Pickup, Stacking, and Ground Loot

Not every item reaches your backpack automatically. Pickup is how you take loose loot from the ground or move items out of a container one action at a time. AutoLoot speeds up corpse looting but does not replace manual pickup for items sitting on the map.

Pickup vs AutoLoot

AutoLoot only reads loot still inside a lootable corpse container. It never pulls loose ground items that were never placed in a body. See AutoLoot — Limitations.

How to pick up ground loot

1. Move close enough to the item on the map (the game checks distance for map pickups).
2. Open the interaction for the item or its map container.
3. Choose Pickup.

If pickup succeeds, the item leaves the map and lands in your character inventory. If it fails, read the message — common causes are listed below.

Stacking rules

When you pick up a stackable item (gold, food, arrows, crafting mats), the game tries to merge it before using a new slot:

1. Same item key — the base item type must match.
2. Same rarity — mixed rarities do not merge into one stack.
3. Room under max stack size — each item has a stack limit (maxStackSize on the item card).

If your existing stack has space, quantities combine. If pickup would overflow the limit, the game fills the current stack to max and places the remainder in a new stack (or another partial stack) when slots allow.

Non-stackable gear (most weapons and armor) always needs a free inventory slot.

Checks before pickup succeeds

The pickup system validates every request:

• Item still there — another player may have taken it first.
• Distance — you must be close enough on the map.
• Permission — you can only pick up loot you are allowed to access.
• Weight — total carried weight must stay within your capacity after pickup.
• Space — at least one free slot or a compatible partial stack must exist.

When inventory is full with no mergeable stacks, you see a clear inventory full style message. Make space by banking at a depot, dropping junk, or eating stackable food before returning to the loot pile.

Picking up from corpses manually

If Auto Loot on Click is turned off in Settings, clicking a glowing corpse opens the body container instead of looting everything at once. Use Pickup or Transfer on each stack you want.

This is useful when:

• you share drops with a party and want to leave items for teammates
• you want to leave low-value junk in the body to save weight
• your backpack is nearly full and you need to choose what to take first

Walking over a corpse still triggers AutoLoot by default even when click-to-loot is disabled — see AutoLoot — Auto Loot on Click.

Ground loot sources

Items can appear on the map when:

• a player or NPC drops them with the Drop action
• a system places quest or event rewards on a tile
• death creates a player corpse with visible loot (separate from NPC body containers)

For where monster drops come from before pickup, see Loot, Raids, and Bosses.

Race for loot

When two players try to pick up the same ground item or corpse stack at once, the game processes one request at a time. If you miss a pile, step back and try again — the winner keeps what landed in their inventory.

Practical tips

• Keep one or two empty slots before boss kills or player-traded drops so pickup and AutoLoot both have room to work.
• Sort partial gold and food stacks before long hunts — merging stacks frees slots without reducing total items.
• After pickup, weight updates immediately; overweight characters move slower. See Weight and Carrying Capacity.
• Ground loot and manual corpse pickup respect the same stacking rules AutoLoot uses — see AutoLoot — Stacking rules.

Related pages

• AutoLoot
• Items and Equipment Overview
• Inventory, Containers, and Depot
• Combat Overview