Tierce, what you're getting at seems to be having intelligent drops. This would require Blizzard making decisions about which classes can/should use which loot. Of course there are plenty of obvious items, but what about (this happens to me weekly) having tons of hunter mail dropping with only a resto shaman in the raid. In 5-mans it's much easier--if there is no one who wears mail, don't drop mail. For 10 mans you have a strange sticking point, on one hand there is likely to be class diversity, on the other hand there is likely to be several classes not present.
One solution is to make a few, careful, decisions about loot tables:
+healing leather won't drop without a druid
+healing mail won't drop without a shaman
+healing cloth won't drop without a priest
+healing plate won't drop without a paladin
+nature damage items won't drop without a druid/shaman
+fire damage won't drop without a mage/lock
+shadow damage won't drop without a locl/priest
+ice damage won't drop without a mage
following this kind of thing, bliz could get more specific about gear and design a sliding loot system:
Emerald Ripper is 70% rogue loot, 30% others, so without a rogue it is 70% less likely to drop (but still possible).
It would be nice if they could make a more intelligent loot dropping system, but like others have said here, I don't really want blizzard to make those decisions about what I want to drop. That's why I suggested that blizzard should implement some kind of exchange system that you had to earn the right to use and pay to use. Even if you wanted to limit the drops to only items at least one person in the group/raid could equip, more than likely that is still going to allow every possible item to drop because even with a 5-man group you've probably got every item type covered.
Now granted this probably isn't overly popular with enchanters. It could also be taken advantage of by guilds wanting to quickly gear up the right people needed to let them progress. Just let the MT take all the gear to exchange for his tank gear, meanwhile the rest of the raid is ticked that their loot is getting exchanged for tank gear. However, even this could be dealt with by putting a cooldown on how often someone could use this exchange mechanism. It could have a 1 week cooldown for each player, so that you could only exchange 1 item a week for a different item from that same boss' loot table, barring the really rare drops.
I think that if you put enough restrictions in, it would be fair, and would really cut down on the monotany that people feel of seeing the same loot sharded over and over again. I mean, seriously, everytime I see a rubber ducky now I get angry about how many times Moroes seems to have his on him when we kill him. You'd think he had a bathtub up there by the head table. There needs to be a way for players to eventually get the PvE loot they want without having to run the instance 50 billion times. If they can exchange a comparable item from the same boss and they have exalted rep showing they've run the place into the ground, why not let them have it?
In the long run it can also hamper progression. How many guilds would love 2% threat to gloves, or -2% threat to cloak? Wouldn't it be nice if those patterns were purchasable with enough Qiraji Insignia's?
This right here fully illistrates the frustration you can get from purely random drops, especially when they never add an upgrade to the item you are after. On my server there is not a single horde player capable of either enchant. We have teams still running AQ40 in the hopes of seeing one of them drop.
Originally Posted by Zyla
Plus, my anus is painfree and still virginal!
Originally Posted by madsushi
Honestly, if you're any good, then you know about the changes as soon as they happen and you adjust. If you're not any good, Blacksen's already benched you by now, and so who cares.
I never got my Onslaught Girdle. I don't know how many times we killed that fiery fella, but in months of killing him, I never got it.
That's what I like about this game. Every time we went back into the hell hole of MC, I was at least looking forward to the chance that I might finally get my belt. The anticipation made it worth going back in. I'm guessing no one got really thrilled about getting the Ony Head reward. You knew it was going to drop (unless it bugged) and you knew if you kept going to the Ony kill, you'd eventually get yours. But it wasn't exciting. Waiting and hoping for a Deathbringer? Much more exciting.
As much as it can screw you, the random nature of drops is what keeps you coming back.
It sucks not getting that one item you really need, but as long as someone in the raid is getting some raid, I don't have a problem with random loot. For example, in my old guild, for the entire time we farmed fankriss, he dropped 1 barb of the sand reaver (~5 months), but every priest and some druids got their robes. It doesn't start getting really frustrating until the entire boss turns into shards.
I loved the AQ loot system. Two tokens dropped that covered all classes, and 1-2 armaments per run. I would prefer if instances had more reputation based rewards or quests with rewards though
The AQ loot system would have been good if Armaments and Regalia were guaranteed drops. As it was, they were just another luck factor. For instance, if Vek'lor dropped an Armament, and Vek'nilash dropped a Regalia, that would have made sense. As it was, it was just another source for frustration when your guild was farming AQ40 and had 2 armaments ever vs the guild wiping on Huhuran with a shield on every warrior and a dagger on every rogue.
I still don't understand why they didn't extend the Badge of Justice idea from heroics into raiding. Why not have bosses drop instance specific tokens which you can turn in for loot instead of having random drops at all?
It would allow people to calculate just how long it would take them to get a new set of loot. It's a well-established psychological phenomenon that semi-random positive reinforcement is a far better incentive than one with an easily measurable or predictable pattern.
I.e. if you run the maze when the bell rings you might get no food, but you'll usually get a piece or two and sometimes you'll get ten pieces! That is much more motivating (for whatever reason) than, say, if you run the maze you'll get a piece of food at the end every time, but only one.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
It would allow people to calculate just how long it would take them to get a new set of loot. It's a well-established psychological phenomenon that semi-random positive reinforcement is a far better incentive than one with an easily measurable or predictable pattern.
I.e. if you run the maze when the bell rings you might get no food, but you'll usually get a piece or two and sometimes you'll get ten pieces! That is much more motivating (for whatever reason) than, say, if you run the maze you'll get a piece of food at the end every time, but only one.
So I can do that with pvp and heroics... doesn't make it any less fun or make me want to stop playing. I find random things extremely frustrating, it is way more fun if I can plan things out in advance. I just don't see why they would have some venues provide this, and go back to the terrible random drop system for raids.
It would allow people to calculate just how long it would take them to get a new set of loot. It's a well-established psychological phenomenon that semi-random positive reinforcement is a far better incentive than one with an easily measurable or predictable pattern.
I.e. if you run the maze when the bell rings you might get no food, but you'll usually get a piece or two and sometimes you'll get ten pieces! That is much more motivating (for whatever reason) than, say, if you run the maze you'll get a piece of food at the end every time, but only one.
On a personal note, I find it much easier to 'grind' the predictable-known-rewards than the semi-random ones. If there is a faction with a tangible reward and it has a significant upgrade for me, I'll do what it takes to max that faction out. For example, getting to exalted with the sha'tar and lower city meaned basically nothing to me. At a minimum they didnt even have tabards that I really liked, but when I discovered exalted with these factions would tie in to flasks for raid zones, I started to work on them (1 TK instance from sha'tar exalted /woot).
On the other hand, what you suggest plays into the whole primal vs. essence direction that blizzard went with. I find it more enjoyable(for lack of a better term, tolerable might be more appropriate) to get my primals via a mote or two (or three!) at a time. In the end it may (theoretically) take as long to get 1 primal out of X mobs as it does to get 1 essence out of the same X mobs, but with the motes you can see some noticeable progress and thats a good motivator.
Last edited by sovelis41 : 05/12/07 at 2:24 AM.
Reason: Spelllllz
Random drops are a fundamental part of RPG's, the token system was put in to make this randomness more forgiving to people collecting their sets, not Blizzard testing the water to see if turn-in's for everything would be a good idea.
The problem is, in many RPGs where getting items is one of your main goals (e.g. Diablo 2, Titan Quest imo.) you can farm bosses 'til your ass bleeds. In WoW, you'll have to wait a full week (if you clear the whole instance between two resets of course) until you can try once more.
I went over 50 times to MC for my second TF half and no luck, man, I wanted to raid MC every day but I'll have to wait another week just to see Felheart/Cenarion once more.
Oke maybe a bad example because it's a legendary, but in that 50 raids I saw exactly ONE Spinal Reaper, which I got on our 6th Ragnaros kill, the other warrior got an Arcanite Reaper until Ashkandi.
So it's not just "LOL NUB U GOT NO LUCK" but it's also "LOL I'M OUT, COME BACK IN A WEEK" now repeat this 50 weeks in a row :>
But yes, a token-based system would definetly kill the thrill, but being unlucky and you can't do anything against that drop luck shiznit is quite annoying. The system is ok until you got bad luck, really bad luck, no item drop over weeks, over months. I also have to say that when I look at the loottables of the "new" bosses like SSC and TK they're mostly quite short so the theoretical chance to get an item is better than in MC ^^
Last word, 18 Razuvious Kills, 1 Wand of Whispering Dead, 5 crying Healers :>
I think there is still some merit to having a random loot system in place, just because of the intangible "magic" associated with finally having boss_item_014 finally dropping for your guild, after many, many, many weeks farming that boss.
The main point of contention is that the drops cannot be designed such that they are a borderline necessity for later content while still being random. The "essential" pieces of loot should be token based (tier armor, etc.), while the peripheral pieces should have multiple subsitutes.
I think Blizzard handled this decently well in early TBC zones, although of course, not nearly good enough. However, the top example of this is probably the plethora of 110 dps 2-handed weapons available out of the first 3 raid zones (Gorehowl, Hammer of the Naaru, Axe of the Gronn Lords, Glaive of the Pit). Even if one specific, slightly superior weapon never drops, the chance of no 110 dps 2-hander ever dropping for your guild is pretty low. So even if people have to use "sub-par" gear for a duration of time, I think it's a sacrifice worth making in order to preserve the "fun randomness" of loot distribution (and this is coming from someone in a guild who got zero Ashkandis in 1 year of farming Nef, and zero Thunderfuries in year and a half of farming MC week after week).
It would allow people to calculate just how long it would take them to get a new set of loot. It's a well-established psychological phenomenon that semi-random positive reinforcement is a far better incentive than one with an easily measurable or predictable pattern.
I.e. if you run the maze when the bell rings you might get no food, but you'll usually get a piece or two and sometimes you'll get ten pieces! That is much more motivating (for whatever reason) than, say, if you run the maze you'll get a piece of food at the end every time, but only one.
I think this is a factor that people are underestimating. This is based off the idea of reinforcement, pioneered by B.F. Skinner. The first experiments involved mice pressing levers for treats. A reinforcement schedule dictates how often the treats will actually come. The variable reinforcement schedule has treats coming at random intervals, much like loot from bosses. According to the Wikipedia article, "Variable schedules produce higher rates and greater resistance to extinction than most fixed schedules".
A completely token based loot system falls under the definition of a fixed interval reinforcement schedule. This type of reward system is typically the weakest form of reinforcement. "Ratio schedules are more resistant than interval schedules and variable schedules more resistant than fixed ones."
Ultimately you have to look at Blizzard's goal. They want to keep you engaged with the game as long as possible. The whole purpose of raiding is to provide an end-game that is engaging over a long time span while costing the least to develop. If they wanted to make, for example, a zone full of quests that would keep you entertained and interested as long as a raid zone does, it would probably take 10x the resources to do it. Loot is a large part of the equation for raiding.
A large portion of the lifetime of an instance for guilds is the "farm" stage. The whole purpose of farming is loot. After perfecting your strategy and execution, and a few attempts of enjoying the fight, you're down to straight loot farming. The variable ratio response schedule IE random but with an average percent drop is the most effective way of keeping you engaged in the act of raid loot farming.
05/11/07, 6:44 PM
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