All looting system complaints and comments go here

[Jinnai]

The new looting system is in and the curve from the looting skill is much more drastic than it was in Native.  I've tested it and think I have it well balanced, but that's just my opinion and I'm sure plenty of people will have differing opinions on a change this big.  Give it a shot, let me know what you think.  Since it's rewritten we now have complete control of all aspects of looting so valid complaints can be addressed.

For those of you wondering it's still very very rare to get a unique weapon off a monarch.  If you have a 10 looting skill, 200 troops, and go to battle with only your army against them you have roughly a 1 in 15 chance of getting their weapon.

Also, be careful with the higher looting skill... you do get more loot but chances are it's better loot as well.  With my testing looting skill of 8 it took me 5 battles to finally get an ivory bow.  Problem is the one that finally dropped was a Masterwork Ivory Bow and required a Power Draw skill of 8. 

 

[fanthor]

i think it's overpowered though,
Klethi with 8looting and with 150party. I got about 10k amount of loot(price when selling at merchants) after defeating a 90man swadian party. Once i got masterwork champion sword(maybe a different modifier, but it is better than balance) 5varying types of coat of plates, a battered lordy armor(Cant remember the name, the shiny armor) and about 10more items which is higher than 1k price, a heaven for all parties like myself that depends on looting, just from besieging a castle with 5lords

and it's a pain trying to find merchants that have enough money to buy your loot.

 

[Tachyon]

Yes, I think you should give the merchants some more cash. It's becoming a bit hard to sell our loot.

 

[Jinnai]

Thank you for reminding me that looting is going to become a leader skill rather than a party skill.  I forgot to add that change in on this release.  The game's Native code (and this new code to a lesser degree) docks the player loot for having heros in the party representing them taking a portion of the loot.  So it made no sense to me to use their loot skill.

And the merchants not having enough money to buy most of what you get is all part of the balancing factor.  I might up their money a little, but not that much more than it is now.

And merry Christmas, happy holidays, etc, etc.

 

[fanthor]

Yay, now that female full agi char i just created today is of some use after all.. 
now, if we could just mod in a santa hat.. 

 

[erock25]

Thank you for reminding me that looting is going to become a leader skill rather than a party skill.  I forgot to add that change in on this release.  The game's Native code (and this new code to a lesser degree) docks the player loot for having heros in the party representing them taking a portion of the loot.  So it made no sense to me to use their loot skill.

And the merchants not having enough money to buy most of what you get is all part of the balancing factor.  I might up their money a little, but not that much more than it is now.

And merry Christmas, happy holidays, etc, etc.

Hhmm looting as a leader skill.  Is there any way you could leave this out until the next save game breaking update since I'm sure most people haven't been raising looting on their own character.  Personally I don't think looting should be switched to leader skill.... you say how it makes no sense when in reality the looting system as a whole doesn't make any sense.  If it made sense your character would get the king/lord's sword and armor every time he wanted to considering he is "the boss".

 

[Jinnai]

Not all equipment is left behind after a battle to be looted by the winner.  And a vast majority of it is probably too damaged to be used anyway.  After all, that shiny piece of armor didn't save the life of the guy whose corpse you took it off of.  Or perhaps that awesome sword WAS left intact on the battlefield, but someone else in your party found it first and realized how much money they could get for it.  All the people working under you are there for the money, not out of some twisted sense of loyalty.

But I should clarify what I meant by looting being a leader skill.  It will remain a party skill for most things, such as looting villages where the entire party is working together.  But when it comes to what loot the player gets after a battle it was intended to use only their skill, not the party's skill.  After all, when you sign people on to your crew they work not only for their wages but for a share of the loot as well, which is why the more troops you have the fewer items will show up available for looting.

EDIT:  The only significant difference between v0.526 and v0.527 is the personal vs party looting skill change noted here.

 

[Tachyon]

A small doubt. After a battle, does the amount of cash received depend on the Player's looting skill alone or relies on the party member with the maximum skill?

 

[Jinnai]

A small doubt. After a battle, does the amount of cash received depend on the Player's looting skill alone or relies on the party member with the maximum skill?

Neither.  Both in Native and in our mod the looting skill doesn't come in to play at all determining the amount of xp and gold from a battle.  The only things that affect those numbers are the number of troops with you, the number of troops you fought, and the percentage of the total army on your side your troops comprise.

 

[Bunduqdari]

Just wanted to say Jin:
the .527 loot system works great.

I had a loot skill of 5 and got myself a Cracked Ivory Bow in no time.

After that I raised my loot skill to 6 and got myself an AWESOME Strong Ivory Bow, the most destructive weapon in game, if you ask me 

 

[erock25]

yea i'm fine with the loot skill as well.  it may even need a tweak down or so.  with a looting skill of 2 i'm pulling in 6-7 items worth 1000 and up from mercenary parties.  granted these items only sell for 500 or so merchants..... in regards to that isn't that a little much of a hit to be taking to price considering i have a party member with 9 in trade skill? or does trade skill not affect item price only finding out trade routes?

 

[Kevlar]

Its like day 5 in my new game, got a party of 10 lordless knights 6 sword sisters and already have gotten myself an ivory bow

My character now seems more powerful then my old one at day like 120.

 

[Riskbreaker]

it seem stupid if you capture a lord or a king you cant get his armor/weapon .well it seems like you capture them leaving all their stuff so its easyer to escape.And another thing if you encaunter a party of a lots of tier 1 troops and led by some tier7+ troop who aro you going to loot a bunch of some noobs or the leader(pointing to that i get 50 useless items instead of 1 good)?well you could asume that the enemy loots their own dead, but if there are no surviors all killed/imprisoned ,so the good items just disapear?

 

[illmatics]

Well, "realistically", after any battle you've won you should be able to loot every single dead body out there.

So I woulnd't say you can ever get "too much loot". That said, I liked it better when you had to fight endless battles to get even one good item.

 

[Jinnai]

I'm seeing a pretty even mix of "there should be more loot" and "there should be less loot".  I have no problem putting back the default system if people preferred it.  I just have no intention of letting the player loot every single piece of gear on the battlefield.  That really is unrealistic.  Again, pieces get damaged and there are tons of people in your army who would take things for themselves.  As for looting the better troops before the weaker troops, the better gear the character gets does float to the top of the list, so even if the looted items fills up, anything that flows off the edge and the player will never see is all the lower value items.

 

[Bunduqdari]

I like this new system as I said before, but the thing to think about is:

Doesn't it make making money even more simple?
We have tournements where you can win almost 40,000 denars
On top of that, when I fight a large battle and get 5 Tempered Katzbalgers, 5 Thick Banded Armours, 5 Thick Lammelar armours, etc etc with more of the same,
I could easily count on another 20,000-30,000 denars from a single large battle.
(of course only IF i manage to find cities rich enough where the merchants have enough money to buy them from me)

This is really the only thing to worry about, and by testing and playing, we'll need to look if the loot system needs a little tweaking.

 

[Riskbreaker]

NO NEED TO SEE LOOT OF EVERY DEAD BODY ON THE FIELD.
Well in short why the hell you need a ton of crapy items instead of  few good ones.So if an enemy party consist of mostly low tier troops youll likely get some low-worth items which could be looted by regular soldiers so dercreseang the nuber of them in the loot winfow of the palyer,however as a superior(player is a general/lord....  and he should get the best loot) should see better items in his loot window.Im trying to say there should be some balance between items in the loot window few good ,few medium and ,few crapy items,but mostly a concentrated on the best items that could be looted(there always should be a chance that the items are broken,and so not shown in the window,or shown as broken and later reforged by a blacksmith).Well think abauth this- you just won a battle against a horde of troops with crapy items ,lead by elite troops.What to do???A wise general will loot the elite troops to find anything useful or worth to sell and leave the rest for his soldiers.

Im now aware how the game works,so i dont know the system that chooses items that are looted.if the scripts can be modified to adjust to any system of looting its nice-imagination is the limit (if you get a good scriptwriter), but if there are limitations well  just have to stick whith what we have.

 

[Riskbreaker]

I like this new system as I said before, but the thing to think about is:

Doesn't it make making money even more simple?
We have tournements where you can win almost 40,000 denars
On top of that, when I fight a large battle and get 5 Tempered Katzbalgers, 5 Thick Banded Armours, 5 Thick Lammelar armours, etc etc with more of the same,
I could easily count on another 20,000-30,000 denars from a single large battle.
(of course only IF i manage to find cities rich enough where the merchants have enough money to buy them from me)

This is really the only thing to worry about, and by testing and playing, we'll need to look if the loot system needs a little tweaking.

Well war can sometimes be rewarding.Remember ancient rome or viking raids - get the best stuff that you can carry away and make a run for it.Well in tournaments you get the money from organizers and sidebets.In war from loot and salary.

 

[Bunduqdari]

yes I understand that ofcourse, that's the explanation of our wealth in the game.

What I was saying though, is that we need to look at the right balance by testing.
Either tournament rewards, or the worth of your loot in denars MAY need to go down, IF we, by playing the game some more, notice that we become too rich too soon to such a degree that it spoils the game.

So in case we see that the changes in tournament and loot money are bad to the game balance, both may need change.

I've already played some with the new system and I must say that so far, it looks like I can make enough money without much hassle. I try to avoid tournaments because the rewards are too damn high but if you want to live only of the loot like I'm doing, it's very easy even if you don't fight often. And when I did fight often, as I carved my own kingdom, I was pretty much swimming in an ocean of gold, just by fighting.

Though once you have your own kingdom, there is enough justification to be as rich as you can get, since you've now become a king.

To put it short, even though I strangely miss the time when the Ivory Bow was still rare, I think Jinnai did a pretty good job with the loot system. It may only need a few minor changes in the future. What I would like, though, is lowering the tournament rewards from 30,000-40,000 to 15,000-20,000 when betting the full amount

 

[Ringwraith #5]

But I should clarify what I meant by looting being a leader skill.  It will remain a party skill for most things, such as looting villages where the entire party is working together.  But when it comes to what loot the player gets after a battle it was intended to use only their skill, not the party's skill.  After all, when you sign people on to your crew they work not only for their wages but for a share of the loot as well, which is why the more troops you have the fewer items will show up available for looting.

I strongly object to this. Yes, they're in for a share of the loot, but I'm still the commander, so I still get first dibs. If they don't like this, they can go look for another employer. I hire NPCs precisely so that I don't have to invest in all the skills myself (and indeed one might argue that conversely that is why the NPCs exist in the first place) and this seems like a completely arbitrary way of forcing me to do so anyway. If I could perhaps get a tutorial on how to change it back so that party looting skill is used on the battle loot screen, please...?