I hate ninja's

[idarkphoenixi]

No, not that kind (although I'm still not a fan). I mean the kind you find in MMO games, specifically in MMORPG's.






You know the drill: You spend 20-30 minutes slogging through a dungeon and you finally kill that bastard of a boss, he drops an item you pray you can use and whaddya know? It happens to be that new chestpiece you were hankering after for days. Nobody else can use heavy armor either so you're good to go. Now just to hit need instead of greed but what's this? The lightly armored medic nabs it and runs away! Probably rubbing his cheetos encrusted fingers together in victory as he leaves you in the dirt to re-queue and try again.

Nobody like when this happens, yet it always happens. But why?

I only say this because it just wouldn't be all that hard to tweak the looting system to be more fair. There's two basic "rolls" for looting an item: "need" (if you...well, need to have it) and "greed" (for those who just want it for the cash value).
It doesn't exactly seem right though that mmo's allow you to "need" for items that you're not eligible for.

I guess I'm just puzzled why people are still keeping this old (and very much broken) form of looting when it can easily be fixed in a simple update patch.

 

[Jandau]

Everything is a Hunter item...

Seriously, though, people do it for a number of reasons. The simplest is a complete lack of empathy or perception of other players as real people. Some MMO players see other players as nothing more than NPCs. They roll on everything because why not? You don't feel bad if you're playing Dragon Age and take all the best armor for yourself while leaving Oghren to run around in his underwear (you might feel mildly disgusted, though). Secondly, greed - they know you need it, they know they don't, but to them the few pieces of silver they can get for it is more important than you being able to use that item to improve your character. Or maybe they want it for an alt (if it's loot that isn't Bind on Pickup). Thirdly, trolling - some people just want to watch their party members rage.

What can be done? Well, it's mostly up to the devs. They can put a number of mechanisms in place to prevent or at least reduce ninja looting. For instance, TERA Online doesn't allow people to Need on items they can't use. If nobody can use the item (or if nobody Needed) then it's free for all, but you don't need to worry about Priests stealing your Swords or anything. However, it's still a free for all on non-class items like rings and necklaces...

Secondly, they could just set it up so there is no loot to ninja in the first place. Maybe dungeons reward tokens, reputation or some such which lets the player pick his own rewards from a list. This means that not only are you not in danger of losing loot, you also don't need to pray for the loot to drop in the first place. You could also just give everyone their own drops so nobody needs to share...

Just out of curiosity, OP, what was the ninja loot that pushed you over the edge and made you start this thread? What game, drop, boss, dungeon, etc.?

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Only game I play where that would happen is Borderlands 1/2, and that is why I play by myself or only play with friends. Play with random people and they'll take legendary pistols when they don't even use pistols.

 

[hazabaza1]

That's why I like stuff like Guild Wars 2. Everybody gets loot!

 

[Guffe]

Yeah a pain in the ass...
Haven't played in some while games where this is possible but it annoyed me to hell when people couldn't get over their selfishness in some games. But yeah, people are people and will always be.

 

[Karoshi]

God, don't get me started on ninjas.

There was this one time I was farming a tanking trinket from some heroic dungeon I really hated. 20-30 runs full of misery and boredom, and my trinket was ninjaed for 5 times. For fucks sake, shamans don't need that shit!

Gold farmers, botters and ninjas - the three plagues of the world.

 

[Genocidicles]

It doesn't exactly seem right though that mmo's allow you to "need" for items that you're not eligible for.

The character they're using might not need it, but they may have an alt that can. That's rarely the case I know, but it's a good enough reason to not scrap rolling need if your current character doesn't need it.