WTS!: In-Game Loot Distribution

We're all familiar with the typical loot options in the game. I think the two that get used the most are Group Loot and Master Looter. I don't know anyone who uses Round Robin or Need Before Greed, and Free-For-All is pretty much a gimmick option for running lowbies through things, or similar off situations. I would like to see implementation of a loot system by Blizzard for raids, so there is a "standard" method - even if Blizzard makes it optional.

In my mind, a player should have an "edge" when rolling on items for his spec and professions, as well as when he hasn't received any loot from a boss (or raid) over multiple kills. Of course, this can't "carry over" between guilds, so each raid would have to be tagged for a guild or as "PuG" when entering, and each player would have a running tab of what amounts to DKP with each guild he runs with, while PuGs remain how they are now.

As an example of the mechanics, let's say that the bias for a player who can use an item is +5 to a roll, and the bias for not having won something yet is another +5 per boss. So in your Sunwell raid, the engineering goggle upgrade for your character's class and spec drops, and you haven't won any loot for 5 kills. So you have a total of 30 points to add to your roll. What I'm suggesting isn't a straight addition, but simply an increase of top roll - so (/roll 1-130) instead of the normal (/roll 1-100). These additional points would be "spent" on a winning roll, but retained on a losing roll. This puts a soft cap on the amount that you can effectively use, and so encourages people to roll often without making any points over a certain number useless.

This also leaves a large part of the loot to chance. The roll isn't being sold to the highest bidder, it's being biased toward the unlucky. There is still the chance for someone to show up, roll 100 on everything and leave, or for a dedicated raid member to lose every roll, even though he has a bonus of 500, but these are very unlikely situations.

Of course, a huge dilemma with this is that there is no "standard" system now, so how can Blizzard choose one to impose? That's why I suggest that it only be mandatory in a PuG setting, and can be turned off in a raid to allow a guild to use whatever system they're already using. I don't really expect to see this anytime soon, but here's hoping!

WTB!: Commentary on RNG Loot Mechanics

I read a blue post this morning responding to someone complaining about the drop rate of the [Sinister Squashling] from the Headless Horseman. The Blizzard poster said that the drop rates were based on a person doing the event an average of five times per day (I'm assuming this is on a per character basis), and that even if the boss was killed those five times per day for the duration of the event, some people still would not see the pet drop. This is to be expected, since we're dealing with bell-curve fitting, but still discouraging.

It seems to me that just having an RNG determine whether something drops, and then another one to determine wheter you win that item is leaving too much to chance. However, if the chance is taken out of drops too much, then either everyone or noone will end up with the item. Well, that's not exactly true. The legendary weapons from classic WoW had only one part that was RNG based (from what I remember off the top of my head) and the rest of the parts were guaranteed drops from certain bosses. And these items are still very rare. I'd like to see more things like this instead of pure RNG drops. Oddly enough, the extreme difficulty of the achievement to get one of every mask is being dropped from the meta-achievement to get the title "The Hallowed" because of its reliance on RNG items.

Now, for an achievement that doesn't have a time limit (pretty much everything but the seasonal ones, from what I see), then having a large time component required doesn't hurt too much (think the Loremaster title for doing lots and lots of quests in every zone of the game). However, once a clock is put on the achievement, this is no longer workable. It makes the achievement too luck-based, or just flat out impossible. If RNGs are going to remain the prevalent method of item distribution, then some modifiers need to be placed on the drop AND the loot roll that follows.

The problem then becomes how to measure something to determine who should get a modifier. A quest line is probably too easy, but maybe simple is good in this case. The modifier doesn't even have to be large, but it would be nice to see preference given to people who are working towards the titles from achievements over those who are just there because they're bored and don't want to do anything outside the game.