If necessary, have the seller for SSC drops be behind Vashj, thereby mandating a single clear of the SSC to use the SSC tokens acquired in BT/Hyjal.
Hmm yeah, done right that could add to the lore by showing "what happens next". When you kill Gruul, the ogres from Ogri'la show up and thank you for delivering them from their oppressor and offer to sell you any of the plunder from his lair in exchange for <whatever> that drops in SSC/TK. When you kill Kae'thas and hand in his crystal, A'dal sends you on to the Black Temple to find out what Illidan's game is, and will reward you with anything from the rescued Keep in exchange for <whatever> from BT. Set it up somehow to require a fresh Kael'thas kill each time and you have the kind of scenario Charsi's envisaging. That is, you move on from an instance and build up a stock of tokens in the next one. Once you have a stash of tokens, you run $Oldinstance once, and at the end of it are able to turn in your tokens and buy precisely the gear you want.
And of course it could be made granular - not every item shows up on the vendor. You don't get to buy Twin Blades, for example, no matter how many times you've cleared the Sunwell. :-)
As long as we're exploring alternative raid looting options, how about we put the "FARM" back in "FARM-STATUS". That is, when you farm a crop, you know exactly what you're going to get when you harvest. I planted corn, I get corn. I planted wheat, I get wheat.
So how about the loot master gets to see the whole loot table for the boss (except, per-chance, ultra-rare mount drops, which may only appear occasionally) and is allowed to choose 2-3 of those items for her raid. Remove the damn RNG all together. Raid leaders and raiders can plan on who exactly is going to get what each week, simplifying DKP systems, accelerating raid gear-up speed, and good God, fewer Void Crystals choking the guild bank!
I'll take the following:
Gruul - Dragonspine Trophy and Bloodmaw Magus-Blade
Morogrim - Talon of Azshara... twice
Vashj - Lightfathom Scepter and Belt of One-Hundred Deaths
I think the system they have now is fine, but man I would kill if there was some way they could track kills and be like "so this guild hasn't received X loot in Y kills, it will drop next kill!" My real complaints stem from the fact that itemization sucks fairly hard in places and is over abundant in others -- something more of a problem from an item design standpoint than an RNG standpoint.
Gruul - Dragonspine Trophy and Bloodmaw Magus-Blade
Morogrim - Talon of Azshara... twice
Vashj - Lightfathom Scepter and Belt of One-Hundred Deaths
Obviously, this would be flawed.
No more flawed than any of the alternatives. Wouldn't you like to leave those instances behind, once and for all? Or if you needed to gear up a new guildie to perform at your content level, you could spend one night getting everything he needs? I know I'm invoking the PvP vs PvE feud when I say this, but: PvPers get exactly what they want and know when they're going to get it. They work hard at their PvP strategies to do this. Raiders work hard to train 5 times as many people in PvE events. Why can't raiders have the same level of loot predictability?
What's flawed about getting your raiders what they need when they need it?
To be honest, I think that a large portion of this argument stems from the fact that bosses simply don't drop enough loot.
What if every boss dropped 3 Tier tokens instead of 2? Or, better still, what if every boss dropped 4-5 items? In a full clear of SSC, theoretically, everyone 'could' get an upgrade.
There's no significant loss here - the RNG says that you'll still likely be sharding the handful of items you've seen too many of long before you quit running the instance. Gearing up would be only moderately faster, which doesn't strike me as much of a concern any more - with ~200 guilds 'finished' the game, and literally thousands either partway through Hyjal/BT or on the cusp of entering them (Vashj/Kael remaining), Blizzard doesn't really need to hold them back.
Yes, the content is designed to be paced at a certain rate, and Johnny "Didn't start Kara until August" is going to get to clear it faster than Kungen et. al. did, but so what?
I think that this is the only moderately viable solution that would fit in Blizzard's existing model. Like as not, they're not going to over-simplify raid loot by giving us an Arena-esque system (I don't raid to be able to calculate, down to the day/hour/minute, when I'm going to get my epics - I raid to win).
However, I do think it's possible that they would consider raising the overall number of loot drops in 25-man raid instances. They have already, in limited cases (3 drops off Lurker, etc.), so it's not outside the realm of possibility.
I completely agree with this. Right now loot acquisition happens too slowly on many levels:
1. Raid Gear is acquired too slowly as compared to Arena/Badge gear
2. Raid Gear is acquired too slowly based on the time spent in the content... especially with the changes made so that you don't "need" to gear up before taking on the next boss. I'm not sure if any players had full T5 before we went into Hyjal/BT, and very few had it before we dropped it from our schedule (as much as possible anyway). It should be at the very least --likely-- that you'll complete your set if you're a regular raider.
3. Raid Gear is acquired too slowly relative to the size of the raidforce. Similar to point 2, but slightly different. We have many people with very good attendance, but people feel very conflicted regarding spending/not spending dkp. There is a sense that items are "scarce" and that taking this item means that you can't have that other one, or can easily put players into a "Me or Him!" mindset with regard to a drop. Even people who raid for progression do *care about* the rewards, and it's hard to just get along with people when it often comes down to "EITHER this guy gets this item OR I do" with no sense that, with patience, there will be enough for everyone. I have even sensed tension between myself and other players in the guild over items--players I get along with very well. It doesn't get nasty, but it can be a strain on friendships... Perhaps a good example would be between myself and my fiance. We both very much want the T6 shoulders, and our classes are on the same piece. It is doubtful that we'll raid T6 long enough for everyone to eventually get T6 shoulders, so discussions of who would pass or not pass to who, if it were to come up, are a bit strained. We both want the other to be happy, but it's a frustrating situation.
I guess I'm in the minority, but I like RNG for non-set drops. I don't want every single thing in this game to be min/max'ed, because then it just gets boring. God knows we've had our glut of priest loot drop, but in a way it made it more enjoyable when we started to get other drops instead. When Illidan this week finally dropped a Bulwark for Paches, it was a really nice surprise. Not so much if it just would have been tokened to him the first week we killed him.
I suppose it does suck if you never get a certain drop off a boss, but in the long run it really doesn't matter with respect to your raid. I mean, we cleared T6 content with rogues that had no DST, and that was probably the item that made the most difference for anyone. We had a relative paucity of tank loot, yet we still managed. Loot matters more on a personal level is what I'm saying, I guess.
I think they got it right making sure that the set pieces are distributed via tokens. There could perhaps be a few tweaks on boss drop lists to either fill them out (hi Shahraz/Council) or tweak some of the lesser items, but otherwise I think it's fairly well designed.
It is my belief that the reason for having loot drops be "random" is due to human psychology and the fact that Blizzard wants people to continue playing the game.
Take gambling for instance. Yes, there is skill involved, and math. Kind of like high end raiding . But there is a random element to it as well, which is what makes it so addicting.
My belief is that this is why the RNG is still in play, even though blizzard has made it slightly less random with token drops. Quite simply, it's the addictive factor.
Also, in terms of what we as people remember, think about this:
Do you remember highly coveted item X that you got on the first kill more, or do you remember highly coveted item Y that you never saw drop or only saw drop after 20+ runs of an instance?
It's the yearning that keeps us going. "If only illidan would drop his stupid sword for me, 20 kills is getting ridiculous, augh." It's the item you never get that you remember, not the one that you do.
To anecdotally prove my point, how many people have quit after getting uber item X?
Now, how many quit while trying to get uber item Y which has never dropped? How many people do you know that only show up to raid when "their boss" is going down?
It's psychological, it's a good business decision for blizzard, and it's going to keep certain players - myself included - playing to try to get that last drop.
No more flawed than any of the alternatives. Wouldn't you like to leave those instances behind, once and for all? Or if you needed to gear up a new guildie to perform at your content level, you could spend one night getting everything he needs? I know I'm invoking the PvP vs PvE feud when I say this, but: PvPers get exactly what they want and know when they're going to get it. They work hard at their PvP strategies to do this. Raiders work hard to train 5 times as many people in PvE events. Why can't raiders have the same level of loot predictability?
What's flawed about getting your raiders what they need when they need it?
I would suggest it eliminates replay value and challenge.
1. Replay value - Sure, you claim you don't like X raid instance, because, "We've cleared it already! It's so easy!" Fine. You clear Kara once, and you're done with it. You clear SSC once, and you're done with it. You kill Illidan once, and the game is over. You've gotten what - a month, maybe two, out of the game? As much as you may purport to hate the content, it keeps you coming back. If you only play for loot, and not to experience the progression or the camraderie (or to set break-neck pacing records, or to kill a boss with a unique strategy, or whatever), you're losing a lot of the actual replayability and enjoyment that the game can offer, if you're open to it.
2. Challenge - If you get all of the best items from every encounter on your first boss kill, subsequent kills will be significantly easier. Repeat clears (if you choose to bother with them) will be of nominal difficulty at best - more than likely, you'll rip through 'farm' content without looking at it. New encounters in new zones will pose less challenge, since you'll have geared your raiders with the absolute maximum possible gear (given your number of clears through the previous zone). Overall, you would be flattening the learning curve and eliminating the need to tailor your strategy to your raid group, since homogeneous raiders would be almost a given. The unique setup and structure of your group, based in part on their equipment, would be superfluous or irrelevant.
I don't think this would make the game better. It might get you whatever item you're pining after, but I don't think it would improve WoW or make it a more enjoyable hobby.
I completely agree with this. Right now loot acquisition happens too slowly on many levels:
1. Certain specific Raid Gear is acquired too slowly as compared to Arena/Badge gear
2. Certain specific Raid Gear is acquired too slowly based on the time spent in the content... especially with the changes made so that you don't "need" to gear up before taking on the next boss. I'm not sure if any players had full T5 before we went into Hyjal/BT, and very few had it before we dropped it from our schedule (as much as possible anyway). It should be at the very least --likely-- that you'll complete your set if you're a regular raider.
3. Certain specific Raid Gear is acquired too slowly relative to the size of the raidforce. Similar to point 2, but slightly different. We have many people with very good attendance, but people feel very conflicted regarding spending/not spending dkp. There is a sense that items are "scarce" and that taking this item means that you can't have that other one, or can easily put players into a "Me or Him!" mindset with regard to a drop. Even people who raid for progression do *care about* the rewards, and it's hard to just get along with people when it often comes down to "EITHER this guy gets this item OR I do" with no sense that, with patience, there will be enough for everyone. I have even sensed tension between myself and other players in the guild over items--players I get along with very well. It doesn't get nasty, but it can be a strain on friendships... Perhaps a good example would be between myself and my fiance. We both very much want the T6 shoulders, and our classes are on the same piece. It is doubtful that we'll raid T6 long enough for everyone to eventually get T6 shoulders, so discussions of who would pass or not pass to who, if it were to come up, are a bit strained. We both want the other to be happy, but it's a frustrating situation.
Fixed that for you. As has been stated before: Raiding for specific drops sucks. Raiding for overall average gear upgrades per person is far better.
It is my belief that the reason for having loot drops be "random" is due to human psychology and the fact that Blizzard wants people to continue playing the game.
Take gambling for instance. Yes, there is skill involved, and math. Kind of like high end raiding . But there is a random element to it as well, which is what makes it so addicting.
I agree completely. Much of the thrill of downing a boss is the anticipation of seeing what he drops. Consider the difference between downing the first boss of heroic Sethekk Halls and getting a token ("yay, I'm .... one thirty-fifth closer to my epic") versus downing a SSC boss who has something you really want.
On the latter boss, the second he goes down your heart gives a little leap and you hope and pray for the item of your dreams to show up in chat.
I think the current system of "Random drops + Set Tokens" is rather good. It allows for the breathless anticipation of random loot with the fairness of tokens. I spent 6 months clearing BWL each week and only ended up with 5/8 T2, while many of my guildmates had 8/8. We sharded Stormrage week after week and only saw one Judgement breastplate in all that time, while had there been a token system I undoubtedly would have gone 8/8.
I think badges dropping in 10-man's is also a great idea, especially since Kara for example only has 2 bosses that drop set tokens.
While I don't think it's "fair" for someone to kill a boss 20 times and never get the one drop they want, I'd hate to see the randomization completely removed. If every boss just dropped tokens that you saved up, it would feel more like standing in a welfare line, just putting in your time until you got the item.
Loot tables should be shrunk - instead of a pool of 6 items from "Loot Table A" and Loot Table B" (potential of 12 different items), it should be 3 pools of 4 items each from Loot Tables A, B, and C (still 12 different items - but the average drop chance for each goes up from 1/6 to 1/4).
Current loot doesn't change, but the drop chance of each increases as well as providing a greater influx in loot. Randomness is only "really bad" when you have a vanishingly small chance of getting what you want due to bad luck, or an seemingly large chance to go several weeks [or resets] without getting what you want.
My only big complaint with the current RNG system are the weapons. Let me back that up by saying most item slots are tokenized (or close) but weapons!
- 5 pieces of armor - tokens
- rings - rep rewards
- belts - T5 pattern drops via Nether vortexes (or hearts of darkness T6 items)
- boots - bop item patterns if you have the profession
- Trinkets - heroic trinket can at least help here.
I'm wondering if we take the prize for "never seeing a caster sword drop".
Killed Gruul from Apr->Sept, no caster sword (only 1 dst ever).
Been killing Leo for a couple months. No caster sword.
Been farming prince every week, terrible luck with caster dagger drops.
ZA seems to be the panacea for this (common?) problem. ZA says to me "sorry we did a crappy job on weapon drops, here's LOTS of weapons." It has an absurd number of weapon drops + badges that buy ~T5 level loot for non-weapon slots. Today's 25 man raid problem for SSC/TK are the woefully few bosses that drop weapon upgrades, while at the same time having high DPS benchmarks for several fights (which become trivialized if you're a guild that got a few lucky weapon drops). The instant weapon gratification of ZA combined with "eventually" getting non-weapon slots filled is far better IMO.
Tokens *are* a more "fair" or "random" method of distribution set pieces. But even they have flaws.
It really sucks when you see double Defender off Vashj and Kael in the same week, and your shamans are screaming because they aren't getting drops from T5 *or* T6. I really didn't need to give a trial druid his T5 helm ... not when we have 2 paladins, 4 shamans, and a rogue who still need theirs.
And given that tokens are what they are, put an expensive solution in place: in Shattrah, next to the chick who sells your T5 items, put a shady looking character. He whispers "hey, dude -- you got a 'Defender' you want to get rid of cheap? Look no further" and then whips open his coat ... to display all 3 tokens of that slot. Want a different one? Pay 1000g + 20 Void Crystals.
Our guild bank would happily pay that if it meant we could stop running f&2king Vashj every week to try to get people their helms. I'm sick and tired of SSC.
As you can see, this means 1/6 is the best chance that the particular item you want is going to drop. There's also a lot of items which are likely to go directly to off-spec, or possibly drop once usefully and then go for off-spec. This means the lottery of whether you will get what you want, or for it to even be useful to the raid, is out of whack with where it was pre-TBC. I'm not saying that the RNG is necessarily a bad thing, but right now the system is in a state where I can name about 5 drops in BT that we've never seen once (some good, some bad), and I'm sure that isn't right for a guild farming Illidan for 3 months. Taking at least some "off-spec" (or minority spec/role? whatever) items off the loot tables and putting them in a badge/trash loot/etc system would certainly help with the loot tables getting so clogged up. Changing mechanics of classes also helps - the HoTW change for druids is certainly going this way.
I'm also in the "a little randomness is good" camp. Getting a cool item feels that much sweeter when you've been waiting for it to drop for 6 weeks, and it allows players that are not a main tank or a star DPSer to gear up without always having to wait until after the first 4-5 kills of a boss.
I think that the ideal system would be similar to the way naxx loot worked, where a boss drops 2 of 3 tier tokens plus one of 4-5 random items. This would also involve a return to 8 piece tier sets, but I think that if blizzard implemented gem sockets to their full potential (both by devoting more of every item's budget to sockets and adding a much wider variety of gems for things like haste, armor penetration, etc.) this would allow for the same levels of customization that we currently enjoy, while greatly cutting down on the randomness.
In addition, if some sort of zone-wide boss quest token drop like the AQ40 armaments/regalia was implemented to plug itemization holes that had emerged in the previous instance, I think it would be pretty easy to ensure that the vast majority of people got the loot that they needed while maintaining the element of randomness that makes killing a boss for the 15th week in a row at least somewhat exciting.
As long as we're exploring alternative raid looting options, how about we put the "FARM" back in "FARM-STATUS". That is, when you farm a crop, you know exactly what you're going to get when you harvest. I planted corn, I get corn. I planted wheat, I get wheat.
So how about the loot master gets to see the whole loot table for the boss (except, per-chance, ultra-rare mount drops, which may only appear occasionally) and is allowed to choose 2-3 of those items for her raid. Remove the damn RNG all together. Raid leaders and raiders can plan on who exactly is going to get what each week, simplifying DKP systems, accelerating raid gear-up speed, and good God, fewer Void Crystals choking the guild bank!
Officers and Main Tanks get their loot before anyone else! Never get the opportunity to try some interesting off-spec gear! Less incentive to raid, resulting in more account cancellations!
No, I don't think this will ever happen, nor am I convinced it is a good idea. Back before TBC was released, Blizzard specifically said they didn't use a one loot token for all classes system because guilds would use it to give every piece of loot to the main tank first (the obvious min/max ideal), which wasn't very fun for everyone who wasn't the main tank.
I would suggest it eliminates replay value and challenge.
1. Replay value - Sure, you claim you don't like X raid instance, because, "We've cleared it already! It's so easy!" Fine. You clear Kara once, and you're done with it. You clear SSC once, and you're done with it. You kill Illidan once, and the game is over. You've gotten what - a month, maybe two, out of the game? As much as you may purport to hate the content, it keeps you coming back. If you only play for loot, and not to experience the progression or the camraderie (or to set break-neck pacing records, or to kill a boss with a unique strategy, or whatever), you're losing a lot of the actual replayability and enjoyment that the game can offer, if you're open to it.
2. Challenge - If you get all of the best items from every encounter on your first boss kill, subsequent kills will be significantly easier. Repeat clears (if you choose to bother with them) will be of nominal difficulty at best - more than likely, you'll rip through 'farm' content without looking at it. New encounters in new zones will pose less challenge, since you'll have geared your raiders with the absolute maximum possible gear (given your number of clears through the previous zone). Overall, you would be flattening the learning curve and eliminating the need to tailor your strategy to your raid group, since homogeneous raiders would be almost a given. The unique setup and structure of your group, based in part on their equipment, would be superfluous or irrelevant.
I don't think this would make the game better. It might get you whatever item you're pining after, but I don't think it would improve WoW or make it a more enjoyable hobby.
I'm not sure if you misread or are using hyperbole to prove a point, but my suggestion did not include increasing the amount of loot dropped. You would not fully gear a 25-man raid in one clear. Neither, for that matter, did I say I hated the content. Wanting to spend less time to achieve in-game goals != hating the content.
All the random loot table does is inordinately stretch the time spent farming content before a raid feels "geared enough" to take on the next. This serves to frustrate some players as they try time and time again to get certain drops. While the time spent trying for rare drops may foster camaraderie, it also causes loot disputes and drama as people jocky for position in whatever loot system your guild has in place.
A "pick-and-choose" system would allow you to more quickly gear up a lost tank, healer, or DPS. It would let your existing players more easily gear for an alternate spec and try a different role in the raid, or for that matter, gear up an alt. All of which enhances the playability and replay value of raid content.
As for homogeneity, it really depends on the kind of raiders you have. Min/max raiders might start looking the same, but I find my raiders become somewhat attached to a certain spec and the the gear that goes along with it. Attendance that varies widely from raid to raid, so tailoring strategies based on who is in attendance would still be a concern and a far cry from superfluous or irrelevant.
Officers and Main Tanks get their loot before anyone else! Never get the opportunity to try some interesting off-spec gear! Less incentive to raid, resulting in more account cancellations!
No, I don't think this will ever happen, nor am I convinced it is a good idea. Back before TBC was released, Blizzard specifically said they didn't use a one loot token for all classes system because guilds would use it to give every piece of loot to the main tank first (the obvious min/max ideal), which wasn't very fun for everyone who wasn't the main tank.
Exactly right. The choose-your-loot system works in arenas because it isn't competitive. While it might work in some guilds with very responsible players and leadership, my experience makes me fairly confident that for *most* guilds it would just be an orgy of nepotism.
The game needs more tokenization to support off-specs, but that doesn't mean getting rid of randomness. It means narrows subcategories like "mail DPS gloves" yielding an option for hunter, elemental shaman or enhancement shaman, or "caster off-hand" yield an option for an off-hand or shield.
Being able to even pick *one* item per week from an entire instance would be worth real money, in my mind. I don't think the suggestion above of 3-4 items is valid, simply because it removes ALL chance for most clears. Just being able to pick one item will let us guarantee a "reason" for running a clear.
The following instances would instantly become less hated in my mind:
- Karazhan: daggers for everyone! (Mindblade)
- Gruul's Lair: DST for all my melee!
- Magtheridon: Magtheridon's Eye for all my casters!
- SSC: Lightfathom Scepter, please.
- TK: tough call; this would probably be the cloaks or ring from Kael
It would make it *worth our time* to go back to the older content. We really want those items, but it's a matter of whether or not we can afford to spend 3 hours to be disappointed again. Best case, Karazhan takes 2.5+ these days, as people are being stupid, goofing around, or just not taking it seriously with an aim to clear it fast. SSC takes longer than 3 hours ... the more time we spend in T6 content, the less attention span people have for T5, which just makes it painful.
And ONE item per week would not screw the RNG or remove the reason for raiding. It would just let us manually fix their bloody system which shows very real micro-streaks in drop %.
Officers and Main Tanks get their loot before anyone else! Never get the opportunity to try some interesting off-spec gear! Less incentive to raid, resulting in more account cancellations!
If you're in the kind of guild that would do that, then nothing I suggest will make the game any more fun for you.
Smart raid leaders understand the holy trinity of Tank, Heals, DPS. Nerf one part of the team and the others fail.
No, I don't think this will ever happen, nor am I convinced it is a good idea. Back before TBC was released, Blizzard specifically said they didn't use a one loot token for all classes system because guilds would use it to give every piece of loot to the main tank first (the obvious min/max ideal), which wasn't very fun for everyone who wasn't the main tank.
Pre-TBC, Blizzard wasn't very creative with their raid content design. Tank survivability was overly important. This is not quite as true now, what with enrage timers, multi-phase fights, and varying levels of raid-wide damage putting greater emphasis on DPS and healing. Stacking up your indestructible tank isn't nearly as important.
Being able to even pick *one* item per week from an entire instance would be worth real money, in my mind. I don't think the suggestion above of 3-4 items is valid, simply because it removes ALL chance for most clears. Just being able to pick one item will let us guarantee a "reason" for running a clear.
I'm all for a less random way for raiders to get gear. Case in point, Naj'entus has 14 drops, one of which is Boots of the Seacaller, one of only two dps caster boots in MH/BT. Since so many people are at the hit cap or plan to be on it with certain other gear, most of the dps casters are going for these boots as opposed to Blue Suede Shoes. In around 4-5 kills, we haven't seen it drop yet. It has a 14% chance to drop and we have around 10 dps casters in the guild.
I'm still wearing PvP bracers and the T4 level cloak. For some slots, there's simply no good upgrades or the upgrades drop so little and have so much competition. They really need to look at the loot tables, change the drop % around and improve or remove the badly designed items that nobody wants.
How about killing two birds with one stone? Back-Flagging and poor-drop luck.
Keep with the Kael/Vashj model for progression flagging, requiring you defeat the previous tier before moving onto the next. Along with that, introduce heroic mode of the raid instance, where the trash is reduced/eliminated, and all the bosses drop Badges of TierX for everyone in the raid who's already flagged past this instance. Killing the bosses still gives you credit for the various progression flag, and Badges of TierX can be used to purchase things off the loot tables.
This would give an incentive to still run the old instance, in a bit 'easier' manner, flagging people along the way, and giving a way for those that didn't have good luck the first go-round to get those items that never dropped.
As someone in a casual guild that's only just looking to get into ssc perhaps this week..the randomness of a few drops is a concern.
As a mage, the two truly exceptional drops in kara are the trinket from Illhoof, and the dagger from prince. Both of which just plain don't drop for me - which I admit is disheartening. You push a illhoof kill with a group that's really low in AoE, take a good few wipes and piss 20 odd mana pots down the drain..only to not even see the drop, again and again *is* disheartening, no matter how much I enjoy kara.
I think what would be really good, would be a very limited quest system as follows...
You reach exalted with whatever faction is relevant to that dungeon or kill the last boss in it, then you can take a quest for the one or two *exceptional* class-defining items in that place. You do the quest chain, maybe spend a bit of money and then gain some way of ensuring that the boss will drop your item - as an item only you can loot separate to the rest of the loot table.
Would another way to move in this vauge direction be to have a massive influx of random-suffix blues of appropriate iLevel dropping off trash?
When I canceled my account, I was doing Karazhan and Gruul's Lair. But I was still wearing random green bracers and belt. (I bet they're still equipped on my armory profile, even.) I had generally really good gear in my other slots (I can show you on the PTR if you want, my account works there). I just had gaps in those two areas (and I'm completely unwilling to PvP to fill those gaps in).
If a random blue bracer or belt dropped, of a higher iLevel than what you can get out in the world, I'd have been delighted. If the iLevel was higher in Gruul's Lair than in Karazhan, that'd be nifty. You could think of each raid instance as having two distinct sets of progression -- the high quality loot that drops from the bosses, and the "T-1" random, diverse loot that drops in a torrential downpour off the trash.
If you could completely equip a character or two in random-suffix blue crap of an ilevel appropriate to the instance in just a run or two, what would the result be? Make the stuff BOP, sure. Put it after a gatekeeper boss instead of on all trash, so people don't just zone in and clear trash all day, sure. Make it weaker than the epics that drop from the same place, sure. But provide a way to catch up, provide a way for people to fill itemization gaps, provide a way for off-spec folks to get gear.
I mean, I'd prefer a token-based system myself. I dislike the randomness. But the randomness could be made more palatable if you could gear up to a lesser level more rapidly. If the T6 instances dropped BOP random-suffix blue crap of T5 level quality like candy, that might work too.
(And, it would also allow for more differentiation. If you wanted to experiment with a massive mp5 build, there'd be enough high-powererd "of the elder" gear to try it. Et cetera, et cetera.)
10/25/07, 1:05 PM
. But there is a random element to it as well, which is what makes it so addicting.
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