http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/2283#comment-14940

My bad, that system wouldn't work either. I realize the problem is that in a system that dictates who gets what based on both the order specified by the current Round the Robbin sequence and when the item is picked up, players who have already received an item can exploit it by collecting poor quality items until the next Round the Robbin Sequence begins giving them a chance to get the good item. Such exploitation is only possible when more items then the current Round the Robbin sequence logic is able to dictate are present.

A solution is to change it from "a system that dictates who gets what based on both the order specified by the current Round the Robbin sequence and when the item is picked up" to "a system that dictates who gets what based on both the order specified by the current Round the Robbin sequence and when the item is dropped".

If the logic is applied when the items are dropped rather then when they are picked up, players can't exploit or game it. This allows the original proposal of a randomized Round the Robbin sequence to function perfectly. A player who has already received an item, can no longer collect inferior items to have a chance at a good quality item as all items are already distributed, just waiting to be picked up.

Why not set the default looting behavior to random, and have a system where each player in a party can 'vote' on their preferred loot behavior (think 'Leader Chooses', but everyone has the ability to choose). The loot behavior gets set to whichever one has the most votes, with situations where two or more loot styles having the same number of votes result in using the default loot system (ie the current system).

Being able to choose between styles has the advantage of keeping the current system (which most people seem fine with), while giving a player who is on a bad luck streak the ability to essentially remove luck from the equation entirely. It also gives parties of friends/guildmates the ability to share their drops equally if desired, or for parties to take pity on a particularly unlucky party member.

However if one player is particularly unlucky, it stands to reason that the other players in the party are each luckier by a proportional amount. Thus, the 'lucky' players would likely set their loot styles to random and the unlucky player would be SOL. Obviously it's not a perfect solution, but I think it would minimize the amount of complaints on the perceived fairness of the loot system.

If the logic is applied when the items are dropped rather then when they are picked up, players can't exploit or game it.

Back when the default distribution was Round Robin, this was actually how it worked. You couldn't game the system by picking up items in a certain order. You could of course try saving the high-value kills until when it was your turn, but that's a lot harder and much less reliable.

Just popping in to note this; I don't have any serious complaints about loot distribution myself.

The system is currently fair, the only problem is that it just feels bad to miss a bunch of drops in a row. I wonder if it's possible to just make it less apparent who won what?

It sort of reminds me of the huge uproar in WoW back when you got a message when someone was inspecting your gear. Rather than removing the ability to see what other people were wearing, they just took out the notification and the complaints went away. :P

wshion, pure randomness (if that really is what is happening) is fair. In the long run, and when you look at the big picture. Or to put it another way, it's equally unfair to everyone. To individual players and in individual moments it can be very unfair, though.

A big issue with the current drop system is a sense of ownership when you see an item drop.

When the item first drops, it is "open" and if it is something you really wanted, you tend to think "If only nobody else was here, that would go straight to me." If instead, the item's ownership was rolled when it was dropped, and the item was emblazoned with the winner's name, it might feel less like theft and more like the random luck it is supposed to emulate.

Even when soloing you would have to slap the person's name on it, to be consistent, but this seems much more like a simple psychological issue than an actual gameplay design flaw.

My only vote on this issue would be to gradually skew drops away from people who have recently recieved them, and towards those who have not, within star tiers. Every time a person gets a material, they get a -6% on the next drop of the same star value, with that 6% being distributed to the other two or three people in the group. That way if a person gets three drops in a row right off the bat (Very unlikely with this system), they only have a 32% / ~15% / 7% of getting the next drop of that star level (in a group of 2 / 3 / 4). It shouldn't change the total distribution, and I don't think it could be easily abused, but it would make a player getting a 'streak' of about 4 drops in a row much less likely.

Of course, this might be the way it already works, but I doubt the percentages are as high as described above. I chose 6% because it's evenly divisible by 2 & 3 and made the math easy for me, there's no other reason.

For the record, I really haven't been having trouble with this. I get winning streaks, I see others get winning streaks, I get losing streaks. It happens.

Instanced loot=no problem and everyone is happy