere couple of paragraphs... Or if you can't be bothered to do even that much... then there's nothing I can do.
I suppose this reply is for everyone else who can't be bothered to read more than a post-it sized reply: just read the part called solutions and/or the part called essentially.

 

[Vomica7]

Then only read the last four lines.
Though frankly, the paragraphs have titles that are either in bold or in italic. If that's too complex a system for you to use to find what you want from a mere couple of paragraphs... Or if you can't be bothered to do even that much... then there's nothing I can do.
I suppose this reply is for everyone else who can't be bothered to read more than a post-it sized reply: just read the part called solutions and/or the part called essentially.

TL;DR

 

[Tentadrilus]

TL;DR

TL

 

[Sabre]

Well, if you were to bring back the artifact chest, you oughta remove the message that displays what the opener received. People automatically plunk a die down when they see that message, and it's annoying as hell.
Love Moira's idea with the /rules part, however her idea of publicizing chests really won't stop the excessive rolling, nor will it truly stop ninjas(unless the admins acted on that). Not to mention, servers lag when too many of those messages display. So one could imagine people rolling whilst items are announced not being server-friendly.
Remove the roll, bring back the arty

 

[Moira]

I didn't know that those messages lagged the server, if so, then scrap that idea or use a different way of announcing the information.
The point of making the acquisitions public isn't to stop people from rolling whenever however (that's what some of my suggested rules are for), the point is to stop ninja looters. And as you said it won't affect ninja looters except if admins act, but at least that way admins would be able to act, and if votekick/voteban worked, then the other players could act as well if an admin weren't there.
You're absolutely correct in saying that just keeping things as they are and merely publicizing chests (if it were possible) would resolve nothing, that change would have to be done in conjunction with a couple of others.

I've only been playing the game for a short while, but as far as I've seen, artifacts seemed to be working satisfactorily. Thothie said he took them out because people started rolling for their contents systematically, as I said previously establishing a code of conduct for when/how to roll if at all could resolve that: as in don't roll for artifacts as they belong to the winner, and if you must roll, roll for the contents of normal boss chests if more than one person wants an item there.

 

[Sabre]

New idea:
Is there a way to disable roll if the map contains an arty?

EDIT: Another one:
I just thought of this and believe that it is conceivable...But I'm no coder...Moving on...
How about when the boss dies, the map displays a code(such as a series of randomly generated numbers) to one player? When the player says that code, the item is placed in his/her inventory? If said player has no room for the item, or if he doesn't say the code within a given amount of time, the code is regenerated and given to another.

In essence, it's the arty without the arty...

 

[HumanSteak]

Revived arties would be good since so far as I know, every high level players are fair and honest (except nando). If I ever go to a map and learn people were farming for hours then the arty calls me, I'd ask everybody who deserves it the most in their opinions until everybody agrees. I'm sure most long time players would all do the same but of course, there would be times when noobs argue and get mad because they disagree with the decision taken and it might lead to "disliked high level f*ckers".
If only more people could play this game for fun and not only for items...