PSGarak

Having the loot be determined by the composition of the group opens up the possibility to game the system, by stacking the group or raid to drop what you're looking for. If a caster wants a cloth drop, why would he have a plate class tank for him instead of a druid? Ditto melee vs caster DPS weapons/jewelry. This is an undesirable situation--at the least, it would reward people for only grouping with people of the same or lower armor class, and you don't want that sort of segregating to happen.

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Pyros

It'd also make gearing up paladins and druids pretty damn easy, as long as you can field 5 of them with the different specs. Might not kill as fast as an optimized group, but eh if all the loot that drops is useful to you, it's probably better than running it with other classes. I can see it already /2 LF1M Ret Paladin for 5paladins BRS.

 

• Gros

What about the enchanter business with your loot system ?

 

◊ Kyth

Succubus seduce isn't included, which means it's unlikely the CC changes are aimed at 5-man dungeons (unless they just forgot about it.)

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Prinsesa

That's a little succinct Kyth - do you mean Seduce is still broken by AS, Cleave and the like?

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Roywyn

From the wording, I'd guess that they mean all CC that breaks on damage but only listed two as examples.
Shackle, Repentance, Wyvern Sting, Freezing Trap, Sleep should be affected too, not just Seduce is missing.


I'm curious if disorient effects are included as well, like Scatter Shot, Gouge. Time to test it ... later on

 

◊ Kyth

Well. I thought I tested it. But now I'm wondering if the player (a random person on PTR) used a non-covered ability, and therefore lead me to think that seduce wasn't included in the list of protected CC effects.

I'll try to test again tomorrow. (or maybe the changes aren't supposed to be live yet, and that's why I thought it didn't work?)

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splidge

You could add countermeasures to that though, I'm sure you could get something workable out of it.

For example: assign every item that drops to one or more classes. You then only allow loot tagged with the class of someone in the group (you would have to ignore specs to allow people to grind in one spec for gear for another). But to discourage stacking, if you have multiple members of the same class it adds a random other class to the list of allowable classes.

So if I run an instance with a Paladin tank, Druid healer, Warlock, Mage and Rogue it guarantees that all drops will be suitable for one of those classes. However, if I try and game the system by running with 5 paladins then I might get a mixture of say Rogue, Hunter, Priest, Druid and Paladin loot. You could have an intermediate position where 2 of a class is OK but 3 or more get "punished". I guess there would still be the meta-game of optimising your group to eliminate the maximum number of unwanted drops from a given boss, but it should be possible to end up with a situation where you will get about the same chances regardless of who you go with.

The only major downside to this is you'd either have to make the class restrictions ridiculously loose (which at the extreme of allowing "anything you can equip" would lead to mail/plate classes being shunned as mentioned above), or people wanting slightly unusual items would have to resort to finding someone of the "right" class to group with (so if a Holy Pally wants some mail healing gear they would need to find a shammy to group with).

For disenchanters - well, even if you guarantee that the loot is "suitable" you still don't guarantee that they will want it, so you will still get plenty of shards. But I do think the current situation of having a boss drop (say) a Libram when there is no pally present is just silly - particularly when you don't have a disenchanter either.

Regardless I think this is something we're very unlikely to see since loot is determined at mob spawn time so there's no way it could allow for things like changing group composition or zoning in before the group is complete - so to make it work properly they'd have to completely rejig the loot system.

 

orcsgotbooty

Not that I think that it is that big of an issue for 5 mans and such, but you forget that "rogue gear" in many cases is much better than their own equivalent for feral druids/dps warriors/hunters/enhance shaman.

 

Phlis

Name me one way that this is better then tokenizing loot?

It's harder to impliment, only works if you actually do try and game the system (Group of Mage, Lock, Ele Shaman, Holy Pally and Prot Warrior, rogue leather drops, half the group can use it, nobody wants it), and still random and annoying.

 

Holtzhammer

Its a simple change to a mechanic that the player cannot control. Its based on the same logic of making the PvP trinkets remove effects that make you lose control of your character. I'm sure the Shaman CL'ing wouldnt want to hit the sheep/repentance anyway, and since it's "Smart" it shouldnt hit it either.

This goes double for inate abilites pet classes have (like Felguard's Cleave). How many arenas have you missed because your lock's Felguard "accidentally" cleaved the CC?

Theyre trying to take out another random, uncontrollable element from an otherwise random encounter.

 

Nezralix

The only real argument I've heard *against* tokenizing loot is that people get their drops too quickly.

That people stop running instances the moment they get all their loot is a complicated problem, one which Blizzard should probably try to address with additional measures (beyond reputation grinding).

 

Fendryl

This will be partially addressed with 25mans dropping badges & the addition of epic gems being able to be purchased with said badges. Badges are just basically an in-game dkp, so long as there's something for you to always buy with them, you should always have some incentive to keep showing up. Hopefully, they'll expand the badge rewards to more continually desired rewards.

 

levk

The fact that they put gems on badges ensures people will keep running stuff for badges alone because anytime you get a single piece of gear you need to gem it and enchant it. This is going to be the gift that keeps on giving in that sense; next thing they do is have some enchanting material purchasable with badges for a brand new 42 healing to gloves or something other enchant.

 

koaschten

We just tried to get into Sunwell Plateau on EU PVE PTR. Neither zoning in nor porting people into the instance is working, even after those insight triggered Brutalus to get an id. It still fails with "Transfer aborted. Instance not found."

 

• Relwin

Confirming that the changes don't seem to be in yet. Multi definitely broke a mob that had been sheeped for about 3 seconds last night when we were screwing around with Muru and add control.

This bear is cooler than you.

 

Zifna

There are other reasons.

1. Tokens require a higher degree of awareness from the individual player. Oh, look, we killed Kael and he dropped a quest starter, who wants it? Immediately someone will ask what you can turn it in for. For high end guilds, this is less of a problem--more people will have looked ahead and planned out their gear in advance. The less serious you get, the more of an issue it is.

Tokens make guilds more reliant on out of game resources to make gear choices.


2. There's less mystery/anticipation. "What does this boss drop?" "Oh, all the stuff you see that Orc selling near the entrance." When a boss goes down for the first time on a server/battlegroup, it doesn't mean new items can be linked or anything.

3. It's just less exciting to have a boss drop "Token of Weaponinity" than "Weapon of Super Amazing!" These flavor aspects are definitely part of Blizzard's considerations.


Now, I'm not advocating one side or the other, I'm just saying that there are more factors than that in Blizzard's choice.

 

PSGarak

Completely tokening loot, and removing normal loot drops, makes the group/raid PvE game behave different from the world PvE game, which would almost certainly remain untokenized. Blizzard doesn't like splitting up mechanics, which is another reason you're unlikely see a boss drop only tokens. The sunwell semi-token offset loot is a good way of getting the same effect without feeling like there's a split. Note also, zifna, that your point 2 addresses your point 1: if the vendor is there, the excitement goes down which is regretable, but people know what tokens buy, and at the least can remember or write down which tokens (or tradeable offset loot) they're interested in.

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Tyrian

As much as people put forward the benefit of tokens, I really do prefer the good old random drops. As the above poster said, its fun to find out what a boss will drop on a given clear - and much more satisfying to see the Weapon of Uberness drop rather than a Token of 5 Classes-Can-Turn-In. Yes, I know that if your on the receiving end of bad luck its easy to hate the system - but I cant imagine anything more boring (loot wise) than a completely tokenised game.

The conversions/transmutes Sunwell offers are a great idea - and far enough I think. Its a good middle ground, without over-tokenising things.

 

• Bazazu

I agree with this to some degree. It is obviously very frustrating to get fucked by the RNG week after week. It took us 40 teron gorefiend kills to see our first pair of tanking gloves.

What I would like to see though, is a slight change in 2 parts...

1: Boss loot pools not being so large. When you've got 12 items on a boss, and you are down to only needing 1 or 2 items, it seems impossible to get that last item.

2: When a boss dies, it actually drops, say 4 items (instead of the usual 2 or 3). However when looting, you are only allowed to loot 1 less than what is there. So after you loot say 3 items, the 4th one would "poof". This would allow some overlap to try and get more needed items, and allow the players to "throw back" one item every week that was shitty.


Of course this is all academic. It's become clear that Badges are now Blizzard's preferred method of dealing with their own shitty itemization methods. I really hope they come up with something better for WOTLK.



As a side note, this is starting to deviate pretty far from Patch discussion. I'd get back on track or we will attract the attention of the message board gods.

 

ZeroWashu

If it were trully random and not from a select number of items I would agree. Its fun the first few times then it becomes a grind trying to get that "one drop".

I understand the concept behind bosses dropping specific gear, sometimes it just doesn't seem to be appropriate for a particular boss. Badge loot is just an acknowledgement that people tire of the RNG and that farming a mob for that one drop turns it more into a job than a game.

 

• Caniki

A quest is really nothing more than a token drop. Do thing, get to choose from reward a, b or c. Choose the one that best suits your needs.

 

bludwork

Getting what you want now may fix the instant satisfaction you get each time you do an instance or raid but it hurts the game in the long run. The random loot system does work, but it does not work when the loot is garbage or the good items have a low drop rate. Blizzard can easily fix this by

a) making sure loot that drops off bosses is very high quality and desired by all
b) all items have an equal chance of dropping. rare items such as mounts, enchants and legendaries excluded.

 

tedv

The counterpart of A) is the desire to give every one in the raid SOME piece of loot they want. If every piece of loot is in high demand, then the elemental shaman will never get his mail spell damage gear, because it's unlikely more than 1 person in the raid would ever use it.

And it turns out they are already doing B). Almost all bosses have two loot slots, each with 1 of 6 items that appears 1/6th of the time. The problem here is that some items are desired by 1/3rd of the raid and others by 1/25th. If the latter were 8 times rarer, then there would be fewer complaints (although there would still be issues).

 

Malan

This is a pretty decent idea actually. Continue with the RNG and its but allow some *choice* in the matter without completely moving to a token system.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06