Blog of Heroes

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Craig Zinkievich was interviewed again, and raised an interesting point about a “death penalty” in Star Trek Online (Emphasis mine):

Why isn’t there much of a death penalty? There are a few suggestions around that could be introduced to stop players from carelessly throwing their ships into battles; Your Bridge Officers could be incapacitated for a minute or two after a defeat while they’re healed in sick bay or, after a number of deaths, you may have to return to a star base to get repaired before certain modules stop working.

We currently have a death penalty in-game. When you die, your crew comes back depleted and has to slowly build back up. This means your hull and other systems don’t repair as quickly as if they were at full capacity. And on the ground, you’re forced to retreat to a respawn point behind where you expired.

In terms of traditional death penalties, think about what a death penalty really is: It’s a time penalty. You died; therefore we’re putting you in time out for X amount of time. Or, you died, therefore we’re forcing you to spend X amount of money, which takes Y amount of time to earn. Why would you force people to stop having fun, and sacrifice their free time, just to disincentivize behavior in a videogame? I get that people want to feel a sense of risk when they’re fighting in battles, but if the only emotion you feel when you’re playing a game is fear that you’re going to lose some time due to an arbitrary gameplay mechanic, we’re probably not doing something right. It’s like asking why single-player games have quicksave options. But that said, we are looking into finding a meaningful way to give players a deeper sense of loss when something bad happens. But we want it to feel right, rather than just like an arbitrary penalty.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

Note from Cryptic this evening:

Have a friend interested in Star Trek Online? Maybe he or she saw you vanquishing a Borg cube and was interested in more? Now, with the Star Trek Online Buddy Key, you can invite them along on your adventures, unrestricted, for five whole days.

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit the Star Trek Online Buddy Key claim center to claim your key.
2. Click “Claim My Buddy Key.”
3. You’ll be redirected to your account page. In the upper-right corner, you’ll see a section labeled “Unused Keys.” Your Buddy Key will appear there!
4. Send your friend the Buddy Key, as well as a link to the Star Trek Online key registration page. (To claim the Key, your friend will need to create a Cryptic account if he or she hasn’t yet.)
5. Your friend is ready to enjoy Star Trek Online. He or she can download the client at our download page.

After five days, your buddy will need to purchase a retail copy of Star Trek Online (and apply a retail key to his or her account) to continue playing.

Thanks again for your continued support, and we can’t wait to see you and your buddy in game!

– The Star Trek Online Team

Fiendishly clever.

So if anyone out there is interested in giving STO a spin for five days for free, let me know. (Amanda, I’ll hold onto one of those for you. 🙂 )