I just want to add one thing.
There is no auto-loot in LE. If you are zooming through a monolith really fast, you are leaving all your loot (gold, shards, items) behind you.
Gold does not auto-loot. It does an auto-pickup if you run over it.
Having the same for shards (auto-pickup if you run over it) still requires intent on the player’s part.
Just sayin’ …
Actually, there is called an OnClickEvent which tied to the heartbeat that keeps communication. Unless you are a game designer with industry knowledge and the code to back it up I would not try to tell me what I do or do not know, that is a fallacy on your part.
I wasn’t talking about the code side of it. I was talking about the auto-collect vs auto-pickup.
I have 33 years of client/server software development experience. That is more experience than some of the EHG devs have been alive. I know precisely what I am talking about.
The client handles the click event. The client also handles the movement events. The client also handles geometric calculations such as when you are “over” a pile of gold. It also then handles Triggered events based on its Listeners.
There is already a Listener for when you move over a pile of gold, and it activates the “auto-pickup” event, which is then processed client side, and then (once the game goes multiplayers) sends the packets to the server to validate all of that information (your actual position, the golds actual position, etc.) so that you can’t use client-side cheats. The server validates the information, performs its part, and then replies back to the client to trigger the removal of gold from the ground and addition of gold to your inventory.
Now, replacing the Listener for your position with a Listener for a mouse-click on a shard, is 100% client side. Once that trigger is activated, the exact same Event plays out between client and server to “loot” the shards. It does not matter one whit if a positional Trigger or a mouse-click Trigger started off the chain of events.
So… yeah, I know how that all works at the code level.
We are speaking the same thing but I guess you are keeping your part on the client-side. So that was a partial misunderstanding on my part since it was ambiguous. I was talking more about the server transaction portion. Listener = heartbeat so the uuid’s would match and resolve the server-side transaction to keep things persistent. It is dependent action like you said before.
This whole thing sounds like a prime candidate for a loot filter option. Give shards a ‘send to forge’ option for the affixes individually, or separate them into a few tiers. Want to feel that weight and interact with the loot personally? Heckin go for it. Don’t care just get it in the bag like gold and I’ll look at it later? Option.
This is a personal taste and gameplay preference - not much different than a lootfilter - in my opinion. There is nothing different as far as ‘feeling the weight and interacting with the loot’ between this and literally hiding items I don’t want to even see. The exact same arguments against the idea of auto shard pickup can be used against the loot filter.
Make it an option in the loot filters and move on. Don’t use it if you don’t like it, do use it if you do.
I mostly agree with you here. Especially your first paragraph. The problem is the devs want loot to be meaningful, but the current system precludes that due to the reasons mentioned above.
The only problem I see with tying it to a loot filter is accessibility for new players.
If auto-pickup is tied to a loot filter, a new player needs to setup said filter. Many new players may not play the game long enough for that to happen. It’s hardly a priority in the first ten to twenty hours to have loot filtered at all.
You want QoL features to be used by players when they need it, or when it stops being enjoyable to do the same repetitive task.
Auto-pickup for gold is implemented at level 1, because you need gold at the very start of your character, to buy items.
Crafting isn’t really introduced until you start traveling through time. It’s accessible earlier, but there’s a specific quest which introduces it as a function.
If you put it in the options as a toggle ‘Auto-loot shards’, everyone will tick that box. It’s a no-brainer, less clicking, more killing.
If you put it in the loot filters, everyone who uses filters, or reads a guide about them will tick those boxes. Again, a no-brainer.
If you assign it a weight based on quality, or quantity, people may not know why shards auto-loot. This could also be a toggle in the options, and again, would be a no-brainer.
If you make it a quest reward, people will notice it because their lives have become easier. Applying one of the previous options is still a choice as well, obviously.
If people have the option to make looting easier, they WILL take it.
Slightly off topic to the thread:
The issue really isn’t “How to implement Auto-Looting Shards in the best way”. It’s “Do we want to Auto-Loot Shards at all”.
Until the devs decide whether or not people should have this feature, and why it should or shouldn’t be in the game, trying to suggest potential solutions is a moot point.
I’d hope they are looking into numbers such as:
In essence: How much time to do we waste by moving around after a battle, clicking ONLY shards.
If it’s on the order of 1 minute per hour or less… Who cares! It’s a tiny negligible portion of the gaming experience, which won’t change drastically if auto-looting becomes a feature.
If it’s between 1 and 5 minutes or more, optimizing the players time by allow auto-looting may be worth looking into. Clearly, there’s an issue if up to 10% of the time playing is devoted to clicking on a single type of item.
There is no way that adding a couple options next to shards that says “pick me up automatically” is gonna make the loot filter any more daunting to new players. Setting up a loot filter is something you do well into playing a character, once you’ve figured out what you want to filter. It has literally no purpose otherwise. No one who has no idea what they are doing is gonna jump right into culling items from their visible loot pool and then be mystified by an autopickup option next to some shards. They’ll be mystified by plenty more before they get there.
Expecting the average person to boil an “i dont like picking up all these shards, maybe if you did this it would be easier” post down into a bulleted clicks per hour per session per session-hour looting non-shard and shard items powerpoint presentation is also a bit mystifying, but I do appreciate the take. It’s a solid one.
There’s nothing wrong with proposing solutions to perceived problems on an Early Access Game’s Suggestions and Feedback Forum - The folks making this game are very able to extrapolate the information that there is a problem to be solved there. They dedicated this forum to Suggestions for a very specific reason I would imagine.
In this thread, and many like it, there are numerous people who are vehemently against this. Those people are the ones who make your sentence “If people have the option to make looting easier, they WILL take it.” itchy. The key word here is option. Wanna feel that weight? Feel it. Wanna sort through your shards by hand? Go for it. Want to see every item that drops? Have at it. Wanna color code them and cull 90% of everything that hits the floor from your visual space? Here’s a very thorough tool to do so.
Options be like that.
I can see the value proportion of what you’re pushing for here. But with regard to your counterarguments below:
It matters once there is a multiplayer economy.
As Heavy replied, it is more efficient for sure. But the more efficient solution may not always be the superior game design solution.
I didn’t mean to imply that adding auto-pickup to the loot filter would make the loot filter harder for new players.
I meant that if the devs decide that the auto-pickup is necessary, tying it to the loot filter will make it harder for new players, who they want to retain, to have access to the feature.
As far as data about shards and whatnot, I meant that I hoped the Devs were looking into that sort of thing, in order to determine whether or not it was necessary to auto-pickup shards. I’d hardly expect someone to log their own session time and determine how much time was spent on X Y or Z activity.
If my previous post was being read as hostile towards you, I certainly didn’t mean it that way.
I only play this game on a controller, to loot shards I need to switch to mouse/keyboard EVERY time, when I started this game I had to loot every shard one by one, I just stopped picking up the basic ones as I had looted them enough times I wont ever need more than 2300 Fire Resist shards
Then they added in group pickup, everything became much easier. I just loot shards from a boss/loot explosion/chest at the end of a monolith, if you play enough you know that for every 20-30 rare shards you find from shattering gear you may find ONE on the floor which isnt worth your time to even use mental processing on it.
I checked last night and I have nearly 45k shards in total
The point is, for me this is fine already good enough and finally on Tuesday when the new patch releases I can loot shards without using my mouse anymore
Its a huge buff for me
It seems to me that you have it backward about what the question here is. Clearly, a ton of us DO want this feature. I don’t see the staying power of this game if this isn’t added at some point before, or shortly after, launch.
The arguments against it are very weak and I proposed the way to bridge the gap between its strongest argument against (dev desire to give weight to loot) and how players actually play these games (time and efficiency are important, and you undermine this at your own risk).
The reason I say all this is because the itemization in this game is actually nothing special outside of a few build-defining/enabling affixes or uniques. Giving players chores doesn’t change this. It was one of my first observations about half way through the campaign on my first character and nothing since then has given me reason to think otherwise. In fact, the upcoming idol changes will exaggerate this in a tiny way because it favors generic stats over interesting ones.
So I have to disagree with your analysis here: A solution here is not only relevant, but is necessary.
Whoa whoa whoa…whoa. You worked on Neverwinter Nights 2?
I think you overestimate the importance of issues you care about.
Yes, if you look closely at my name you will figure out one of the titles 
Hint: in the language, it comes from the J is silent.
Storm of Zehir! Oh shit, gimme your fucking autograph!!! Lol, that’s a hell of a title to have on your resume. Lost many hours of my life in those games.
Congrats you win a forum 
I’m not saying we shouldn’t argue or debate over a solution.
A moot point is:
An issue that is subject to, or open for, discussion or debate, to which no satisfactory answer is found; originally, one to be definitively determined by an assembly of the people.
An issue regarded as potentially debatable, but no longer practically applicable. Although the idea may still be worth debating and exploring academically, and such discussion may be useful for addressing similar issues in the future, the idea has been rendered irrelevant for the present issue.
I am not opposed to auto-pickup of shards. I’m all for it. I’m just saying that ultimately, the decision lies in the hands of the developers.
Until the devs either say “Yes” or “No” to auto-pickup for shards, all discussions on the issue are, at their core, theoretical. If they say “yes”, then the solution becomes debatable. If they say “no” then all the solutions become irrelevant.