What if all loot were badge loot? - Page 3

Adiankur · 05/14/08, 3:30 PM

I would like to see something a little different than badges or tokens dropping and being redeemed. Personally, I would prefer if blizzard would review the loot tables of the various instances on a regular basis, and add items from those instances to the trash drop list of higher instances.

I would expect the drop rates of these items to be less common, but more likely the higher up you went in progression. The items could be on a different drop table. Since you wouldn't want to decrease the chance of the quality trash drops that already fall, the secondary loot table could be on a alternate roll, or part of the loot generation percentages already in place.

These numbers are obviously not accurate and are entirely provided by me. They are obviously not intended to be a completely accurate account of the way things are done, but only to give an inkling of what I am getting at.

RNG 1-100

01-04 = pattern drop or vortex/hods/sunmote
05-07 = normal trash loot table
08-09 = expanded loot table from previous instances
10-99 = all the regular crap we already get
100 = world drop

Now, that secondary loot table would have its own table with items dropping from instances further below current content dropping more often, (DST in bt or sunwell), and items from instances closer in progression dropping less frequently. It is probably still more likely to get a DST from running Gruul, but the further on you go, your chances of seeing one will also increase on your regular runs.

Edit: I know what you are all thinking right now. Knowing blizzard, we won't get DST, but Eye of Gruul. It's a risk I'm willing to take.

Angeron · 05/15/08, 12:16 AM

Originally Posted by Gokey

Or better yet, what if bosses couldn't drop an item that everyone had?

Obviously you'd to "lock" items to certain classes, but it should be codeable easily enough. ie: [Antonidas's Aegis of Rapt Concentration] would no longer drop once every shaman in the raid had it.

I think this is a brilliant idea and I could never figure out why blizzard has not implemented such a scheme in 25 man raiding.

• Intermission · 05/15/08, 12:33 AM

I think that idea has too many grey areas, and requires the developers to actually know who uses what, and then make code based around that.

For example, that shield is a great prot paladin shield (the best in the game for threat, isnt it?)

Also, what happens if people want two of an item for alternate enchants/gems/scope? Or people who use a tentacle staff with Unholy / Cataclysm's with Icy / etc as their city weapon?

Cyn · 05/15/08, 12:56 AM

As well as the fact that you'd STILL get that 27th dagger no-one wants, however, now... even more reliably!

◊ Cadfael · 05/15/08, 3:28 AM

Originally Posted by Angeron

I think this is a brilliant idea and I could never figure out why blizzard has not implemented such a scheme in 25 man raiding.

Since loot is determined on spawn time and bosses normally spawn on instance creation, this means that they would need to prevent building/changing a group once the first player enters the raid instance in order for this to work.

That or all bosses need to spawn in at pull time. And that's just one minor technical issue with that proposition.

Prinsesa · 05/15/08, 4:19 AM

Originally Posted by Angeron

I think this is a brilliant idea and I could never figure out why blizzard has not implemented such a scheme in 25 man raiding.

Because it's subjective. Ok, so all your Shaman already have [Antonidas's Aegis of Rapt Concentration] and it gets locked out. What about the Prot Paladins that could use it for more threat?

All your Hunters already have [Ranger-General's Chestguard], but it's still a viable upgrade for your Enhancement Shaman.

All your Rogues already have [Belt of One-Hundred Deaths], but any one of your melee DPS would be willing to snap that up for the large expertise bonus.

It's this late into TBC and we're still seeing this kind of itemization mixing. How is going to be acceptable for Blizzard to lock everyone into their respective items from the very start when we KNOW that Blizzard makes a lot of itemization mistakes. Spell damage socket bonus on Ret T6? MP5 on Enhancement Shaman sets?

Wouldn't it be better to:
1. Keep the tier token system, but if you're going to drop three tokens, make it one of each class, for the love of Pete.
2. Keep one random non-set epic drop if you REALLY want to keep the random factor
3. Instead of a second non-set epic drop, make a boss drop a piece of himself (Gruul's head, Lurker Below's fin, Azgalor's hoof, etc.). This piece can then be turned into a quest NPC somewhere in Shatt or inside the dungeon to get any specific item from the boss' drop table.

• The Gopher · 05/15/08, 4:27 AM

The way it is in sunwell currently is the best application of it thus far and I have no complaints with it, albeit, I havent seen the major caveats of the system yet, but from a theoretic standpoint it looks solid.

I dont think it's ideal for Blizzard to abolish the RNG system, as that's what makes killing bosses fun in my opinion, well, at least before you kill the boss. RNG prolongs content, and as shitty as that is, it'd be a loss of revenue for Blizzard if they had to design more content to make up for the fact people are getting the drops they need rather quickly. This is, if they want to maintain the high end raider subscriber base. Ideally, yes, it would be nice to be able to get all the loot you needed within a reasonable amount of time, practically, it's not a good idea.

Finkum · 05/15/08, 4:32 AM

Originally Posted by Cadfael

Since loot is determined on spawn time and bosses normally spawn on instance creation, this means that they would need to prevent building/changing a group once the first player enters the raid instance in order for this to work.

That or all bosses need to spawn in at pull time. And that's just one minor technical issue with that proposition.

Off topic: That always struck me as a very unwieldy way to determine loot, as compared to determining loot on mob death. If nothing else it means you have to do a lot of unnecessary calculations, as a significant number of mobs that are spawned will not be killed. Mobs that drop quest items will always have those items in their drop table and then have them hidden if the player is not on the appropriate quest, which will be true for the majority of players for the majority of the time (with some exceptions, obviously). It's all just very counter-intuitive.

I realise that you are referring to that GM quote stating that this was how things worked, but it wouldn't be the first time they've been wrong.

Semi on-topic: A system which alters the drop rate based on what current raiders have in their inventories/banks does seem to easily gameable, and won't solve the problem of "useless" drops that are always sharded. Perhaps a more subtle approach might be to keep a history of each player's drop history for a boss and then use this to make the RNG less objectionable (obviously functions best with a fairly static raid comp). For example, if 80% of the members had seen [Yawnworthy dagger] drop in 4 of 5 total kills of [Overlord of Evilness] then it's chance of dropping could be artifically lowered compared to the other options. This is a bit harder to game, especially as the drop chances are modified progressively over time rather than being a binary exclude.

Definitely on-topic: I also vote for increased integration of crafting professions. Create a new skill analagous to DEing (Deconstructing) that operates via will-not-be-traded to turn an unwanted raid drop into a token and some crafting mats. Crafters can learn recipes to turn this token + other crafting mats into alternate items. Recipes could be associated with reputation, trash drops, or even be learnt as a result of deconstructing the item(s).

For example, say there is a Winterchill-esque boss who drops all different types of bracers. Healing cloth bracers drop that no one wants. However there is a mage who would like the dps cloth variant. Loot the healing bracers to the mage, who can deconstruct them himself (or get a guildie to deconstruct them, if he is not a tailor) into a [Hyjal wristguard essence] and some primal mooncloth/primal life/primal water etc. Then supply the tailor with e.g. spellcloth and primal fire and reconstruct into the dps bracers, supplying the [Hyjal wristguard essence] via will-not-be-traded (thus preserving the BoP nature of the drop).

This basically works similarly to the sunmote + item turnins but does so in a much less intrusive, "we have an infinite supply of epic shinies" way (plus it gives added value to the crafting professions).

Edit:

Originally Posted by Angeron

I think this is a brilliant idea and I could never figure out why blizzard has not implemented such a scheme in 25 man raiding.

Was I the only one who interpreted this comment as heavily sarcastic?

Anthion · 05/15/08, 9:52 AM

I like the idea of 1 badge type, could do something similar to AQ and put the badge vendor near the end of the instance (maybe make it despawn if someone without the raid ID zones in). I didn't mind Naxx either, having to mix materials dropped from the instance meant you had to farm it at least somewhat. It would be nice to be able to buy the off-set BT items for badges, then continue with tokens for set drops (maybe make it more fair and always drop 1 of each). The nice weapons and stuff should still be RNG.

Legendaries should be on a system similar to Atiesh, I think we made 1 of these on my server (post-BC), not like every caster had one.

Mano · 05/15/08, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

1. Keep the tier token system, but if you're going to drop three tokens, make it one of each class, for the love of Pete.
3. Instead of a second non-set epic drop, make a boss drop a piece of himself (Gruul's head, Lurker Below's fin, Azgalor's hoof, etc.). This piece can then be turned into a quest NPC somewhere in Shatt or inside the dungeon to get any specific item from the boss' drop table.

to 1: please no. Thinking this through leads only to headaches including locking the amount of tokens to three.
Don't forget, in LK there will be 10 classes to 3 tokens. Or maybe 10 classes to 5 tokens?
Or maybe 5 tokens with 4 classes each, and each class on 2 different tokens?
Maybe they want to start with bosses only dropping two tokens, and "nerfing" the instance later on to them dropping 3,4,5 tokens.
And I haven't the faintest idea if the class ratio of a token vs another token is realistic. Are there really the same amount of [Hunter, warrior, shaman] in a raid as there are [priest, warlock, paladin] (not sure which classes here). Not to mention that some classes can get up to three different items for different specs.
And remember the start of BC. all of the clothies weren't even really interested in T4/T5. With the right (wrong!) combination of classes on a token you could insure that one of the tokens would directly go to the disenchanter.

3. is in general a nice idea, but if it's done too much it'll soon get old. Not to mention that if the quest is available only once per player, it probably will lead to too much problems. Think about items changes later, new stats introduced later on which change the values of items, , respeccs, etc.

Originally Posted by Finkum

Off topic: That always struck me as a very unwieldy way to determine loot, as compared to determining loot on mob death. If nothing else it means you have to do a lot of unnecessary calculations, as a significant number of mobs that are spawned will not be killed. Mobs that drop quest items will always have those items in their drop table and then have them hidden if the player is not on the appropriate quest, which will be true for the majority of players for the majority of the time (with some exceptions, obviously). It's all just very counter-intuitive.

I realise that you are referring to that GM quote stating that this was how things worked, but it wouldn't be the first time they've been wrong.

it's also semi-proofable that it's the way it works. See blasted land mobs (not the banishing ones).

It may be counter-intuitive to do it this way, but I'm not sure which other way would be really better. I can think of ways of gaming practically every other system where you can somehow influence the drops. And the other systems are probably going to lock you out of items.

Originally Posted by Finkum

Semi on-topic: A system which alters the drop rate based on what current raiders have in their inventories/banks does seem to easily gameable, and won't solve the problem of "useless" drops that are always sharded. Perhaps a more subtle approach might be to keep a history of each player's drop history for a boss and then use this to make the RNG less objectionable (obviously functions best with a fairly static raid comp). For example, if 80% of the members had seen [Yawnworthy dagger] drop in 4 of 5 total kills of [Overlord of Evilness] then it's chance of dropping could be artifically lowered compared to the other options. This is a bit harder to game, especially as the drop chances are modified progressively over time rather than being a binary exclude.

How is the system knowing that not everyone wants one [Yawnworthy Dagger]? Because it's actually the [Imba daggr of E-peenness] if used correctly?
And if it's really Yawnworthy (TM), why is it even on the loot table?
Even better: what about changes to items, combat mechanics, stats, theory crafting. Suddenly the item is now the best in game, but it's practically ensured you won't get it.
Example: It's not yawnworthy, but still. I think I could easily distribute about twenty DSTs in my guild. Every member of a class dealing physical damage (this means including resto shamans, holy palas, etc) wants one for their melee equip.

Think about this senctence: "Hey guys, I'm quitting you for another raid because I can't get $item in this raid anymore but can get it easily over there. Bye and have fun."

What if you would tie it to disenchant rate of items? Hey, even cooler, items which are useful for one spec only will probably stop dropping really soon.
Just a bit sad that your new ret pally/boomkin/whatever you got specifically for SWP/$new_instance now can't gear up reasonably anymore as this item would have helped him a ton...
Hey, five weeks no boomkin in the raid because he can't on this week day, he'll *never* get his $item now.

In the end, there are two possibilities:
- random.
- you can choose what you get.

these can be combined (e.g. its random which token drops, but you can choose if you want ele/enh/resto gear).

In the end, most of the complaints about the loot are because many items are badly itemized or not many people want it. If that was fixed, the rest wouldn't be a problem.

Faldrath · 05/15/08, 12:55 PM

Originally Posted by Mano

In the end, there are two possibilities:
- random.
- you can choose what you get.

these can be combined (e.g. its random which token drops, but you can choose if you want ele/enh/resto gear).

In the end, most of the complaints about the loot are because many items are badly itemized or not many people want it. If that was fixed, the rest wouldn't be a problem.

Which points back to my suggestion, in a way. Let raids choose one item that will *not* drop (maybe 2, depending on the size of the boss' loot table). This would be an issue on new bosses where the loot table isn't known, of course, but Blizz could certainly implement a time frame for this (you can only choose loot that won't drop two months after the boss has been introduced, etc.).

Vhex · 05/15/08, 1:31 PM

Why all the conviluted systems? Mob drops entire loot table, you get to pick 3~6 items. Done.

Hell, you could make it part of the encounter. You start out by getting to select 3 items. If you beat the encounter without anybody dying other then to intended mechanics like BA/Doom/etc,, that's +1 item. Beat it in under a certain time frame, another +1 item. Manage to beat the fight with a special 'hard mode' trigger, you get access to 1 special item (legendary or just higher ilvl).

Only two standard counter-arguments is that "PLAYERS LIKE RANDOM!" which is complete bullshit in and of itself and the marketing-sympathizing-assholes who feel people will stop playing a game if they suddenly have all the gear they need. Alts, turnaround and off-specs mean that you'll still be going back for loot for some time and if you have a guildmate that quits because he has no more loot to get, f him, get somebody else and start getting them loot.

Uglesh · 05/15/08, 1:59 PM

I'm floored by how many people think a "pick what you want" loot table is a good idea. It would only ensure that guilds would burn through content faster and therefore the instance lifespan would be TERRIBLY short. Blizzard doesn't want this, and I'm sure we all don't want to be sitting around for MONTHS and MONTHS waiting for the next patch for 1-2 more instances that we'll be done with in a 4-6 weeks.

I understand that people feel the RNG bones them week after week... but it screws everyone equally. The real problem is that some items are just poorly itemized. Sockets were a GREAT idea, and they could easily expand the "personalization" of items through these types of mechanisms. While Theorycrafting has told us what is "BEST", there are lots of ways items could still be an upgrade from previous items.

Lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater... tokens are just a cop-out. If a boss has a 20 item loot table and only 8 of those items were ever taken, do you think that's a good system?? If every melee DPS was able to have a DST would that not hurt the status and uniqueness of it?? I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to see everyone in identical gear because the cookie cutter theorycrafting says "DO THIS".

gnoop · 05/15/08, 2:17 PM

In all honesty, the number of systems currently in place seems pretty good. You have RNG loot that people want out of just about every tier level along with tier tokens and badges.

I still find the idea of class-splitting tier tokens bizarre. One token's good for plate, leather, and cloth? Just drop X number of tier tokens, classless tokens. That would solve problems of token waste and the gripes over people getting tokens for tiny sums of dkp because no one wanted it or only 1-2 people from that token were there. I'm curious to see how the tier gear is handled in LK with the addition of another class. More tokens (say, 2 classes per token) will just introduce more headache, really.

talzar · 05/15/08, 2:46 PM

Originally Posted by Vhex

Only two standard counter-arguments is that "PLAYERS LIKE RANDOM!" which is complete bullshit in and of itself and the marketing-sympathizing-assholes who feel people will stop playing a game if they suddenly have all the gear they need. Alts, turnaround and off-specs mean that you'll still be going back for loot for some time and if you have a guildmate that quits because he has no more loot to get, f him, get somebody else and start getting them loot.

It's pretty funny how the very next reply after your post was apparently a player that likes random. I'm with you though, I think the RNG sucks ass. The horror stories related to it make me sad, for instance my guild back in Naxx never got a single plate DPS belt from Razuvious. You know what that meant? Our warriors were using the Rangaros belt until they got a Red Belt of Battle. I think the only other plate DPS belt at the time that was anywhere near comparable was some blue one from one of the Auchnidoun instances, that's how poor the itemization was.

In the same manner, we've been farming BT for a long time and we've never gotten a polearm from Naj'entus and we just yesterday got our first necklace from Supremus. I think a "Pick your loot" style system would be a huge bonus, just because Blizzard is so slow at designing content doesn't mean people should be happy about having to farm instances for 9 months to get that one item that nothing can beat.

Plus, as an officer that's responsible for deciding who gets to award loot it would make things so much easier for me.

Douglas · 05/15/08, 3:40 PM

Originally Posted by Uglesh

I understand that people feel the RNG bones them week after week... but it screws everyone equally.

Actually though, one of the problems is that it doesn't. Because it's really random, some guilds can have a string of good luck, and some guilds can have a string of bad luck. Some way to "normalize" the RNG would be a great thing.

Let me brainstorm about this for a minute.

You go into an instance. It has n bosses.

There are n+1 loot tables; each boss gets a personal makes-sense-for-that-one-boss loot table, and there's also a "global" loot table that the bosses share. We've seen essentially this for raid loot tables as far back as MC.

When an item drops, it is removed from the relevant loot table.

So, a boss drops. It drops two items from its personal loot table... but they cannot ever be the same item, because when the second item is rolled for, the first is not on that loot table. It also drops three items from the global loot table, which also cannot ever be the same item.

Second boss drops. It drops two items from its personal loot table, and they can't be the same item. It also drops three items from the global loot table, and those items can't be the same... but they also can't be the same as any of the items that dropped off the first boss.

On soft reset, all loot tables reset (though for bosses that don't respawn, you can't tell). So if you split the run across nights, some duplicates become possible. (Perhaps worth it to mitigate some types of gaming the system.)

Doesn't really make the RNG screw everyone equally, but it at least evens things out a bit -- a run with no feral druids is not going to see a feral druid staff drop six times in a row. So it might be more equal than it is today.

Uglesh · 05/15/08, 4:22 PM

Human nature being what it is.... people will always complain a heck of a lot louder about the item they only saw once, than about the rare item that dropped in 3 of the first 4 weeks downing a boss. My guilds first 6 Leo kills yeilded 2 Tsunami... haven't seen one since... We have killed VR a ton of times... no Cowl, but about 5 Pistons.. the knife cuts both ways.

In my eyes, the trouble has always been with the lack of versatility/customization for each item and relatively small gear pools.

Allev · 05/15/08, 6:12 PM

Rather than design a new loot system from the ground up, they could simply build upon what they already have (WITH the RNG) to make things a little bit better. The problems of farming old instances, destroying crappy loot, and so on can be solved pretty simply:

0) Make loot usable by more classes. Sure, tokens did this. But so did changing ret mechanics to match DPS warriors. So did changing feral druids to get more out of AP. Blizzard has promised us more emphasis on this in the future. This way, fewer "wasted" drops.
1) Design loot that reliably gets better as instances go along. It should be DST < Tsunami < Madness, with slight variations based on class. The only thing worse than a feral-specific idol drop is a feral-specific idol drop that's a downgrade from badge/quest items. RNGs mostly hurt when 3/4 of the items on a boss aren't worth using on anyone's main.
2) Design more items for non-set token slots. If you can get a set-piece in a slot, you already have a guarantee of upgrading to a certain ilvl (regardless of how optimized it is). AFAIK, while not always optimal, set gear is "good enough" for characters to use regardless of spec.
3) Balance the loot better with expected number of kills. It was hard to imagine (and certainly unplanned) for Kael/Vashj to only be killed 5 times by almost every guild on the planet. But, if you're going to have bosses like that, you either need to increase the number of drops they have, or reduce the loot table's size.

Any kind of system where you let the group killing the mobs have input on what loot they get might be optimal for endgame raiding machines, but it's downright brutal to casual raiders and PUGs.

For instance-- what gets a PUG organizer motivation to start the PUG? A big part is needing loot on that toon. Give the PUG organizer a chance to master-loot (since he picked the raid, he gets ML), let him control the drops, and all of a sudden he picks what he and his friends/guildies/etc want to drop, regardless of group consensus. Just one experience like that, and you can turn a casual off from raiding for a long, long time.

Let's not create a drama system in place of the RNG, shall we?

Solmyr77 · 05/15/08, 8:21 PM

What happened to the treasure hunter spirit of the Diablo2 days ?

I prefer the pre-badge system to the current one. I may accept some "lesser" items being available for badges to allow for some compensation of bad luck or to get new recruits into raiding faster. But those "welfare" items shouldn't be as good looking or as powerful as things that drop from a big, powerful dragon.

I also don't want guaranteed drops. If my item drops, fine. If it doesn't, it may drop the next time. But I don't want to grind 15 kills of a farm boss to get it, because kills #4-14 would be at the lowest possible level of fun for killing that boss. It's just so much more exciting to hope for a lucky drop than to work for yet another token.

And don't tell me you should get the items sooner than after 15 kills, there's no justification. 15 kills award 30 items these days and that's nowhere near 25 first-choice drops.

Morlark · 05/15/08, 9:03 PM

Originally Posted by Cadfael

Since loot is determined on spawn time and bosses normally spawn on instance creation, this means that they would need to prevent building/changing a group once the first player enters the raid instance in order for this to work.

That or all bosses need to spawn in at pull time. And that's just one minor technical issue with that proposition.

I don't think that's actually an issue at all. There are numerous examples of loot that is present, but can only be seen in certain circumstances, e.g. scourgestones, or that fish tracking book from the crates, or pretty much any quest item. It's not too much of a stretch to think that think that this suggestion could be implemented simply having all bosses spawn with all possible loot drops, and then adjusting the visibility of the appropriate items based on raid composition at kill time.

At the end of the day, I think Blizzard simply doesn't want to implement this idea. And to be fair, I can kinda see why. If they start allowing us to directly fiddle with the drops in this way, where does it end? Part of the allure of the RNG is that it is random. If you know what you're going to get and when you're going to get it, there's no sense of thrill or anticipation.