Flagging this forum thread as having a good explanation (as it’s not tool-tipped) of the various looting modes.
Everyone can, in their Social options, set up their preferred Loot Mode, which controls how drops (candy, globes, chicklets) get handled during combat. The actual control for what happens on the team, though, is with the team leader.
The options:
Here are the basics:
- Round Robin – Everyone gets a turn at looting, whatever drops on their turn is what they get, then it’s the next person’s turn. [This is what Margie and I run on.]
- Free for All – Everyone can loot everything, first come first serve.
- Need or Greed – When an item is looted you decide whether you “need” the item, meaning you’re actually going to equip it and have a use for it, or “greed” the item, saying that you don’t need it but you’ll take it to sell if nobody else wants it. After everyone on the team has picked need or greed the following happens:
- If one or more people have picked Need, they all roll random numbers and the highest roll gets the item.
- If, and only if, nobody picks Need, all the Greed team members roll in the same manner to determine who gets it.
- Rolling Need on an item you’re not planning on using is generally frowned upon.
- Master Looter – The team leader loots everything and (in theory) distributes loot as he sees fit among the team.
The Loot Threshold is what level of item should have the above done to it. I.e., if “Common” then every drop will be subject to the above. If “Rare” then only rare items and above will be; all else will be Free for All.
Honestly, I’d love to see some added options/features:
- Autograb. Breaking attention in battle to grab candy is irksome. Circling back after combat is also a pain. If it’s mine, it should just go in my inventory, and I’ll look at it later.
- Lion’s Share. Give the drop to the person who did the greater percentage of the damage, or tilt the die rolls above to that person. It’s irksome as well when you’ve tackled a ship all on your own and the drop goes to someone else on the team (who, to be fair, was tackling something else without your help). This would also impact folks who don’t engage in combat quite as vigorously.
- Smart Need-Greed. Allow users to set options (I really am not interested in X) and/or do some smart examination of what the (for space combat) ships already have — if someone is missing a component (a Tac console), or only has something of a lower value or rarity, then they should get priority for the drop of that item.
If the Loot Threshold actually defaults to Free for All, I’d rather have that smartened, too — e.g., be able to choose Need/Greed, with stuff below the threshold going to Round Robin (it’s worth credits, even if not all that interesting).
Not surprisingly, this setup is much like CO’s (and many other games). I still prefer CoX’s mechanic, where it’s personal and automatic. Looting ships/debris is ghoulish, in some ways, not to mention time-wasteful. But at least now having read the options, it gives me a better idea of what’s going on.