I think the worst part is that we can say 16% of guilds farming an endgame boss for 2-3 months won't even see an item. I don't see how that is remotely acceptable to Blizzard.
Possibly because it was very, very acceptable for people to be farming raid instances for long periods of time pre-TBC, and TBC loot may have been designed with similar expectations.
And because not seeing an item isn't the end of the world in any context, even in the world first Blades of Azzinoth context. Blizzard may not want everyone to be on equal footing moving on, because it's probably to their benefit if PVE world kill rankings aren't consistently the same groups of people in the same order. People don't all transfer to the same server that the top guild was on, and so forth.
Well, the move from 8pc sets to 5pc sets is just a reaction to all those complaints about the fact, that sooner or later everyone is just going to look like each other.
I actually think it's more likely that it was in reaction to the cries of "tailoring/leatherworking/smithing is useless!" They made 3pc Tailoring sets all clothies wear/wore forever, leather sets that are useful to hunters for at least a while and to Elemental Shaman until well into BT, etc etc.
Which I think in general worked pretty well, hiccups aside. But I think they could still have made 9 piece sets, just let the sets include, say, a weapon, a ring, and a trinket. Make the 9 piece set not include some of the "visible" pieces, i.e. Chestpiece, Shoulders, Hat (possibly not all of these but 1 or 2) and have coordinated-appearance offset loot drop for these slots as well as crafted gear available for them. Voila? People look different, and the offset loot is focused more towards the slots not covered by the sets.
It'd be nice if they thought ahead a little with the crafted gear also. That is, if you plan to make Shaman loot mostly blue colors, have the crafted stuff in a darker blue or in something complimentary like a deep purple. I.E. different but not circus clown.
To be fair, I think the capacity of mana-using classes to brute force mana regeneration with mana potions is one reason why some equipment lasts so long. Adding spirit (and crit, to a lesser extent) to mage gear just dilutes the stat budget if mages don't care about those stats. Adding intellect and mp5 to hunter gear, same deal. If they made those stats more meaningful, then low item level equipment wouldn't last forever.
This was a great little bonus for running the instance - solid to very good items, and a set bonus once you had all three. Having so much crappy non-tier gear with no reason to exist other than to offer yet another sidegrade seems ever sillier as the discussion continues. Why not make a bunch of 3-piece sets, and even offer multiple options (possibly with slightly different set bonuses) depending on which pieces you have? Then players could get their 5-piece Tier set and a 3-piece 'side' set, and still have a few slots to customize further.
Suddenly players might be excited by an item drop which isn't a set token but rather an item leading to their smaller set bonus!
Or we could take a page from the T3 sets, add a good (but not best-available) ring which counts as part of the Tier set to allow players to use fewer armor items to get their set bonus. I'm puzzled as to why the Hyjal rep ring and/or BT trinket doesn't do this already.
In a related vein, when I first heard that Tier gear would be only 5 pieces with a 2-piece and 4-piece set bonus I didn't think the Tier items would ALL be for the same slots. I was happily imagining that we'd run around in potentially 4 of 5 Tier4 and 4 of 5 Tier5 for set bonuses - with T6 covering the T4 armor slots, T7 covering T5, etc. Why did Blizzard not do this?
The usual argument against this sort of thing is that everyone would "look the same". Everyone currently looks the same anyway, with the signature pieces (helm, shoulders, gloves) in every Tier and every non-Tier item having a slightly recolored texture from the Tier pieces.
Another thing to mention about the 8(9) piece system, and the real bonus of it in my opinion, is that every single spec is covered with 0% clogging up of loot tables with useless items. Take the current 3x tokens down to AQ40 style 2x tokens with 1 of each guranteed off bosses and you're sorted to cover all offspecs in all slots of armour with 0% rot for months and months, maybe not ever due to people picking up spare pieces for offspecs. Then you can add in the weapons, trinkets and jewelry as drops, along with alternatives for some of the most used specs. You don't have to add extra feral drops for example, they aren't going to complain if they have an 8/9 piece gear set available anyway. But sprinkle in some good dps leather, dps cloth and maybe one or two plate items and you're set to go. Its not far off Nax's loot table bar the 2-3 stinkers mentioned in this thread and it seems the best way for success in this multi spec raiding enviroment that is TBC.
Why not make a bunch of 3-piece sets, and even offer multiple options (possibly with slightly different set bonuses) depending on which pieces you have? Then players could get their 5-piece Tier set and a 3-piece 'side' set, and still have a few slots to customize further.
I have to say that first, I agree whole heartedly with Sebudai et al. regarding the offset 'fluff' pieces. THIS, however, is exactly what I thought they were going to do with sets in BC. Why lower the tier pieces to 5 unless you're going to come up with some ultra creative shit otherwise to put in those other 3/4 slots? Just seems like this would make the most sense, and ultimately be the most fun.
Personally, I'd like to see them move a little more over into the Diablo system and allow us to create Runewords and such, but maybe that's a bit unrealistic.
Ultimately, their change from 8-piece sets to 5-piece sets just resulted in lowering the number of pieces required for a set bonus. The "8-piece" sets essentially still exist in the form of the bracers/boots/belts that drop in the same tier. For example, for Paladins:
From an item design and style perspective, Blizzard has not moved away from the 8-piece sets. Visually, there is a set of 8 items, that includes the 5-piece Tier sets, all from the same tier of drops, that form the complete set of armor for a given class.
This method of design is actually hampering Blizzard's own creative potential, especially with regards to set bonuses. For the most part, set bonuses in TBC are unimaginative, with the few select unique and powerful ones being nerfed in 2.3. Part of the blame for this lies in the 5-piece sets. Whereas before you could stick a relatively powerful set bonus as the 8-piece bonus, and have a good idea of what gear level the person will be at if he or she chooses to use the set bonus, today, with 4-piece set bonuses being the highest available, you could conceivably take an ilvl hit in those 4 items for a powerful set bonus, and make up for that by vastly out-ilvling those 4 items in your other slots. This mandates that set bonuses be kept in check, power-wise, especially set bonuses that scale very well (Paladin 4-piece Tier 5, for example). Imagine if the 4-piece Crystalforge set bonus were actually an 8-piece bonus - all of a sudden, it's not as powerful, since you cannot stack as much haste as before with it, thus bringing down the potential power level of the bonus, while still retaining its uniqueness.
Going back to 8-piece sets would also reduce/remove a great deal of the clutter on current loot tables, and allow for the tokenization of all the "armor" pieces, allowing for relatively more frequent drops on weapons, rings, amulets, cloaks, and trinkets, which are typically the items that have more cross-class competition anyway.
If the 8pc sets would realy come again, in my opinion there would have to be some big difference from before. Means as much as three sets for each spec of each class, as well as - in the best way - a specific design on each spec-set. Even if it's only a kind of different color, just as the Arenasets (what should be anyway, also if Blizzard's going to stay with their 5pc-policy). Also, I don't know if you should go that far, to say that the setboni will be for seven pieces now, or going back to naxx, the sets could have nine pieces, with the last boni on the 8th one.
But i think a quite massive boredom would spread out, if everyone knows "i need this set and everything's fine."
At the moment there are still some alternatives for nearly every class on the off-set Slots. Like for example most healerclasses can choose if they like more to have spellhaste, or just the "classic" healingstats. Of course you could even have Variations in the spec-sets or just at some pieces of them again, but this would become to a large jungle of items, and everyone would run for the tokens, to have at least two different sets carrying around.
Remains the question of the last bonus' power, and if it's going to knock out the craftingstuff, because it might be too powerful, too hard needed by anyone. Blizz had a very clear statement, that they'll have again a lot of high-end craftingitems in WotLk.
This 8pc-stuff seems really strange to me, I'd still prefere to stay on 5pc Sets together with the three offset items, including a fourth one wich replaces the "useless" 5th piece. All that for just having more possibilities on variations. If everyone would run for the sets, you'd have to make the Bosses droping at least three tokens, or even two bosses droping the same kind of token.
But I remain unconvinced, for the main problem of this thread, what's the "too much loot on the tables-issue", the best solution in my eyes would be a "tokenisation" of a big part of the off-set loots. 8pc-sets could make the situation even worse, because the people still would like to have a lot of non-set Loots. Where to have all this stuff droping?
This 8pc-stuff seems really strange to me, I'd still prefere to stay on 5pc Sets together with the three offset items, including a fourth one wich replaces the "useless" 5th piece. All that for just having more possibilities on variations. If everyone would run for the sets, you'd have to make the Bosses droping at least three tokens, or even two bosses droping the same kind of token.
But I remain unconvinced, for the main problem of this thread, what's the "too much loot on the tables-issue", the best solution in my eyes would be a "tokenisation" of a big part of the off-set loots. 8pc-sets could make the situation even worse, because the people still would like to have a lot of non-set Loots. Where to have all this stuff droping?
Thats all well and good for a holy priest to say, you've got cloth coming out of your ears and when cloth bracer X drops at the moment you know its just going to be your priests and maybe the resto druid bidding whilst if it were 8 piece again it would be half the guild.
Lets get a ballpark figure here.
Rogues: 1 gear set
Warriors: 2
Warlocks: 1 gear set can make do (i know you could split it to destro/aff)
Mages: 1
Hunters: 1
Priests: 2
Druids: 3
Shaman: 3
Paladin: 3
Thats 17 raiding specs. Boots Belt and bracers make that 51 items of just those 3 armour types that would have to randomly drop across the two dungeons to give an option for every spec that would likely be in raids. I think consolodating this all into 2 tokens per slot for a total of 6 drops would be a much better and simpler solution.
The point of 8 piece sets would be to strip out the majority of the non-tier set armour itemisation so the loot tables looked more like:
Tiered Tokens
Weapons
Jewelry
Trinkets
Relics
One or two pieces of non-set armour for the main raiding roles (like cloth dps, mail mp5, leather dps etc...).
I'll stick it as code so it doesn't extend the post down into the nether but a quick look at how you could do it with the current bosses at a T6 level:
This is a rough example if we had two types of token, lets called them Timephased Warrior's xxxx and Illidari Destroyer's xxx and forget that they drop in both places for the naming.
So we say Timephased is for Warriors, Shaman, Priests, Rogues and Warlocks whilst Illidari is for Hunters, Paladin, Druid and mages. Might not be fair, I just divided them based on number of specs rather than % played but its purely for example.
A * preciding the item name denotes a guranteed drop.
Any # before items name means one of those items will drop per boss, at random.
You will also see a lot of Shoulder slots being kept. This was trying to address comments that everyone would look the same. Such a visually important item as shoulderpads stand out and even just 1 item seperate like this would make a difference. You can also do the same with helms and possibly gloves but beyond that the other pieces dont really go towards your characters look much anyway.
The Battle for Mount HyjalRage Winterchill - 2 Drops
*2xTimephased Warrior's Cuffs
#Chronicle of Dark Secrets
#Tracker's Blade
#Blood Stained Pauldron's
#Hatefury Mantle (moved from Anetheron)
Anetheron - 2 Drops
*2xIllidari Destroyers' Wellingtons
#Pillar of Ferocity (buffed but thats another story :D)
#Blade of Infamy
#Glimmering Steel Mantle
Kaz'rogal - 2 drops
*2xIllidari Destroyers' Belt
#Kaz'rogal's Hardened Heart
#Razorfury Mantle
#Bastion of Light (from anetheron)
(beastmasters shoulders moved to trash)
Azgalor - 3 drops
* Illidari Destroyers' Mittens
* Timephased Warrior's Hobo Gloves
* Random 3rd T6
#Boundless Agony
#The Unbreakable Will
#Hammer of Atonement (from Kaz)
Archimonde - 5 drops
*Illidari Destroyer's Cap
*Timephased Warrior's Helm
*Random 3rd T6
#Cataclysm's Edge
#Apostle of Argus
#Scepter of Purification
#Bristleblitz Striker
#Tempest of Chaos
#Antonidas's Aegis of Rapt Concentration
#Random 2 of the above weapons/shields
[b]The Black Temple[b]
Najentus
*2x Timephased Warrior's Boots
#Ring of Captured Storms
#The Maelstrom's Fury
#Halberd of Desolation
#Ring of Calming Waves
#Rising Tide
Supremus
*2xTimephased Belt
#Pauldron's of Abysall Fury
#Legionkiller
#Felstone Bulwark
#Syphon of the Nathrezim
#Choker of Endless Nightmares
#The Brutaliser
Shade of Akama
*2x Timephased Bracers
#Ring of Deceitful Intent
#Grips of Silent Justice
#Blind Seer's Icon
#Amice of Brilliant Light
Teron Gorefiend
*Random Belt, Bracers, Boots or Gloves item to supplement raid
#Twisted Blades of Zarak
#Rifle of the Stoic Guardian
#Soul Cleaver
#Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape
Gurtogg Bloodboil
#Shadowmoon Insignia
#Wand of Prismatic Focus
#Staff of Imaculate Recovery
#Messanger of Fate
#Unstoppable Agressor's Ring
#Shroud of Forgiveness
Reliquary of Souls
#Torch of the Damned
#Touch of Inspiration
#Pendant of the Titans
#Translucent Spellthread Necklace
#Naruu Blessed Liferod
#Wavemender's Mantle
#Gloves of Unfailing Faith
Mother Sharaz
*Timephased Shoulders
*Illidari Shoulders
*Random of the above
#Blade of Savegery
#Nadina's Pendant of Purity
#Shadowmaster's Boots
Illidari Council
*Illidari Legs
*Timephased Legs
*Random one of the above 2
#Madness of the Betrayer
#Cloak of the Illidari Council
#Helm of the Illidari Shatterer
Illidan
#2 of each chest.
*All his current items, its fine.
So hopefully you get the idea, streamlined boss loots with very few armour items and much greater chance at hitting weapons/cloaks/trinkets/jewelry that people are after.
NOTE: I realise that the tier 6 distribution and amounts may be way off and might need to be increased and have some repeated on other bosses like in nax, was just a rough idea.
I really like the idea of sort of an AQ40 style Regalia drops, but add a bit more story to it. Say you kill illidan, your garaunteed for him to drop a shard of his horn (or something like that). You can take that relic to a certain someone, maybe like one of the ashtongue folks and can get him to craft it into a few different items like a weapon, or various trinkets.
Random loot is part of the fun in my opinion, so I wouldnt like to see the entire system go to badges or something similar. Just make a few of the bosses drop a relic-craftable item like my example, that makes a piece of gear for all classes. If they wanted it could be like thunderfury where you get the key piece + a bunch of mats to craft the item.
If they wanted to get really crazy they could combine items like this to make 'upgrades'. Get the horn from illidan to make the blade, and the skin from azgalor to make the wrapping for the hilt - for a dagger/sword, or a piece of leather armor (you know something for each class/spec).
I just like the idea of having a bit of story to the items and not just *plop* oh cool a staff with a priest head on it came from a giant mutated orc guy.
If a player is looting a corpse and there are one or more items on it that player cannot loot, the player will still be able to see those items (although not able to loot them). This only is for green or better quality items. The cases this should affect are for the profession recipes that only a player of that profession can loot or when master looter is on and there is a threshold or better item on the corpse.
This quote from the 2.3 notes made me paranoid. Have any guilds gotten a Glaive with Master Looter on? The wording sounds like it would only affect items that the master looter can't loot himself, and as far as I know anyone can loot them, just not use them.
Just thought I'd stop in and say that if they don't fix anything else, they really need to rethink how they do legendaries next time around. Legendary items provide such a boost that they're more of an item for the guild, rather than the player. Thunderfury was terrible, since it was really game-changing, and totally dependent on a random drop. Atiesh was great, because while it was powerful, it wasn't insane, and the RNG played a rather small role in acquiring one. The Warglaives, on the other hand . . . the difference between rogues with and without Warglaives is monstrous, to the point where it's very tangible when looking at raidwide dps. They're also abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous in PvP. There are guilds out there with two or more sets; we got our first one (first glaive, not first set) last week on kill number eighteen. The fourth-best guild on the server finally got their first Illidan kill today . . . and they got one too. Really infuriating stuff.
This quote from the 2.3 notes made me paranoid. Have any guilds gotten a Glaive with Master Looter on? The wording sounds like it would only affect items that the master looter can't loot himself, and as far as I know anyone can loot them, just not use them.
No what it means is that if your allowed to loot a grey off a boss while ML is on you can see but not loot the other items on it.
It also means that if a boss drops a BoP pattern while group loot is on that everyone can see the pattern but only those of the specific profession can actualy loot it
This Alliance guild on my server killed Illidan for the first time last week. MH Warglaive, bulwark, memento. Nice right? Next kill, another MH Warglaive! Ourselves, we got a Warglaive on our 3rd kill.
I think its time for a change when guilds that paved the way through the encounter dont have the best drops yet and people killing him months later get them like candy.
Last edited by Hozz : 11/16/07 at 8:11 AM.
Reason: Clarity and less bitterness
Just thought I'd stop in and say that if they don't fix anything else, they really need to rethink how they do legendaries next time around. Legendary items provide such a boost that they're more of an item for the guild, rather than the player. Thunderfury was terrible, since it was really game-changing, and totally dependent on a random drop. Atiesh was great, because while it was powerful, it wasn't insane, and the RNG played a rather small role in acquiring one. The Warglaives, on the other hand . . . the difference between rogues with and without Warglaives is monstrous, to the point where it's very tangible when looking at raidwide dps. They're also abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous in PvP. There are guilds out there with two or more sets; we got our first one (first glaive, not first set) last week on kill number eighteen. The fourth-best guild on the server finally got their first Illidan kill today . . . and they got one too. Really infuriating stuff.
Nihilum: 0 Glaives
Rest of the server: 8 Glaives on Horde last I checked, 3 on Alliance (or so). We got a set and an OH at the moment in the guild ourselves.
While it's fun to tease the Nihilum rogues about this, I can't help but wonder how fair the system really is. I'm also very curious how my legendary bow is going to be implemented, I can't say I don't mind a straight up drop rather than a month of farming "Bow Components" but I'm really hoping for some extra challenge and effort involved, like a quest. Simply making them drops diminishes their value for me a little.
11/05/07, 12:35 PM
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