Loot system

In video games, a loot system is a method of distributing in-game items amongst a group of players.

Loot Systems exist solely because of the game mechanics of popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). One of the primary objectives in this genre of game is to improve one's character, the representation of the player in the virtual world. The common ways to do this involve obtaining experience or by upgrading the items the character uses. In the most popular MMORPGs, such as EverQuest or World of Warcraft, much of a player's improvement must come from looted items because the amount of experience a player can obtain has a hard limit.

Herein lies the dilemma: One mechanism by which loot is obtained is the completion of content built by the game developer. This often occurs by defeating a difficult non-player entity, or "mob". However, since MMORPGs are meant to reward players who work together, several players often desire a particular piece of loot that has been rewarded (or "dropped"). A loot system attempts to provide a fair and equitable method for players to decide who gets what.

There are obviously multiple ways in which this decision can be made. Systems range from a reflex based, first come first served method to an almost dictatorship-like system where the appointed leader of the group awards the loot to players he or she feels deserve it. However, most players enjoy a system that gives equal chance to all who were involved and removes any real or perceived favoritism from the decision.

The most simple loot system is one of anarchy. The players who have the fastest reflexes to perform the action necessary to receive the loot do so. This has several obvious downfalls which tends to aggravate players:

The overwhelmingly most used loot system class is one where the decision on which player receives which items is completely based on a public random number generator. This type of system completely removes all human input from the decision, and gives an obvious statistically equal chance to those players involved. Using random number generators for the basis of a loot system is so common that many games have coded the system directly into the game experience to expedite the process. Due to the similarity between using a random number generator and rolling a die (or set of dice) the process is referred to as "rolling" and the act of "rolling for loot" is the process by which players are assigned a number by the random number generator which determines if they will obtain the desired items.

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Wikipedia