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.

To Raid or Not To Raid

One of my very few regrets with WoW is never having been in the "endgame." I went into Naxx yesterday for the first time and stealthed around as much as I could and it really hit me that I wanted the legendary [Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian]. I probably could have worked through Burning Crusade and picked up my 40 splinters, but I was getting my T4 and leveling my warrior and shaman.

With the reduction in raid size in Burning Crusade from 40 to 25, I was able to get into raiding. But this only garnered me one tier of gear before I gave up on the "hardcore" raiding in favor of hanging out with my friends. I briefly took my shaman into T5/T6 and was able to at least see the instances, but I hated the huge amounts of downtime and incompetence of the other raiders.

As WotLK advents, I think Blizzard is showing that they understand these frustrations, but also those of the extremely hardcore raiders by having dual-size raids. The hard jump from 40 to 25 man raids caused an almost universal wipe of guilds, with a few exceptions. By offering the option to continue on the 25 man path, these established raiding guilds aren't hurt. By dropping better gear than the 10 man versions, these guilds aren't trivialized. But by implementing these 10 man versions, just about everyone can venture into "engame" and complete the story arc of the expansion.

The only thing that is still up in the air is ZOMG LEGENDARIES!! In classic WoW, there were huge quest chains leading up to obtaining obscene amounts of materials to craft your own legendary weapons. In Burning Crusade, these weapons were just drops from the "end" bosses of the game in their respective patches. If this trend continues, the legendaries in WotLK will be kill-quest rewards. I don't think this will happen, but I am concerned that they will be 25 man only drops. While this is very fair, it puts me back in the same position that I'm in now. We all know that Frostmourne will make an appearance, but most likely only from hard mode Arthas 25.

Also of concern to me is the class restriction on these items. The huge uproar caused by the [Star's Fury] being given to a rogue over two hunters is well known. While I know this won't be a problem in my guild, I don't want Blizzard to react by restricting Frostmourne to Death Knight only.

I'm sure BlizzCon will shed lots of light on the situation, but until then, I'm on the edge of my plush gaming chair.

Holding Pattern

In talking with my brother about the coming expansion and what we want from WoW, it came up that once we get to see end-game (with the new 10-man raids) there really isn't a reason to keep playing. Sure, we could join a larger guild and do the same raids for better gear, but it loses it's charm after a while. I know that doing Kara for the last year solid has sort of burned me out, but I still enjoy going in with friends.

I think that this ties in with my dislike for PuGs. I just came out of a Kara PuG tonight that took 6! hours. . . and we didn't even kill Prince or Netherspite. I don't like grouping up with people who really don't care about doing well themselves, as long as the group is good enough to get them their l33t 3p1x that they can show off.

I like the trend that Blizzard is heading toward with the 10-man raids. It means that every person's contribution matters four times as much as when Molten Core and Onyxia (and the old, er, current Naxx!) were the big things to be doing. But while my contribution is more than it used to be in a raid, that also means that the guy who's in full S3 but can still only put out 400 dps also has his contribution amplified by 4 times what it used to be.

I would very much like to play a game with my friends and family that is like World of Warcraft, without having to deal with all the idiots who populate its servers. The appeal of "private" servers is becoming greater every time I have to deal with some moron who either can't communicate in my language, or can't communicate well enough to assure me that they understand what I want them to do in a particular fight.

I know that this is supposed to be a Massively Multiplayer RPG, but sometimes more just isn't better. What I would like to see from a game is something where individual ability is appreciated more than the ability to wrangle a mass of people together and have them sit through something for 20-40 hours per week. My view of raiding might be severely skewed, but the only "raiding" guild I was in required 4 hours a night, 4 nights a week of raiding, and that you bring all your buff items with you (food, flasks, elixirs, potions, etc.). This meant that if I wanted to see endgame content, I had to first go out and farm for things that I wouldn't otherwise use and then I had to endure hours of what passed for progression that mostly consisted of everyone complaining about how so-and-so took too long, or was afk for something, or whatever. I only got about 3 or 4 hours of actual boss-killing and raiding out of the 16 that were required, and spend another 3 or 4 preparing myself for those. So 20 hours a week spent just to boast(?) that I had seen MH and BT.

In a sense, I like the approach that Blizzard had when World of Warcraft was first released and only 5% (or whatever) of the population of the server saw the inside of Naxxramas. Make the encounters difficult. Make the skill of the player count. Make it even more worth it to hone your tradeskills to max level, and get the rare plans/schematics/recipes/formulas/designs/patterns. That way, when someone says "I have full T9" it actually means that they're good, not that they got into a good guild.

Unfortunately, this is a two-edged sword. It means that to get these awesome items that I want, I have to be good at what I do. Not only do I have to be good, but the friends and family that I play with (who range from the equivalent of a 10-year-old girl gamer to the really cool father of a friend who really doesn't know that much about gaming) also have to be good. And for them, being that good at a game just isn't fun; it's work.

Anyway, maybe I'll put down the keyboard (for gaming! I still need it to publish my inner secrets about life, the universe, and everything) and take up cribbage instead. At the very least it'll help me build tighter relationships with people that I currently forsake to kill demons and alien orcs.