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With the purples raining from the sky in WoW these days and the upgraded lewting system implemented, there seems to be a lot of focus on lewt drop drama.  Downing a boss now in 5-man instances is now a race to pull the lever and grab what drops out as quickly as possible.  In the rush, many times people don't get what they want because of loop-holes in the system, etc.  We still have the cries of NINJAS!  People still feel cheated.

It seems to me that they should just drop the whole lewt system.  Go completely over to an emblem system.  All bosses just drop an appropriate number and level of emblems.  Then, you take your stash of emblems and purchase what you need from vendors in major cities.  Obviously, the range of items would be much bigger including standard enchanting materials, etc.

To me, this would clear up all the issues people (including me) complain about in general with lewting including messed up lewt tables for instances, etc.

The drawback?  The biggest I can see is losing that whole Diablo type instant satisfaction with having a chance of getting an item NOW!

Are there others?

The only other solution I could see would require an algorithm that decided who should get the drop based on class and primary/secondary spec.  Allowing players to decide need vs greed seems to be the root of the drama.  I like the idea of a pure emblem system, but see how it would remove the lottery aspects of the fun.  Right now, WoW reminds me of those quarter vending machines I loved as a kid.  You put in your coin and hope that the cool toy you want drops out. 

Eh, I think the existing system is just fine.  Sure, if you run randoms exclusively you may have more problems than not, but even in 10-m and 25-m raids, I tend to get upgrades periodically just through the random /roll system.  The only system where I feel I get hosed is a loot council system where the raid leader gives it all to his wife or friends.  As far as 5-m dungeons go, it's not like the loot tables are so large that you never see another item again drop, just run it again another day for the rep, money, and EoT\EoF and chance or an upgrade.

The need for random is what keeps people coming back for more so that part won't go away.  I've always wanted Blizzard to add the gear dropped in instances to the emblem vendors so that you can buy a piece you couldn't ever get to drop if you want, but only after running it for quite a bit.

What loot drama? People clicking on need that don't need the item or what?

If you run into random groups that have free for all or master loot on feel free to leave.

Even in guild runs, which is all I will participate in and this is standard practice, I ask if I can need for off-spec items if no one else's primary is going to use it.  Yet another reason I don't want to deal with PUGs.

If they went to an emblem system they should do something else... gambling tokens!  The random "what's going to drop today" is part of the fun.  Give us tokens, let us select an item type, and then see what mods come out of it!

Are you playing WoW currently?  Your second statment isn't possible anymore.  Random is locked in one looting system only.

Options are Need, Greed, Disenchant.

Need:
You can only Need an item if it is in your maximum armor class.  Priest, mage can need cloth.  Druids can need leather, but not cloth.  Shaman can need chain, but not leather or cloth. Etc.  You obviously cannot Need a piece of armor that you can't wear either.  Anyone can Need a weapon they can equip.  Anyone can Need a necklace, ring, or cloak that is level appropriate.
Drama:  People Need to either lock in getting the item to sell or disenchant themselves.  Need has the highest priority for rolls from all the choices.

Greed:
If you cannot Need, then you can choose Greed.  Anyone can do this.
Drama: People that can use the item even though it isn't in their max armor category have to roll on it like everyone else.  Others roll greed just to get the item to sell or get the Achievement, "Greedy!"

Disenchant:
If you have an enchanter in the group with the appropriate level, anyone can select disenchant for an item.  As long as a Need hasn't been selected, this option will automatically disenchant the item and give the person that won the roll the materials from the disenchantment.
Drama: If somebody really did want an item and was forced to Greed it, one disenchant in the group with destroy the item unless a Need was rolled.  Also, greedy disenchanters like to use Need to keep the materials for themselves rather than providing their service for everyone else in the group.

That's a great idea.  Keep the luck and surprise in there, but eliminate all the issues with lewting items directly from the corpse.  Lantyssa's my favorite!

Purchase random gear bags with emblems?  Seems a good idea if the item is at least usable for the class.  Also making emblems BoA would be lovely too.

This!



Personally I see a lot of loot drama mitigated by the purple rain effect. If someone has been spamming trade chat for days to get groups to a particular dungeon and finally gets their drop, they are a lot less sanguine about it than someone who can get a group in 0-15 minutes max.

Also due to so many people running heroics now, it seems like many people have all the gear they want from the instance itself, and now just want badges. In most of my groups, no one notices or cares whether people roll need or greed in most cases.  It's pretty much just a 5 gold loss if someone ninjas the item.  Very rarely is there contention on a given item, and there's the knowledge that you can get another group quickly and get another shot at it, so even that is mitigated.

I do like the idea of making disenchant and greed rolls equal and the item only shards if a disenchant wins the roll. (false assumption corrected in other thread)

Yeah, more BoA please.


I have to admit that their current system is 10x better than anything had in the past.  So, I have to give them credit.

I was just wondering what could be done to improve yet even further.  I just like the idea of getting something from instances regardless of luck.  Emblems dropping is a great start to this and love that idea especially in big raids.  Nothing was worse back in the day than spending 5 hours in a raid to get jack all nothing.  At least we get a step in the direction of nice item eventually.

I also like systems that allow us to customize and feel "ownership" of the process.  Emblems help with that a lot.  We can manage and plan our toons to finite details these days and that helps with "teh funz."  A good balance of this and just plain dumb luck sound like a good goal.  There are some good suggestions in this thread already to do that.

I think the design problem with Emblems Only is that once you do the dungeon once for quest items, there's no reason to do it ever again except for emblems. Achievements maybe. At least with stuff dropping in Heroics, there's a reason to do certain Heroics over and over while you're gearing up.

Obviously, after you get all the purps from that you move out of that band of players, but as I'm a slow leveller, I haven't gotten all the purps I might out of a particular Heroic. On reflection, it may not even be worth it nowadays and just do the Emblem Dash for upgrades (or sneak into ICC Rep runs and hope for a nice purp or two while being carried.)
 

Yeah I  run 3 - 5 random heroics per day and all this time I never realized that the loot system has changed in the way you described, well apart from the disenchant option. That's why I was wondering whether it is a big issue after all.

Naw, not a BIG issue.  More like an annoyance really.  My thoughts on it started with Lum's blog entry with the "All the Ninja Raiders" video and subsequent comments by readers.  It showed there to be some sentiment amongst the players that the system may be better, but they are still wanting some improvement.

I wasn't trying to suggest each emblem drop = item.  You would need to visit instances multiple times to build up enough emblems to purchase something.  This would be balanced against current "chances" at items.  The only real difference in number of times repeating an instance would be that the emblem system would guarrantee you an item after a certain time.  Random drop systems don't guarantee you anything!  There IS a chance you will never get that items you were trying to get.

I really want BoA emblems. But mostly because I like to pug heroics on my warlock, and if I raid it'll be on my priest.

BoA Tokens would be awesome.

I just educated myself on the new loot system and there is one thing that I think is wrong in your description of the new loot system Dren.

Disenchant doesn't take precedence over greed. Disenchant is a greed roll but you state that "if I win this greed roll don't give me the item give me the mats instead"

So if you select disenchant and roll 10 and somebody else selects greed but rolls an 11 he wins the item, if you select disenchant and roll 11 and somebody else selects greed but rolls an 10 you win the mats.

So I only see the issue of an enchanter rolling need to keep others from getting the mats. Rolling need to sell the item is stupid in my opinion but people seem to be like that

Random loot does seem to be the bugbear of many.

Personally as a player who sees loot as a means and not an end I'm perfectly happy with the current system. A badges-only system would just become impossibly grindy and dull, and wouldn't really improve the game overall for me. As it stands you can get full gear sets from badges; so having random loot drops is fine.

I'm pretty OK with the system as-is, although if they did something like have the bosses drop BoA stuff instead of BoP, that would be cool. But then there would be EVEN MORE loot drama.

Or, each boss could just automatically grant each player one piece of random loot with no rolls. Bosses still have their own loot tables, so there's still a reason to run specific instances, and it keeps the "just one more run and maybe THIS time my sword will drop!" factor. Basically the same solution they're putting into Diablo 3, last I heard.

Keep the loot drops, but put everything in the dungeons on Vendors as well. Maybe split the vendors/currency down 'groups' of dungeons, if you want to be an asshole about it. So you have to farm the Utgarde dungeons for blah drop currency, then farm the Halls of Light/Stone for the other blah drop currency etc.



I mostly dislike random loot though, small wonder I favour all the honor/crafted/badger gear.

If they're going that route, I'd rather it be done like EQ2's Heirloom system. Basically they items are tradeable between characters on your account until they are equipped, at which point they become soulbound.

Edit: I really like the idea of BoA badges. That way, I could get insta-queue heroics on my tank and gear out my alts (and have a use for Triumphs besides epic gems).

My feeling is that the system has caused loot drama to dry up almost entirely compared to how it used to be in PUGs, actually. Except for the very top end heroics, the actual *items* that drop are not very often used for anything but disenchanting anyway, and the cost of losing a chance to roll on some level 200 cloth pants for a druid or something is pretty small since that upgrade would be extremely transitory given the badge system anyway.

Seriously things are much much better now loot drama wise.

Each person having an individual loot table with a mix of appropriate items and consolation prizes would work.  But as is, things aren't bad.

My objections to pure emblems (assuming you continue the WoW-like system of requiring lots of emblems for an item):

A. It would make characters even more identical than they are.  Right now, there are some differences between characters based on what drops.  If you switch to pure emblems, every single player of <class> is going to buy the exact same items in the exact same optimized order.

B. It's harder to gear someone up quickly on farm content.  In TOC, we lost(kicked out) one of our main tanks, so we had to gear up a new one.  We took a guy into toc-25 who was crittable and forced every tank drop we could down his throat to gear him up quickly.  If we were on pure emblems, we would have just cleared TOC and in a few weeks he could buy a single piece of loot.

C. It greatly reduces the incentive to clear new bosses because after all, you can just kill the easy bosses over and over for emblems.  All the new bosses have to offer is more emblems.

D. There's no longer an incentive for well-geared players to go back to old content for 'that one drop'.  You could still get people in full 245+ into TOC-25 clears up to patch 3.3 because they really wanted those trinkets and weapons that were in perpetually high demand.  Without the well-geared ringers, the less-geared players have zero chance of clearing the content.

Yeah agreed on all counts. I think the hybrid system works out the best.

My solution to this is a) make all loot random, b) allow crafters to fill the gaps in gear (like the spellcrafting system in DAoC), and c) allow for appearance tabs with dyes.  As soon as you create sets you have homogenized the game.  Random loot ensures repeats of instances, particularly if you tie crafting and require top crafters to need drops from particular instances.  I guess it's all what you're used to.

I'm pretty sure the current system is designed to drop anything but what you need.  For example, I run ToC a dozen times or so with my rogue.  All the leather drops are bal/resto Druid stuff, or Plate.  I finally get my Druid to 80 and the RDF sends me to ToC.  First drop?  Rogue leather piece.   :argh:

If I had more hair, I'd pull it out.

Only thing I'd really want is a lot more items on the emblem vendors just in case personally you have shit luck or Blizzard decides to hide the only offhand caster upgrade in the equivalent of HHOR. Weapon upgrades would also be nice because until HTOC and the ICC 5 mans they were very hard to comeby unless you were a raider or arena participant. 

I liked the variety the emblem vendors had toward the end of TBC, not sure why they made it so much more limited in WOLK. 

This is only from the perspective of a very casual, non raiding player.  Raiders will almost always find an upgrade of type of loot somewhere, but those that don't shouldn't be so boxed in by what's available.  Crafting can also help fill the gap here, but is often neglected.  I mean hell, are the best crafted weapons still titansteel?

Raids are like that too. The only time I've seen Juggernaut's Vitality drop in ToC25 is when I was in there on my rogue.

Yep, same for shields, hats, etc. There are some crafted pieces of higher level but they're very very expensive and you can only get the recipes via 25 man raiding (or spending precious primal saronite in the case of the ICC faction stuff.)

The problem with tokens is that people would only cycle through the easiest dungeons to build up their stash.  Even if the "hard" dungeon was nerfed to the ground, you'd still have people avoiding it like the plague based on rep alone. (Hello, Occulus)

IIRC, this has also been suggested before along with a more Diabloesque "totally random" system and Blizz said no. They'd rather have the bosses drop known loot so people can focus on those places, and don't want to go to a token system to avoid the ezmode problem.

My main wish is for boots that match the fuckin' sets.

You could just give most of the tokens out via the random LFG system (like the ones it gives when you complete a dungeon), so that if someone wanted to "maximize" their rate of earning, they'd have to run whatever the system gave them. 

Or, you could just do something like what Ezrast says, and ditch the idea of "competing" with other players for loot.  If the Boss drops X, everyone gets an X.  Or, just individualize the loot rolls, so rather than there being say, a 10% chance of some armor you can use dropping and you have to roll against other players for it, you'd just kill the boss and each player would have a 10% chance of getting something from their class' useable loot for that boss, without having to roll against the rest of the group.

I guess my lack of passion about the issue is... all of my characters are done with heroic gear outside of the ICC 5-m heroics.  So I get put in groups where mostly the people are matched for me and rarely need anything from them.  And I chain heroics on new alts so much that I've got badge gear and BoE blues replacing most of the drops for almost all the heroics relatively quickly anyways.

I have a lack of passion about it too, and I still need stuff from heroics.  I guess executing is just as much fun for me as teh phat l00t, so maybe that's it.

I would like to see a bigger role for crafting though. They seem to forget about it at some point usually. The BOP patterns introduced in BC is a good step in the right direction, but that mechanic seems only used to get fresh <max level>s started in each expansion. I'd like to see them fill gaps like someone here mentioned, albeit with hard to get mats.

But they haven't forgotten it at all.  Every tier of raiding so far has had two craftable pieces.  This tier you can have pants and boots crafted.  In tier 9 it was chest and bracers.

Can't you actually get 4 this tier?  2 patterns available at honored and 2 available at exalted?

I seriously wish there was craftable gear for the 71-80 run.  The 70 raid patterns were ridiculous materials wise to get once the expansion came out (just like the 80 raid patterns outside of this tier) and the gear that you *could* craft in between was mostly miss.  It was nice if you had *nothing* or had them all for the set bonuses but quest rewards were much cheaper and just as good to use.

my main problem with the "crafting" bone they like to throw is that 99% of the time, those bones ONLY get thrown to the Big 3: Leatherworing, Blacksmithing and Tailoring.   My Alchemist would KILL for a raid pattern or something.  I mean, sure, we got "freya's bag of random crap", but that does nothing for you when you dont run ulduar any more.   At least they threw a bone to Engineers with the new ammo.

I am surprised they haven't added in more Jewelcrafting or Inscription gear.  Alchemy's sort of in a strange spot (like the previous two) in that everyone still uses the same stuff as before: Flasks, Gems, and Glyphs.  You can throw Enchanting in there as well (save the two Ulduar enchants).

If LW/BS/Tailoring don't get new up-to-date items, they become semi-useless outside of their buffs.

There's multiple patterns, but they are only for the leg and boot slots. Generally there's a craftable item for each role at each tier, so LW get 4 leg patterns and 4 boot patterns (leather physical DPS, leather spell, mail spell and mail physical DPS) this tier.

This is happening now already.  Both Occulus and Halls of Stone are avoided like the plague.  I've been in multiple groups that had the tank dump after finding out it is either of these.  Actually, HoS has been more of a pain as of late.  Really any of the instances with fights that require all players to pay attention and contribute or else you wipe are being avoided.

I mean, if people (mostly Tanks) are taking a 15 minute time out just to avoid the instance, there is a problem.

I guess I'm fine with certain bosses dropping certain items, but there comes a time when these instances are farm country.  Drop the pretense and change to what they really are.  Plus, if Blizzard was so gung-ho on making each instance so special, why give such great rewards (2 T-emblems) for selecting random?  They are just doing one thing and saying another.

The random reward *encourages* you to play all the instances, rather than just picking your favorite and going to town. It is definitely not at odds with the idea of keeping each instance different.

Screw you all!  The only thing I can even try to sell as a Gnome Engineer is the new Arrows from IC.  :(

Yes, they're whiny shits who don't know how to tank.  Learn to play your class, learn the tricks of the trade, and man up.

This x 10.  If tanks are avoiding Halls of Stone, they simply suck.  I tanked it in This Gear (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Alleria&cn=Senjadra) on Sunday, minus the purple shield that I got today.   If I can do it with 3 other undergeared people, one of whom was the healer, anyone sporting a few badge bits can.  People simply want a cakewalk, and bitch when it's not and they have to PLAY instead of faceroll. 

Halls of Stone is not difficult. However, it contains one of the longest "boss fights" of any LK heroic, which is why when it comes up for me (which it seems to every other day) I have no problem waiting 15m for my 2 frost badges.

You take a fifteen minute hiatus to save three and a half minutes?

EDIT: And you can skip half the bosses in the instance?

Yes.

HHoS could use some edits (and it's getting a minor one), but it's kind of a dick move to requeue if you get it as a tank or healer.

YOUR queues are instant, but you just left four other people sitting around for 15 minutes waiting on another tank or healer to pop. Seriously, it's not hard, it's not that long, and it works out that you're not just being a prick because you don't have a long queue.

If your group sucks and can't get it's shit together, bail away! But bailing because an instance takes another two minutes is just  :uhrr:

It's not even a tough fight compared to a lot of them unless you're going for the achievement and the players are both under geared and don't know the spawns.

Its actually not that bad, stranded groups go to the top of the pile so even a dropped tank comes back pretty fast. Still kind of a rude move but it isn't TOTAL dickface action.

I play WoW for fun, not because I owe my tanking services to whatever random DPS I get queued with. HoS isn't fun, period, so I bail.

Not that I do this, but we are tanks and you are legion. No tank gives a shit about upsetting dps because they are always 10,000 more beating down the gates in a PuG format.

That being said, I would only bail on Occulus, because it's just not fun. It could be 10 minutes of not fun, instead of 15 minutes of me fishing, but I'm going to have more fun watching a basketball game and fishing than doing Occulus. After 5 years in this game, I simply refuse to do anything anymore that I don't find fun. I think everyone should do the same.

We were stranded for 20 minutes in HoS the other day because the tank dropped instantly.  Our timers ran out and we debated even bothering to wait, except that as DPS it would have been another 15-20m in the queue anyways...

Maybe the pause is battlegroup dependent, I've had tanks drop on DH for Oculus and the like and usually it only takes a minute maybe to get a new one in.

I don't brook no sass from my DPSers, but in turn I don't bail on a group, even if it's a dungeon I don't really like. None of them take SO LONG (assuming the group isn't ass, which happily for me has been rare) that I feel the need to leave four people without a tank. Clearly it's my womanly need to nurture that drives me to tank.

And in turn I don't say anything to anyone on their playing unless it is just horrendously bad.  I will make suggestions if the tank keeps charging mobs with no mana left for the healer, but beyond that I consider it my responsibility to keep up (within reason).

Yeah, I generally ignore the DPS numbers (I mean, I will make a face if I'm somehow winning DPS or something), I just don't want them telling me a) I can't tank something I've already successfully tanked multiple times because I don't have 50k HP or b) I'm going too slow when I kindly pause for the healer to actually get some damn mana back.

I tanked HHoS recently and agree it isn't bad at all.  I skipped right to the end and I'm estimating we were at the escort quest within 15 mins maybe less. 

The trouble was when we started that fight, the hunter went afk for most of it.  The warrior in the group noticed it and after we wiped due to taking way way too long getting the mass of mobs down due to 1/3 of our dps being missing we kicked him.  Replaced almost instantly and finished no problem.

Beyond the fun factor, people skip HHoS for the same reason they skip HHoR.  It takes a full competent group to be successful.  In complete PuG's that is a crapshoot.

Compared to other instances like the UK one I did last night it is a joke.  I was healing and the tank was a 25k hp pally wearing greens and blues.  I was pulling agro purely from healing let alone the 4k+ dps mage.  The fact that the other 4 people in the group knew what to do got us through with no issues.  HUK and others don't require a full competent group.  Hell, you could probably 3 man it.

I have tanked HHOS fairly often, and I don't think I've ever been in a group that failed it.  Strange.

The only instances I've had a group that failed to finish was HoR, HPoS and Oculus, that I can remember.  On all three it was the last boss.

Man, I had a tank that refused to pull if I was at 85% mana. Seriously, it's trash and we lack a mage. I'm not spending money on 15% of my priest's freaking mana bar!

That HUK instance I mentioned started off with me joining after the original group had failed on the first boss.  I'm telling you.  Total.Crap.Shoot. when it comes to these randoms.  My guess is that both the tank and the healer were severely undergeared...