The looting system aka "Roomba Simulator".

[oktchau]

Many times my Bioshock games experience could be described as a Roomba Simulator, that vacuum robot. There are many things I dislike about the looting system.

It doesn't feel rewarding: there are too many places to loot and the reward is usually so small that I don't even read what I'm getting, I just go pressing "F" non-stop.

Slows the game: It's time consuming, specially without quick save.

Ruins the immersion: Even if the game plot says to me that a little girl is being tortured, after killing a pack of enemies I'll go looting all the bodies and the entire battlefield instead of helping her as fast as possible. This ruins the tension, the sense of emergency and distracts me from the awesome plot.

It's ugly: Instead of appreciating the beautiful environments the developers created, most of the time I'm running facing the floor, the walls, or eating cakes from the garbage can.

In many ways Bioshock did great on removing things from the system that detached you from the plot. No more ammo types, less guns on the inventory, perks, pipe puzzles hacking, serynges, plasmids slots, etc. Now it's time to rethink the looting system. Mass Effect 2 did great removing the loot barrier of the first game. After you clear a battlefield you just automatically receive a reward.

I'm not saying that there should be no room searching for interesting hidden items, like the audio logs, hidden vaults and cyphers. It's the trivial looting that is just plain boring.

[TMAC Blade]

Originally posted by eMurai:

Many times my Bioshock games experience could be described as a Roomba Simulator, that vacuum robot. There are many things I dislike about the looting system.

It doesn't feel rewarding: there are too many places to loot and the reward is usually so small that I don't even read what I'm getting, I just go pressing "F" non-stop.

Slows the game: It's time consuming, specially without quick save.

Ruins the immersion: Even if the game plot says to me that a little girl is being tortured, after killing a pack of enemies I'll go looting all the bodies and the entire battlefield instead of helping her as fast as possible. This ruins the tension, the sense of emergency and distracts me from the awesome plot.

It's ugly: Instead of appreciating the beautiful environments the developers created, most of the time I'm running facing the floor, the walls, or eating cakes from the garbage can.

In many ways Bioshock did great on removing things from the system that detached you from the plot. No more ammo types, less guns on the inventory, perks, pipe puzzles hacking, serynges, plasmids slots, etc. Now it's time to rethink the looting system. Mass Effect 2 did great removing the loot barrier of the first game. After you clear a battlefield you just automatically receive a reward.

I'm not saying that there should be no room searching for interesting hidden items, like the audio logs, hidden vaults and cyphers. It's the trivial looting that is just plain boring.

bioshock games have always been like this. bioshock one and two had this sytsem and an older game made by irational games system shock 2 also has this looting system. pretty much every game made by irrational has this lootin option and come to think of it, almost every game made by irrational all have the same or similar game mechanics.

[oktchau]

Yeah, but things can change : )
Bioshock also used to have different ammo types, plasmid slots, hacking mechanics and many other ideas that they dropped for the better. I hope they eventually rethink the looting system. Realize that it gets in the way of the strong points of the series: the plot, the immersion and the highly dynamic gunplay.

[TMAC Blade]

Originally posted by eMurai:

Yeah, but things can change : )
Bioshock also used to have different ammo types, plasmid slots, hacking mechanics and many other ideas that they dropped for the better. I hope they eventually rethink the looting system. Realize that it gets in the way of the strong points of the series: the plot, the immersion and the highly dynamic gunplay.

well there really is not other way to change the looting system form my perspective. looting is not just in this game but in many others. you loot in dead space 1-3 and the only difference dead space 3 had was a scavenger bot that looted for you in case you didnt feel like looking around. now i know horror games play on the fact you have to loot because it builds tension but even in a game like this it would be hard to change the looting mechanic. what could be changed? the only real change was elizibeth which for the most part can be exploited with her ability to resupply you with ammo. i also feel you would be less likely to explore if the aspect of searching for supplies and looting was taken out of the game. i for one felt that the looting/exploration aspect is something this game (including bioshock 1 and 2) picked up form system shock (dur IG made the second system shock) and other games like doom and duke nukem 3D.

edit: i will mention doom and duke nukem 3D felt much more rewarding when you explored by giving more than a couple peices of fruite and a half a mag of ammo like bioshock does). another important note is that the looting aspect worked better in system shock 2 and the original bioshock because those games had horror in it. bioshock 2 and infinite are just action games (games with set peices that we all like to associate with micheal bay)

P.S. which guy/girl on irational games dev team thought it was a good idea to go from a massive load of weapons to just a call of duty two weapon thing. your screwed if you fighting tough as hell enemies

[oktchau]

I believe that a better system would be similar to Mass Effect 2.

After you kill a bunch of enemies you instantly receive all the money, ammo, lock pick, health and mana boosts. This would be the main source of these resources in the game.

The enemies would still drop their weapons on the floor (glowing red), but you wouldn't be able to loot their bodies.

Instead of being able to loot almost any furniture you would be able to interact with just those few distinct stuff that have bigger rewards (vaults, upgrade elixir, suit packages, etc) or are relevant to the story (voxophone, cypher, new plasmids, etc).

I believe this would make me feel rewarded for loooking around the corners, but without that button mashing frenzy. Unreal Engines games usually have beautiful architectures, it's such a waste to keep scaning the floors.

[Storee]

I agree with eMural. While I love the Bioshock games, and have found few other franchises as immersive, I do think the looting system hinders immersion. While playing Infinite, I often wanted to take in the sights and sounds of Columbia, but would find myself defaulting to "Roomba" mode, as eMural so aptly put it.

In addition to the auto-looting of Mass Effect 2, perhaps an interesting way to tackle the issue would be to create "supply depots" for acquiring health, salts, ammunition and Voxophone recordings. The clearly-marked supply depots could be strategically placed throughout the player's journey, so that the majority of the player's time isn't spent looting pineapples and orange slices from trashcans.

To keep it interesting, the supply depots would be accessible only after completing a puzzle or challenge: something similar to the hacking mechanic from the original Bioshock, or a more physical puzzle, ala 'Uncharted.' This would allow the player to bypass the supply depot if s/he wanted, but also offer a reward for taking time to solve the puzzle and gain access to the depot.

Not that I expect Ken Levine and company to rewrite Infinite with a better looting mechanic. Just food for thought on future endeavors...

[Workshed]

the game is so easy you dont even really need to loot at all, you can easily make it through the game with just the pistol and shock jockey. the looting is there for people that want to max out the game.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by IamAFuriKiwi:

P.S. which guy/girl on irational games dev team thought it was a good idea to go from a massive load of weapons to just a call of duty two weapon thing. your screwed if you fighting tough as hell enemies

No, you just loot another weapon, that is how the game seems to be designed. You switch weapons because you still have spare amo for a different weapon. Its actually working alright, though imo you should have a pistole as fourth weapon permanent. But I guess they wanted you to melee, as the melee is as alway with shock games quite strong.

[Godzooky III]

well i played this game as a roomba simulator and i still loved it really not a big issue but i still missed a ton of voxophones so i guess you are right

[eroshevski]

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