The distribution of loot tables has been a tricky topic throughout the duration of WoW's lifetime. The incredibly poor loot options available to some specs practically destroyed them prior to the expansion, particularly in the case of non-resto druids; at the very least, the lack of significant loot choices in a particular slot led to inter-class drama.
Relatively speaking, the token redemption system has been a god-send for hybrid classes, offering a solid set of loot for essentially any spec for at least five spots. Even beyond that, there's a greater variety of loot available in other slots for many specs, although this is mitigated somewhat by the the generic nature of rings, trinkets, cloaks, and necks. Aside from a greater desire to accomodate hybrid classes, some classes still encounter major gaps in some slots (for example, protection paladins are rather lacking in gear that isn't equally- or better-used by a warrior, and there are no spell damage shields between ilvl 110 and 151).
What problems still exist in this scenario? How can Blizzard further the process of distributing class- and spec-appropriate loot to players in PvE scenarios?
There are still major issues with issues with loot distribution in 5-man instances, which still suffers from the pre-TBC snydrome of sets supporting exactly one spec for any particular hybrid class (there's exactly one leather item drop in 5-man instances with additional armor on it, and that comes from a Heroic), while over-itemizing other classes (my mage, for example, had practically achieved a full set of top-end blue loot before setting foot in level 70 instances, and I encountered a plentiful number of sidegrades).
To some extent, this is a result of some classes/specs sharing similar loot expectations. Mages and warlocks desire similar items, as do enhancement shamans and hunters. This is a bit of a crutch, though, since these classes don't have *exactly* the same ideal configurations, and shouldn't necessarily be required to "make due".
Perhaps Blizzard should further extend the token turn-ins into a system that allows the splitting of loot into an appropriate item at loot time. For example, in the case of existing class tokens, a mouseover dialog could appear that lists the available loot choices for that token, and as that loot is looted into the inventory, that choice could be made by the player (while the loot remains on the corpse in a "busy" state until then). This could be applied equally well to a "melee DPS ring" that has agi/AP for a rogue, str/crit for a warrior, or str/agi for a druid. It could be applied to a "caster off-hand" that applies to an off-hand OR a shield, that each are attributed spell damage OR healing, for a total of four loot options.
It's certainly a larger task to Blizzard, in terms of (a) associating stats with quite a few more items, and (b) coming up with unique names for them. But it's likely superior for players, and in another regard, it lets Blizzard avoid itemization holes by itemizing in terms of categories rather than specific items. It also avoids the problem of excessively cluttering up vendors with token rewards. It also offers an implicit solution to the fact that players currently have to look up token turn-ins in WoWhead to figure out if they want them!
That's one idea that, admittedly, seems a bit clunky in some regards, but still is likely an improvement over the current loot method.
How else could Blizzard deal with the problem of avoiding loot holes for hybrid classes and the "warrior in leather" problem for everyone else?
I'd like them to use the idea of heroic badges to fill itemization holes.
Have every boss in an instance drop 1 badge of some sort for each player. Allow players to spend these on key slots that are very spec dependent, like weapons.
This would allow players to "eventually" get an crucial item and not be screwed over by the RNG. Never getting the item(s) that would allow their class/spec to shine.
They're definitely expanding the loot tables for heroic turn-ins, and that's a good thing. But I suspect that those loot tables will still be somewhat limited, and almost certainly won't have options outside of a single ilvl target. For that reason, I don't think it effectively resolves the loot table issues in high end raiding or in 5-mans.
I think one of the major issues is simply the huge disparity between the amount of potential loot items per class.
To illustrate this problem, consider itemizing for druids. There are 4 viable roles for druids (effectiveness in raids notwithstanding), resto, cat-dps, tanking, balance nuking. Each of these 4 by and large requires completely different items.
Compare to a rogue, where mostly any spec requires the same armor and at most the weapons are the major difference - daggers/swords/maces being probably the only significantly distinct choice.
To take it to a further extreme, some classes share loot. Cloth caster dps typically all want the same weapons, offhands, trinks/rings, and non-set cloth armor.
So on one hand you have the requirements of itemizing 4 distinct specs for 1 class and on the other you are itemizing single items for 4 different classes.
This makes itemization and loot drop rates pretty difficult to balance.
It is precisely this reason that makes druid off-set loot typically rot, compared to dps cloth items always being highly contested. Each item may have a 10% drop chance from the boss, but the druid item may have 0-1 player interested, while the cloth caster dps item will have ~10 people interested.
Any discussion on how to fix itemization rate should probably discuss how to address the vast demand difference between various specs/roles.
The easiest and most obvious disparity that I see related to this is 2-hand melee dps weapons vs caster dps weapons - both having similar drop %, the demand being *vastly* different.
As an elemental shaman raiding T5 instances, I really feel the hurt. Blizzard seems to have skipped an entire teir of gear for myself, and my druid buddies. There is a pair of boots from leatherworking which I have, but no bracers, and no belt. If anything I see two easy fixes to this:
a) bring back 8 piece sets. As much as I loath this option, with todays token drops and variety in teired sets for each class, this would really work. A third set bonus would be welcome again, but that would mostly be icing on the cake of boots, bracers and belts with my spec in mind. As for weapons, cloaks, offhands, trinkets, I'm currently satisfied.
b) Increase the drop rate and number of craftable patterns from T4 level and up. If the bosses won't drop the items, let me make them with vortexes or nethers. As opposed to just having leather working for my Boots, I'd have the tradeskill for boots bracers and belt. Hell combine it with the idea above and make it a 3piece set. It would not bother me as long as the upgrade options were there.
I'd like them to use the idea of heroic badges to fill itemization holes.
Have every boss in an instance drop 1 badge of some sort for each player. Allow players to spend these on key slots that are very spec dependent, like weapons.
This would allow players to "eventually" get an crucial item and not be screwed over by the RNG. Never getting the item(s) that would allow their class/spec to shine.
Final bosses in an instance typicaly have loot that is of a higher iLvl than the prior bosses, to reward players for completing the entire instance. If each boss simply dropped a badge, it seems that players would be encouraged to simply farm the first boss over and over instead of completing the entire run. Would simply having the final boss drop two (or more) badges be enough incentive to clear the instance, or would perhaps the final boss drop something additional?
Final bosses in an instance typically have loot that is of a higher iLvl than the prior bosses, to reward players for completing the entire instance. If each boss simply dropped a badge, it seems that players would be encouraged to simply farm the first boss over and over instead of completing the entire run. Would simply having the final boss drop two (or more) badges be enough incentive to clear the instance, or would perhaps the final boss drop something additional?
I think he meant badges to be extra loot from bosses. Blizzard said that they will add HB to Karazhan and Zul'aman in 2.3, so its already in the works. They will add new rewards as well to fix itemization holes. I'm playing feral druid, so amount items that suits me is very small. I think more stuff that you can get without random part the better. Lets hope it will be good enough.
I think he meant badges to be extra loot from bosses. Blizzard said that they will add HB to Karazhan and Zul'aman in 2.3, so its already in the works. They will add new rewards as well to fix itemization holes. I'm playing feral druid, so amount items that suits me is very small. I think more stuff that you can get without random part the better. Lets hope it will be good enough.
I did mean in addition to normal drops.
It would also be easy to have a variety of badge types dropped (Vash and Kael drop a different type of badge)
You could also play with the mechanics of how badges translate into gear. For example, badges could be turned into a quest giver for a loot token which then can be used as currency at a special vendor. You could do things like have the first loot token cost 2, next cost 4 and cap at some other number to give people new to an instance a quick upgrade. You could also allow trade-ups from one tier to another at a really horrible exchange rate to discourage bottom feeding while still allowing people to spend previous tier tokens.
Etc.
It is flexible and no one leaves an instance empty handed, even if the items cost like 10-15 badges.
While Blizzard has said they like the random factor to loot, I think there are ways to increase the percentage of tokenized loot while retaining random factors. First off, not everything needs to be tokenized. A good example is final boss "ultimate" loot, like weapons and trinkets and random items that are just really good. These don't have to be tokenized, there is always a place for random loot. Next, there is already an example of tokenized loot that also has a large random factor. Armaments in AQ40 were a relatively low droprate but they were awesome. Two tokens covered a broad swath of important itemization, yet they were rare enough to still be highly prized.
My opinion is that any niche loot should be tokenized, straight up. Any loot that can only be used by 1-2 people in a normal raid should be tokenized. There should be no moonkin, elemental shaman, ret pally, etc armor drops. Armor that can be used by one spec of one class is just frustrating for everyone involved. Next, I think there should be some weapon tokenization. I do not think all weapons should be tokenized, but I think there should be a base level of tokenized weapon itemization available. This to help solve the problem where a large amount of different kinds of weapons are needed, but will only be used by a couple people in the raid. Sword offhands for rogues, two-handers, spell power maces, etc. To go with that I'd say the popular weapons, caster daggers, slow mainhand swords, etc, shouldn't be tokenized and will retain their current status as highly desired items.
Blizzard has made many improvements to looting and itemization over time and I do think we're at a much better place than we have been in the past. That said, there's always room for improvement and I think tokenization is really the only way to go forward with loot. The more specs that become raid viable, the more difficult it becomes to itemize for them all without cluttering the loot tables with crap.
Biggest thing that needs to be fixed is the god awful loot that some bosses drop. Its the loot that gets DE'd the first time its drops.
Some glaring examples as far as being a druid go are Vashj's Runetotem shoulders and the shoulders off the Illidari Council. Akama, Supremus, Bloodboil, etc, they all drop incredibly shardworthy items as well.
You could fill a lot more 'holes' in loot tables if you.. you know... god forbid made every piece of loot good.
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My opinion is that any niche loot should be tokenized, straight up. Any loot that can only be used by 1-2 people in a normal raid should be tokenized. There should be no moonkin, elemental shaman, ret pally, etc armor drops. Armor that can be used by one spec of one class is just frustrating for everyone involved.
I dunno, 1 spec of 1 class? That would include Protection Plate(Paladin and Warrior), Healing Plate, Healing Leather, Tanking Leather, Strength Mail, and Healing Mail, oh and Healing Cloth sort of counts.
If anything heres a list of stuff that is used by more then 1 spec of 1 class:
Spell Damage Cloth, Spell Crit Cloth, DPS Plate, and DPS leather(though some would say rogue leather and cat leather are very different, but I digress).
Personally I think the 5 piece sets are fine, they are itemized very nicely for some classes. The real problem shows up in Bracers, Belts, and Boots for a lot of classes and specs.
This is only addressing the issue from a drop standpoint, which is certainly the most obvious direction to look at it but not the only one; Tigole mentioned in interview that with the introduction of "free spell damage" on healing gear, healing versions and pew-pew dps versions of priests, druids, and shamans can share itemizations, reducing the number of drops that have to be spread around.
It does remain to be seen how that ends up playing out; it's entirely possible that the "free spell damage" mechanic will be entirely not enough spell damage to be a viable dps class, and they have different preferences for regen stats (although fortunately all the hybrid pew pew dps classes actually take advantage of regen).
For such gear there's basically two considerations that it has to satisfy: First, it needs to be an upgrade. If the free spell damage doesn't make it actually better than dedicated pew pew dungeon blues, especially cloth dps caster blues, then it's not doing its job. Second, it has to be enough dps to allow those classes to competetively dps in a raid setting. Even if raid heal gear is a dps upgrade over dungeon blue pew pew gear, it might be scaling at a lower rate than dedicated dps classes because it's spending its itemization points unoptimally. And I do mean that as a gear issue, not a class balance issue; the scaling is a result of gear available, not a result of simply less dps per point spell damage.
As it stands, several classes have at least some itemization available to them even if the stat distribution isn't quite optimal because they get hand-me-downs from dedicated dps classes. Cat druids take rogue gear, enh shamans take hunter gear. These pieces aren't bad in their own right, although cats want str over AP and not as much hit, and shamans want crit rating over agi. Tank and Ret paladins can even make good use of corresponding warrior gear. It's mostly the caster hybrids that get screwed, because the only dedicated dps classes are cloth, so they either downgrade to cloth or go without gear.
The free-spell-damage thing is allowing the caster hyrids to take correct-armor-type gear from their respective healer counterparts rather than their clothy counterparts. The issue of splitting gear is that different types want different stats; it remains to be seen if healer/caster leather/mail offers something closer to what they want that pure-caster cloth.
The other potential possibility is altering the game mechanics of the classes so that classes of the same role and armor type prefer similar stats; ie closing the effectiveness gap between STR/AGI and AP/AGI for cat druids, and that of AP/AGI and STR/crit for enh shamans.
Aside from that, more badge and rep rewards. More rings, more trinkets, raid badge loots, and maybe even purchasable rep rewards for raid reps. A major stumbling block of distributing loot for hybrid off-specs is that the amount of them you have in a raid varies a hell of a lot from guild to guild and you want to minimize the amount of burned loot if possible. Offspec gear is easier to give out if it's not "taking up space" that "something useful" could have dropped instead. Does this mean a boss will drop two group loot tokens, two turn-in tokens, and one loot? Maybe =/. Like tigole said, you have to balance it against the whole "what did he drop?" fun of killing a boss, because it is fun and exciting the first few times.
Something that I think the Devs haven't nearly explored to its full potential is distributing loot via instance quests and reputation.
There is a virtual cornucopia of lore and history behind each instance and it’s a shame the all we get is “Kill X boss, loot Y item, and have Z reputation, and I’ll give you a reward.” Remember the level of complexity behind the tier .5 quest line. If you’ve done the Netherwing quest line, you’d see how reputation grinding can happen without it “feeling” like a grind. Something as simple as putting on a Broken disguise while you kill Al’ar just seems to add so much more character to the storyline. More than a boss dropping the same badge for every person every week at least.
One approach, somewhat orthogonal to tokenizing is to deliberately make loot attractive to multiple specs/classes.
For example imagine a plate item had both the following stats on it:
Equip Paladin: +25 dmg/heal
Equip Warrior: Your Revenge hits for +60
This would effectively make 2 distinct items share the same loot table - and have something to offer both warriors and paladins. Obviously these two equip stats would use the same portion of the item budget to ensure the item isn't undervalued (because you cannot take advantage of both simultaneously).
Obviously this can be accomplished by simply tokenizing the bonuses as separate items, but this would allow for more variety, and gives the immediate gratification of looting an actual item and equipping it immediately.
And in the case of the latter example potentially adds the bonus of having at least some of your hybrid gear adapt to changing roles on the fly.
I dunno, 1 spec of 1 class? That would include Protection Plate(Paladin and Warrior), Healing Plate, Healing Leather, Tanking Leather, Strength Mail, and Healing Mail, oh and Healing Cloth sort of counts.
If anything heres a list of stuff that is used by more then 1 spec of 1 class:
Spell Damage Cloth, Spell Crit Cloth, DPS Plate, and DPS leather(though some would say rogue leather and cat leather are very different, but I digress).
Personally I think the 5 piece sets are fine, they are itemized very nicely for some classes. The real problem shows up in Bracers, Belts, and Boots for a lot of classes and specs.
Yeah and most of that stuff is frustrating when it drops after the first or second time because no one else wants it. That was my point, it covers a pretty broad range. It is more pronounced for class/specs that you will only bring one of though. At least with say healing plate there will be 3-5 people who can use it in your guild.
One approach, somewhat orthogonal to tokenizing is to deliberately make loot attractive to multiple specs/classes.
For example imagine a plate item had both the following stats on it:
Equip Paladin: +25 dmg/heal
Equip Warrior: Your Revenge hits for +60
This would effectively make 2 distinct items share the same loot table - and have something to offer both warriors and paladins. Obviously these two equip stats would use the same portion of the item budget to ensure the item isn't undervalued (because you cannot take advantage of both simultaneously).
Obviously this can be accomplished by simply tokenizing the bonuses as separate items, but this would allow for more variety, and gives the immediate gratification of looting an actual item and equipping it immediately.
And in the case of the latter example potentially adds the bonus of having at least some of your hybrid gear adapt to changing roles on the fly.
I think this could really get messy in a hurry if they take it too far. I would really prefer ending up with a distinct item no matter what, I think.
This is only addressing the issue from a drop standpoint, which is certainly the most obvious direction to look at it but not the only one; Tigole mentioned in interview that with the introduction of "free spell damage" on healing gear, healing versions and pew-pew dps versions of priests, druids, and shamans can share itemizations, reducing the number of drops that have to be spread around.
It does remain to be seen how that ends up playing out; it's entirely possible that the "free spell damage" mechanic will be entirely not enough spell damage to be a viable dps class, and they have different preferences for regen stats (although fortunately all the hybrid pew pew dps classes actually take advantage of regen).
For such gear there's basically two considerations that it has to satisfy: First, it needs to be an upgrade. If the free spell damage doesn't make it actually better than dedicated pew pew dungeon blues, especially cloth dps caster blues, then it's not doing its job. Second, it has to be enough dps to allow those classes to competetively dps in a raid setting. Even if raid heal gear is a dps upgrade over dungeon blue pew pew gear, it might be scaling at a lower rate than dedicated dps classes because it's spending its itemization points unoptimally. And I do mean that as a gear issue, not a class balance issue; the scaling is a result of gear available, not a result of simply less dps per point spell damage.
As it stands, several classes have at least some itemization available to them even if the stat distribution isn't quite optimal because they get hand-me-downs from dedicated dps classes. Cat druids take rogue gear, enh shamans take hunter gear. These pieces aren't bad in their own right, although cats want str over AP and not as much hit, and shamans want crit rating over agi. Tank and Ret paladins can even make good use of corresponding warrior gear. It's mostly the caster hybrids that get screwed, because the only dedicated dps classes are cloth, so they either downgrade to cloth or go without gear.
The free-spell-damage thing is allowing the caster hyrids to take correct-armor-type gear from their respective healer counterparts rather than their clothy counterparts. The issue of splitting gear is that different types want different stats; it remains to be seen if healer/caster leather/mail offers something closer to what they want that pure-caster cloth.
I think another problem they'd have to solve, at least for Elemental Shaman vs. Resto Shaman is making Resto-Shaman more in love with crit. Because they've built Elemental Shaman to LOVE critting and highly value critting, and I think that it gives a great feel to the class and a is a fair addition to our sense of identity. I mean, who else regularly sports >40% crit in raids? For Resto Shaman there is some value to crit in terms of the armor buff proc, but that's not enough for a Resto Shaman to justify spending tons of itemization points on crit. Perhaps if there was a high-end Resto Talent that made your crits hit for normal healing but put an Earth-Shield-like charge on the target to heal them for the rest of the amount? Or hit for 170% of normal but get a HoT component (ala Fireball or Regrowth)... or something.
I'm not sure what similar problems other specs might face.. I imagine priest itemization could be handled with relative ease, especially as Shadowpriests can easily gank Warlock itemization, but I've no idea if Moonkin has particular desires.
As regards to weapons, as these are usually the most contentious:
Professions - Blacksmithing offers those who want a very competitive weapon the chance to craft a range of one and two handed weapons which have a clear upgrade path which requires raiding to improve.
I'd like to see this expanded by adding a similar option to a profession common among casters, which I will arbitrarily suggest as being enchanting. I gather my Metals, Primals, and Essences and enchant them into a choice of a Spell Damage Dagger or Sword, or a Healing Mace. These are then upgradeable by enchanting the original weapon with Primal Nethers or Nether Vortex. This is quite an elegant solution as the method of upgrade already exists and would only require recipes implemented
Armaments - These are suggested in a number of posts. Add an Armament drop to instances at SSC/TK level which you can turn into the Naaru for weapons. Make these exactly the same in function as those from AQ40 and have them cover the more poorly itemized weapons (offhand sword for example).
Implementation - Essentially when TBC has at least ten two handed weapons from Karazhan to Illidan and only 3 Spell Damage Daggers, then somewhere something has gone wrong. Especially when you have the weapons available via Blacksmithing.
Blizzard need to keep a clear view of "the bigger picture" when itemizing Boss Loot tables rather than filling them with Two-Handers.
Someone mentioned this slightly, but to elaborate more:
Several item slots are covered by 3+ items that are virtually identical or in many cases strictly inferior to previous loot. These slots could be re-assigned to much more useful items such as caster weaponry, rogue armor/weapons, and some of the healing items are just generally underpowered for their ilvl.
For instance:
Cloth healing bracer off of Akama: Totally worthless item, its as bad or worse than hydross bracers, clearly inferior to Rage Winterchill bracers due to the socket.
Druid Healing Shoulders: Theres at least 3-4 items strictly inferior to tier 6, and runetotems mantle is strictly superior to all the others in this group.
Ranged Weapons: Black bow of the betrayer, legionkiller, and bristleblitz are for all intent and purpose identical or damn close to it. Do we need 3 ranged weapons for 1 class that is generally under-represented, when there are 2 weapons for caster dps and there are 3 high use classes that use them?
Kaz'Rogal's Loot table: The dps caster boots are mediocre, inferior to najentus boots, probably worse than/equal to several crafted pairs. The belt is a semi-sidegrade to red belt of battle, and the healing belt is trash compared to the SSC crafted one. A lot of other stuff on this guy is suspect to uselessness, such as the mail belt.
Healing boots off Anetheron: Dogshit, shadow priests take them out of pity, useless item. The boots off BT trash demolish these, as do T5 boots with gems in them.
There are countless other examples of dumb/useless itemization, but I believe my point is made. That is at least 10 item slots that are just not necessary. If we used those slots to add more useful drops, loot distribution would be slightly improved. I don't understand why blizzard makes itemization chocies like this. Its simple numbers. If you have 3 caster dpsclasses and 1 hunter class, then you should have 3 times the number of dps caster drops. The problem is almost every single boss has 1-2 hunter items, and then like 1-2 useful caster items. 1:1 is just poor thinking from those who itemize.
The other odd thing is, now that everything gets min-maxed you would think there would be less 'useless' items because they cant deviate at all, however they seem to just make a worse item regardless and not think about it?
Regarding (dps)weapons... well I believe the only type which has itemization at each level (TK/SSC - Vashj/Kael - MH/BT - Archi/Illi) are daggers but even then the offhands are only from the same one (MH/BT).
MH / BT is generally an improvement when you look at things, most itemization is covered, however that doesn't really make up for the fact theres generally a huge lack of it beforehand.
I like Rage personally, he is RZG v2, you want bracers, he drops you them, all of them, every spec is covered.
Boots and Belts are poorly itemized , which is possibly on purpose to pimp out the crafted ones (fair enough on belts but boots(bop craft)?), however BT/MH has an amazing amount of worthless boots/belts to help this.
Shoulders tend to be over-itemized;
DPS Cloth - 2x 128, 2x 141, and T4/T5/T6...
Healing Leather - T4/T5/T6 and 2 useless ones in a T5/T6 level.
DPS Leather - 1x 128, 2x 141, and T4/T5/T6...
Mail (Hunter-esk) - 1x 128, 2x 141, and T4/T5/T6...
Most things seem to get bloated at the upper end of raiding, and starved at the lower end, except weapon offhands which are pretty much non-existant untill MH/BT.
Do we really need 2 offhand daggers, the same DPS, from roughly the same level of progress, and the same ilvl, right now? not one around the 128 level and having its successor at 141 instead of nothing untill then?
It would be nice if they could add in more bosses like Rage in terms of loot for items like offhands, boots, belts etc..
A recurring tension here is that you don't want to itemize everything perfectly. FSW is a great example of this-- the stat distribution is ideal for SPs and affliction locks, and that makes it far too difficult to upgrade for those classes unless the upgrades are also perfectly itemized.
Hell, show me an upgrade to the Kara neck or the heroic badge offhand for SPs for afflic locks. Once you make one perfectly itemized item, you screw your playerbase unless you're willing to make a bunch of other perfectly itemized upgrades.
It's as if all of the t4 elemental shaman gear had +nature damage instead of +spell damage and was budgeted appropriately. Obviously, that gear would be better for the only spec for which it's relevant than the gear that currently exists; but once the shaman got it, t5 content would offer very little to them.
You have to be very careful when you make a perfectly itemized item for a given class/spec to make sure that the upgrade from the next tier-- even if not perfectly itemized-- is still actually an upgrade.
Seems to me there are a number of goals in creating effective loot distribution.
Representation: At least one good item for every role of every class for every spot at each tier of content (solo, normal dungeon, heroic dungeon, tiered raid/pvp).
Progression: Items drop from locations appropriate to their position in character progression.
Surprise vs Class Balance: Drop rates are balanced between roles/classes to gear each players at the roughly the same rate, but you shouldn't be too certain of what will drop on any given week.
Representation:
In designing content, you should make sure there are no glaring gaps in itemization for any role or spec within a class. One iterative step that should be taken is to check to see which roles and specs have not been itemized and then fix it before it goes live. Ideally, a player should be able to complete a new tier of content and find an upgrade for every slot, regardless of class or role/spec (some specs gear differently for the same role and some specs can perform multiple roles). Not only does there need to be an item for that slot of the appropriate armor type, but it should be an upgrade after set bonuses are taken into consideration (although pvp vs pve applications may muddy that consideration). Currently, it's possible to find some slots filled with 2 or 3 items per tier while other slots go completely unfilled.
Progression:
Within a single tier of content, there should not be items dropping from later bosses that are strictly speaking downgrades from item dropping from earlier bosses. This is already done to an extent by putting higher iLvl items on the final bosses of zones, but correctly designing the actual item has to play it's part as well. Currently, it's possible to find some slots with higher level versions that are just so poorly itemized for the role they are supposed to be filling that nobody will take them as an upgrade.
Surprise vs Class Balance:
There needs to be some randomness to drops so that the player is kept in some suspense as to what will drop next. There are also some items that are just meant to be a bit rarer than others and thus more highly prized. This is the fun factor of loot. Ideally, you would never have any idea what the mob is going to drop until you killed it.
However, this short term fun is in opposition to the long term fun of character progression. Ideally, at the end of x weeks of full clears of tier y of content, each player in the raid would come out feeling equally upgraded in gear. Depending on class, the need for situational loot and roles taken within the raid, this could be 1, 2 or even 3 pieces of loot per slot. With poor design, one half of any given raid may be only half done with a zone while the other half needs 1 slot filled at worst. Dragging half a raid back to a zone that they want very little from is a recipe for drama.
The good news is, tokens are a very useful tool in mitigating the randomness of rewards on a player by player basis. The current token systems are as follows:
Set Items: The basic concept of having 2 out of 3 tokens drop per kill is very good. Naturally which classes are on which tokens is something that needs to be constantly revised with each tier to ensure that each token is equally desirable (you don't want 1 token that has to be looted 20 times and 2 other tokens that only need to be looted 10 times each for example!).
Quest Items: A Boss dies and provides an item that a single person in the raid can use for a reward from a list (essentially a non-randomized loot table), but you can never get more than one item from the list. It would be fairly trivial to turn this into a repeatable quest if desired, but this would likely cause drama amongst those who haven't had their turn yet,
Crafting materials: A Boss dies and coughs up a bop crafting material specific to that tier of difficulty. Recipes can come from faction or as a drop depending on how much randomness the designers desire.
Badges: Every time a player is involved in a boss kill, they take a step towards a reward. Just like heroic badges, this could be a crafting material or a very class specific item. The item would probably be of a fairly low iLvl so as not to overpower the rewards for killing bosses deeper in the zones. This could be a very important mechanic in raid zones as it keeps the rewards flowing in after the regular loot tables start causing a lot of sharding.
Reputation: Reputation as it is implemented in most raid zones is really just another kind of badge token. Kill mobs, get tokens. When you have enough tokens, you get a reward (a ring or a recipe). Collect even more tokens, get a new reward (new recipe) or a better reward (upgrade the ring).
The three things that can be improved in itemisation are variety of itemisation, perfectness of itemisation and time vs reward. Variety of itemisation in the sense of providing loot for every class at every tier of content. There are still too many holes. The designers know it and are supposedly looking at ways to fix it. Perfectness of itemisation in the sense of items of lower iLvls being better than those of higher iLvls. Time vs Reward in the sense of ensuring that the reward for each new clear of a zone is not too much less than the last. Regular item drops tend to diminish the longer you raid a zone, but rewards from long term reward systems like Reputation and Badges can boost that back up towards the end of the life cycle of that tier. With the news of more heroic badges in the 10-mans, I can only hope that leads into some badge type rewards in the 25-man content in the future.
Just to echo some of the thoughts in this thread I, too, would like to see some form of 'badge' system where certain 'checkpoint' bosses in an instance drop a badge everyone can loot and later use to purchase something after they've accumulated enough. Also, while going to the tri-class armor token was an improvement over the old Tier 1 and Tier 2 system, I think they should just go the rest of the way and make the Tier armor tokens universal. I see no reason why this would be detrimental even from a loot regulatory perspective. You're going to have at least thirty people to any given raiding force so it would still take nearly four months of farming a boss for everyone to get that token.
09/07/07, 7:04 PM
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