2014-01-15, 02:03 AM
kayeyearekay Wrote:snip
>People bringing their own mules to farm loot
Simple: make it so that it's actually difficult to stay alive in a boss fight while controlling the main and the mules. If such a person is able to miraculously do so (or has friends log on as "mules"), then there isn't really a good way to limit that without penalizing support characters. Yes, "support" is a joke in Maplestory, but it doesn't mean you can penalize the so-called "support" characters for having innately lower DPS.
>Alternative loot systems
The absolute simplest, quickest fix would be to limit the amount of drop slots there are. Say item X drops at a 5% rate. If the number of "slots" for that drop was limited to 3, then Player A on 1x drop has a ~14.3% chance of getting at least one drop and a ~0.01% chance of getting all 3, Player B on 8x drop has a ~78.4% of getting at least 1 drop and 6.4% of all 3, and Player C on 20x drop (if it were possible) has a 100% chance of getting all 3. The point of the numbers is that, yes, there's a big disparity between Player A and Player C simply because of how ridiculous drop multipliers could get, but at least the number of items are capped.
Now it'd be much more interesting (and arguably fair) to implement a Need/Greed system with some modifications. Obviously the main problem with Need/Greed is those players who "Need" everything, but this is easily solved by combining it with a variant of the Point system:
-The normal system of N/G is used to determine who rolls
-The player who obtains the item loses their entire point balance
-The players who picked Need but get the item get a moderate** point boost which increases their relative weight in their next roll(s)
-The players who picked Greed get a high** point boost which greatly increases their relative weight in their next roll(s)
-If everyone picks Greed, point balances are unchanged
* Need rolls need to have high enough weights to minimize Greed-ers getting lucky enough to beat Need-ers frequently
** Actual values will have to be tuned to discourage constant "Need"ing, but ideally the system should encourage everyone to pick Greed all the time unless they REALLY want the item loot (i.e. picking Need often is disadvantageous). For example, Greed-ing (and not getting the item) ~ 10*** times gives you a high enough point balance to safely win your next Need pick against people with zero balance. The points can even be capped to prevent "stockpiling" if anything thinks that it's a problem. I believe that solves the problem of abuse.
*** Just randomly picked a number. A statistically supported number would be much better.

