One things that’s bothered me for a while is how you’ll have someone fight an army of enemies, in multiple locations, then have to go back and tell them to loot the drops. Personally, I would like to see an option in the gameplay menu, like the storage option, where you can have your people automatically loot anything that is dropped from an enemy.
Now this would only be enemy drops, as looting EVERYTHING on the map would cause problems when your hearthlings are trying to rob goblin camps.
the reason for you having to loot items dropped by enemy’s is so that your hearthlings dont run into the middle of a massive battle and get them selves killed,
but i have to agree that having the option to turn it off would sometimes be nice.
Possible compromise, what about a loot all button?
Interesting idea, potentially performance heavy to implement. With the current system, I believe you would have to navigate the entire world to check for items that can be looted…that could take a long time (computer speaking), especially if you have multiple levels due to mining.
Would that still apply to tag searching? Like if a tag were added to items dropped by enemies, and the loot all button only effected them? Rough thought as I don’t know how the engine actually works, so just dismiss me if I’m WAY off.
I would be pretty happy if we could either assign workers specific tasks(not just task types), prioritize specific tasks or group workers into parties that we could send to specific locations. Its really hard to get them to loot stuff that is far away on their own.
We had a discussion in this threads:
http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/work-group-and-mule-for-resource-gathering-at-a-far-away-point/19521/2
http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/hearthlings-need-snacks/19836/9
the main topic was about carrying items into battle, but it could be used for looting, without influencing all hearthlings at the same time.
another way i play:
disable hauling on footmen --> fight enemy–> when they’re done, trigger hauling on and the soldiers should grab the stuff near 'em and 90% of the items can be looted
What about a new perk for the footmen?
“Looter” (required footman lvl 1)
The footman pickes up dropped loot automatically as long as his backpack is not full.
"Experienced Looter"
The footman decides what to take with him. If dropped loot is less valuable than what he already has in his backpack then he doesn’t pick it up. Being choosy makes life so much easier!
He does NOT drop picked-up loot though unless at a storage chest at home.
(e.g. crafted weapon > metal ingot > wood, or just take the market value at the trader… shrug)
offtopic:
and when we are at new perks for footmen why not add something like this:
“prepared for battle” (requires footman lvl 3)
The footman takes a healing potion from the stockpile if available and puts it on his utility belt. He drinks it automatically if his HP drop below 50%.
(If he has a shield equipped his defense is doubled for the duration he drinks his potion.)
[Maybe add a new potion for the healer which can be consumed by fighter-classes on the battlefield.]
“TANK” (requires footman lvl 5)
The footman has gained a lot of experience with his shield. Doubling his defense when equipped with a shield.
(Large two-handed weapons like the spear or greatsword do more damage but don’t allow for a shield to be equipped!)
Additionally the shield equipped boosts his HP by x% but reduces his outgoing damage by y%.
wooden shield x=5, y=20
iron shield x=15, y=30
steel shield x=25, y=50
TBI: enchanted shield x=50, y=40 (HP enchantment and lesser weight enchantment[Add glow effect!!!])
“Berserker” (requires footman lvl 5)
Wielding a two-handed weapon the footman fights more reckless to get the job done faster. Crit-chance increased by 30%.
(Large two-handed weapons like the spear or greatsword don’t allow for a shield to be equipped!)
might be a solution but a pretty rough, it would be pretty nasty to have footmen pingponging around and gathering loot.
so a simply footman group command could help to loot few single items and for bigger amounts a haulerclass could be handy, with the bonus ability to carry more items, able to provide support (medical items, food/water, a basic camp with sleeping beds and a fireplace) that way you could setup a mobile camp, for military and gathering.
So like a normal worker with a pushcart that holds
Or instead of a normal worker get a new class with some impressive leather armor and a short sword to defend himself… Then a shield would be nice to have too. Sounds like a normal footman?
Or scrap the hearthling and let an animal do the job. A donkey or mammoth with bags strapped to it can do the job. Add it to the group of footmen and have it follow them wherever they go.
…
No! Combine it:
A new class clad in leather armor and weapons with a donkey/mammoth in tow with lots and lots of goodies for our brave soldiers in the field. Scrap the donkey! A mammoth can carry a serious amount of goods and pack a punch … or headbutt … or whatever TOM makes the mammoth do. Slap enemies with its long trunk maybe?
Now it sounds a bit like the kickstarterpromised beastmaster class.
yaks are planned. but a i would prefer a class and the animals as upgrade. (just think of monty and the holy grail, clippy di clopp sounds)
the person could collect the whole loot, and the animal is designed to carry the more stuff like mobile stockpile (age of mythology anyone, the northern folks had their ox cart). technically animals are pretty late game, even if you have the trapper as starting item. So a pretty basic class is available at start and while you’re village grows he gets upgrades like animals and a cart (engineer class).
just read the two threads i posted, i wrote there exactly such stuff.
If pointing out to other games out there I’d like to see the pet system of torchlight where you have a squirrel or fox or other critter as pet (with very limited fighting abilities… or none so ever. staying away from the fight might acutally be better for critters). These pets could be swapped out after reaching a certain lvl …
or even requires the footman to have some skill / lvl in the shepherd-class to attach such an animal.
i think that’s something the pet trainer could do. so few classes get companions.
but some gameplay would be nice, falcons for rangers scouting for them. Foxes killing plague rats in the villages. badgers searching for medical roots and shrooms among the forest. squirrels gathering nuts in the tree tops.
So basically add features to pets that at the moment only feed of my foodstocks and only hop around? NICE!
Less resource intensive way; pull the frame where your camera is, zoom and all. Determine where on the map you are, what perspective you’re viewing, press the loot all, and anything on screen visibly, would be looted 
would be a pain to implement, but would be a lot less intensive (I think) then doing a map wide search for any items on the ground you can loot.
I find the flagging of loot tedious too and I’ve barely played with recent builds to have so much looting.
A loot area command or being able to drag a rectangle to multi select for looting would be welcome - something like that.
actually, thats already a thing 
found under the military tab, there is a tool similar to the harvest tool, i believe the keyboard shortcut is Shift + L. gimme a sec and i can get a screenshot for you.
@SirAstrix ouch…was about to post my screenshot…you beat me by 2 seconds…
Thanks - didn’t see that one. Will that work for all hearthlings or only military type groups?
