Elitist Jerks - View Single Post

Allev · 05/15/08, 7:12 PM

Rather than design a new loot system from the ground up, they could simply build upon what they already have (WITH the RNG) to make things a little bit better. The problems of farming old instances, destroying crappy loot, and so on can be solved pretty simply:

0) Make loot usable by more classes. Sure, tokens did this. But so did changing ret mechanics to match DPS warriors. So did changing feral druids to get more out of AP. Blizzard has promised us more emphasis on this in the future. This way, fewer "wasted" drops.
1) Design loot that reliably gets better as instances go along. It should be DST < Tsunami < Madness, with slight variations based on class. The only thing worse than a feral-specific idol drop is a feral-specific idol drop that's a downgrade from badge/quest items. RNGs mostly hurt when 3/4 of the items on a boss aren't worth using on anyone's main.
2) Design more items for non-set token slots. If you can get a set-piece in a slot, you already have a guarantee of upgrading to a certain ilvl (regardless of how optimized it is). AFAIK, while not always optimal, set gear is "good enough" for characters to use regardless of spec.
3) Balance the loot better with expected number of kills. It was hard to imagine (and certainly unplanned) for Kael/Vashj to only be killed 5 times by almost every guild on the planet. But, if you're going to have bosses like that, you either need to increase the number of drops they have, or reduce the loot table's size.

Any kind of system where you let the group killing the mobs have input on what loot they get might be optimal for endgame raiding machines, but it's downright brutal to casual raiders and PUGs.

For instance-- what gets a PUG organizer motivation to start the PUG? A big part is needing loot on that toon. Give the PUG organizer a chance to master-loot (since he picked the raid, he gets ML), let him control the drops, and all of a sudden he picks what he and his friends/guildies/etc want to drop, regardless of group consensus. Just one experience like that, and you can turn a casual off from raiding for a long, long time.

Let's not create a drama system in place of the RNG, shall we?

05/15/08, 7:12 PM	#68 (permalink)
Allev Piston Honda Allev Night Elf Druid <Exile> Whisperwind	Rather than design a new loot system from the ground up, they could simply build upon what they already have (WITH the RNG) to make things a little bit better. The problems of farming old instances, destroying crappy loot, and so on can be solved pretty simply: 0) Make loot usable by more classes. Sure, tokens did this. But so did changing ret mechanics to match DPS warriors. So did changing feral druids to get more out of AP. Blizzard has promised us more emphasis on this in the future. This way, fewer "wasted" drops. 1) Design loot that reliably gets better as instances go along. It should be DST < Tsunami < Madness, with slight variations based on class. The only thing worse than a feral-specific idol drop is a feral-specific idol drop that's a downgrade from badge/quest items. RNGs mostly hurt when 3/4 of the items on a boss aren't worth using on anyone's main. 2) Design more items for non-set token slots. If you can get a set-piece in a slot, you already have a guarantee of upgrading to a certain ilvl (regardless of how optimized it is). AFAIK, while not always optimal, set gear is "good enough" for characters to use regardless of spec. 3) Balance the loot better with expected number of kills. It was hard to imagine (and certainly unplanned) for Kael/Vashj to only be killed 5 times by almost every guild on the planet. But, if you're going to have bosses like that, you either need to increase the number of drops they have, or reduce the loot table's size. Any kind of system where you let the group killing the mobs have input on what loot they get might be optimal for endgame raiding machines, but it's downright brutal to casual raiders and PUGs. For instance-- what gets a PUG organizer motivation to start the PUG? A big part is needing loot on that toon. Give the PUG organizer a chance to master-loot (since he picked the raid, he gets ML), let him control the drops, and all of a sudden he picks what he and his friends/guildies/etc want to drop, regardless of group consensus. Just one experience like that, and you can turn a casual off from raiding for a long, long time. Let's not create a drama system in place of the RNG, shall we?