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Does picking up loot have to be so tedious?

My one of favourite 2003 games was Operation Silent Storm. It's Russian-made tactical RPG like XCOM but set in alternative WW2 with some little wolfenstein souce to it.
Its sequel has best system in my opinion. When you finish any mission\operation there's a bit loot breakdown window for you in case you wanna pick up every explosive device or
say heavy MG.
 
Loot shouldn't fall in the floor in the first place, it should go straight into your inventory so you don't have to be worrying about that, it's even worst on multiplayer games where people stop/sidetrack to take the loot scattered around instead progressing.

Looting from the floor, instead of it going automatically to the inventory is just a shit mechanic.
 
Phat Michael said:
I think Diablo 3 does it really well. The color coding etc.
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I mostly agree but don't like picking up gems. I hate when you explode a goblin pack on the console and then have a gazillion gems to collect.

I'd treat gems like gold, or maybe have a button you could hold to auto-collect gems as you pass over them.
 
Silent Chief said:
I couldn't wait to unlock the autoloot skill in Far Cry 4.
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I think this is a small aspect where modern games have started to confusingly falter in. It's weird we look forward to upgrading a perk for the sole purpose of not having to stop and hold Square for a few seconds.

In Far Cry 4 specifically, I don't think there's any reason for the loot system to be so obtuse. You're rarely picking up useable items or anything that would require an in-depth loot system/menus, which makes individually stopping for each body (and innumerable crates) just a bit of a headache.
 
FutureZombie said:
Why not skip a step and have all the junk replaced with money? I feel like loot/items is an area where developers have not spent time thinking, "Can we improve this. Why is this the way it is?"
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Well I'm assuming you occasionally get something that isn't totally worthless, but sure, that would have made sense for that game.
 
I like how Borderlands 2 has it so nearby supplies are automatically picked up like ammo, and money. Or maybe it's just money.
 
Rage handled this well I thought. Just need to run over most of it and the stuff that you didn't didn't have some long animation or inventory screen to deal with. A lot of areas had "area loot" where you'd loot one thing and pick up everything around it too.

Also liked how Wasteland 2 did it with monsters after a fight if roughly the same area would be one large loot interaction rather than needing to find every single corpse.
 
Untalkative_Bunny said:
IMO, it is tedious when all you do is shoot.
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I came here to say this, pretty much. I like looting. It breaks up the gameplay and slows down the pace a bit, so everything isn't all fighting all the time. There's also the satisfying feeling of picking up something nice that just can't be replaced by more combat. Combat is good, but it can't be 100% of the game. More like 90% =p.
 
It's really not just loot from dead bodies that is annoying to pick up. Items in general have gotten out of control. You walk into a room and spend 5 minutes just searching drawers and tables because you don't want to miss anything. That process also needs to be streamlined. I remember this being incredibly tedious in BioShock, among other games.
 
FutureZombie said:
Does junk even serve a purpose? It should just be gold instead. It seems like junk is just in games because, "that's the way it's always been."
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It's especially weird since now so many games just have a "sell all junk" button. Why do I even need all this crap taking up space in my inventory then?
 
It depends on how the game does loot I think. Games where loot is in a container, It doesn't bother me to search, but when it's scattered about on the ground, I'd much prefer to walk over it to collect it if anything.

mrklaw said:
I hate the recent trend of 'press triangle to pick up ammo'. Especially when inevitably you have a bunch of ammo near to weapon drops, so you're slowed to a crawl as you try and get your character to the right spot to get the ammo to appear without accidentally switching your weapon to one you don't want.

It's ammo - if I don't have a full inventory, assume I want it and just bloody pick it up. Leave the button press just for weapons.
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I'm with you. Why would I ever not want all the ammo?
 
Frequently the main problem is a mismatch of the amount of loot vs how the game as a whole works. Some games have systems where holding more items is of no consequence yet make picking everything up an over-long process anyway, then others shower you in hundreds of loot yet have harsh inventory handling/weight mechanics etc that are like the ones in decade or so old RPG's (where the overall amount of loot was much lower in comparison in most cases). When games actually have mechanics that match (lots of loot but low maintenance inventory, or harsh limits but relatively little overall loot) it's not a problem even when looting does require effort.

Very few games get it right, to the point that infinite inventory/weight mods tend to be the one gameplay mod I'm fine with adding even the first time through a game in many cases.
 
Loot, item and junk handling is one of the areas where devs who strive for "realism" in their game's mechanics tend to get themselves in trouble. Their realistic approaches to picking up loot are just tedious and unfun. More devs need to streamline that stuff, "realism" be damned.

Loot needs to be handled in a slicker way that still keeps the world interesting and worth exploring.

gelf said:
Its not so much the action of pressing a button to pick up loot its how damn much of it there is. Less frequent but more valuable drops would be my preferred route most of the time.
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Same. I like the way Dark Souls 1 and 2 handled it. You're not picking up loot every 5 steps, which helps make loot collecting feel more meaningful and rewarding. The loot you get after defeating a tough enemy or traversing a treacherous area is actually good (such as a nice weapon, a good spell or a rare titanite chunk), giving you a sense of accomplishment. Most loot is actually useful in some way. Loot is easily identifiable from a distance, especially if it's from a corpse. If a corpse or chest contains multiple items, you pick up all the items at once.

I also like the way Ys Seven handled loot, as explained by a poster earlier in this thread.
 
LOTRO collects all loot automatically at a seperate bag until 1 hours from pickup.Whenever you want you can transfer wanted items from there to your main inventory. Or when you come back to town you can take em all and sell them to vendors. I think this approach it the best.
 
PandaPedinte said:
You know what could make it awesome? Putting a qte minigame to loot! /s
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468px-DustAET_2013-05-30_22-45-23-18.bmp.png


I liked the game but... yeah, that was just so dumb and useless.

gelf said:
Its not so much the action of pressing a button to pick up loot its how damn much of it there is. Less frequent but more valuable drops would be my preferred route most of the time.
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Agreed.

Corpekata said:
He means vendor trash items that have no use other than to be vendored for cash.
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And Gucci meant that in some games, trash items are used for crafting. In Diablo III I almost never sell trash, I just recycle it for mats.
 
Surprised to see people praise Diablo 3 for this. They recently added a bunch of new goblins to the game and now when you fight a goblin pack you end up with carpel tunnel from all of the clicking. A lot of folks have been complaining about it to so they made some changes (fewer but larger loot piles) but it is still an issue. Auto-loot ftw.

Btw, Sacred 2 for all of its problems did it right with the "loot ring" or whatever it was called. Basically you told the game what you wanted to pick up and when you hit the button you automatically picked up any items around you.
 
FutureZombie said:
Why not skip a step and have all the junk replaced with money? I feel like loot/items is an area where developers have not spent time thinking, "Can we improve this. Why is this the way it is?"
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Ragnarok Online had an interesting thing with its miscellaneous junk items. There were no separate "Quest Items", only one miscellaneous category that includes junk, quest items, crafting materials etc. So it's possible to get quest items for anything at any time.

There's also no such thing as an untradable item, so selling quest items to other players can be quite profitable because there will always be some lazy asses that got rich from a lucky drop so they're buying their way through quests.
 
This is the way I feel about all loot.
"I did something. Now my item is 3% more effective. Yay! I need constant rewards."

But yeah on topic. Crates are annoying. Bioshock Infinite had me shaking my damn head. Sniffing around the environment like a point-and-click adventure in the middle of a different game is not fun.
 
nikos said:
The Last of Us is the absolute worst with this, and the animation when crawling and looting is bad. One of the reasons why I can't get myself to finish the game.
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Wat
TLOU did it well. Hold triangle and Joel pockets everything, what's wrong with that?
 
This has been a problem for me for a while now. Even in non-loot heavy games. Take The Last of Us. I felt much if the time instead of enjoying the environments I was playing like a vacuumer searching out the corners of maps for scrap metal or supplies. Or collectibles.
 
Ammo and money should always be auto looted and junk items should just not exist. Other than that, I'm fine with picking up gear piece by piece.
 
SkinnerSw33t said:
I mostly agree but don't like picking up gems. I hate when you explode a goblin pack on the console and then have a gazillion gems to collect.

I'd treat gems like gold, or maybe have a button you could hold to auto-collect gems as you pass over them.
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Yeah, it's even funnier after killing a gob or rift guardian and seeing your 3 other teammates zigzagging left and right picking up all of their own invisible loot. I'm glad they're getting rid of health potion pick ups even if they're auto pickup, but hopefully they do something about everything else
 
One game that surprised me in how tedious the loot picking got was Dragon Age Inquisition. Was like they decided that they needed to prolong game time by 4 hours so they added a clunky loot system just to pad it some more.
 
DannyDanger said:
Games do everything for us automatically these days.

I wont complain about having to pick up some loot
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Not having to do everything manually isn't necessarily a good thing - given the choice bwteen watching looting animations and playing the rest of the game I'd rather do the latter.
Besides, autoloot isn't a new thing. NetHack has an autopickup option, including a way of specifying that you don't want to pick up some types of objects automatically. I don't know any modern games that let you do that,
 
dark souls does this perfectly. Bigass bright white dot that you can see from across the level. Satisfying pickup sound. If there is multiple items you pick up all at once. Anytime an enemy drops that white cloud it feels so exciting to see what they have. Especially your first time through when you have no idea what items are going to drop.
 
It was mind-numbingly tedious in both Far Cry 4 and Dying Light.

Far Cry 4, especially, because the fallen enemy's guns usually got in the way of the prompt for looting their corpse. Ugh, frustrated the fuck out of me and eventually I just stopped looting corpses.
 
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