The Drop, The Roll and The Unlucky

[marcovchb]

I made this post at WoW official forums: us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1965840910 is quite a story and a long post, because of it, it hasnt been answered as I had expected, you are welcome to read if you have some free time or you are queueing for a heroic atm.

Summarizing the thread, I wanted to address a problem in the mechanics of the game, this problem is the Drop/Loot Reward System.
I think that having a "DROP CHANCE" for items after defeating a boss is not exactly the most fair way to reward a party for its effort.
As an example I have been running dungeons with my guild and We have been unlucky enough to see only leather gear drop in 5 dungeons in a row, our Druid has been most lucky and he now is geared to the teeth and ready for raids as Balance/Feral, even Restoration, but our Tank has only received a couple of items.

So the problem is the reward system not being fair on our team work and effort, We dont down the heroic bosses from Dungeons by CHANCE, so CHANCE shouldn't be our reward at the end, yes We have justice points, but this just solve it partially and that only works when you are deep into Heroics, so JP rewards excludes the pre-Heroic progression.

How many of you have farmed tirelessly for an item and never seen it drop? or when it finally drops, you roll on it and it goes to someone else? or worse the dropped item is of no use for anyone in the raid/party?

Imagine a loot system that ensures that at least one in the party will get something suitable for upgrade of course accordingly to the level content?

I would like to hear your thoughts on this matter, thx for reading

[Mamado]

Having a guaranteed drop would have negative effects on gameplay. If a boss had certain, guaranteed drops- their loot table would be much smaller. Therefore there would be a lot less places you could go for gear when trying to get from regs -> Heroics -> raids. Hence, instead of queuing for randoms, each person would want to go to one specific dungeon. In my guild, I might want to go get one piece from stonecore, a healer might want deadmines, and each DPS might want a different dungeon for their own drop. There would be less incentive to do all the dungeons for a chance at loot.

As it is, there's a very low chance of dropping only leather gear (especially as several bosses don't drop any leather gear at all), so over time you will find your appropriate drops. The amount of time spent in regs and heroics, is so minimal that it makes little difference anyway. Several early raid bosses can be killed for better loot when in partial greens / blues.

Besides. Life isn't fair. There will always be that one piece of gear that you just can't get. For me is was that tank neck off of marrowgar- dozens of kills and the only drop went to a pug. It just made obtaining the tank neck I got in cata so much better.

[taekvideo]

What you're describing would be very prone to exploitation.
For example, if a tank needs a certain plate tanking drop from a boss, he could run with only plate wearers and drastically increase his chance of getting the item (or even guarantee it), since only plate gear could drop from the boss.

[evan_s]

It's part of pretty much every MMO to have random drops.

1) It makes things take longer. This is intentional. If it takes half the time to get geared up from a particular piece of content then blizzard needs to either make twice much content by either release more at one time or releasing more often or people will be done with it and get bored/quit.

2) DE. The unneeded drops have a purpose in being disenchanted to provide mats for enchanting. If you greatly increase the chance the drops will be needed it means much less crystal created and a much lower supply.

3) It would be incredibly complex. They don't even have it correctly deciding who can roll on what. What makes you think they can do any better in making sure the right loot drops. Just wait until it's bugged and the boss won't even drop what you are looking for because it doesn't think it is an upgrade for you.

[Chomeric]

I think it would be great to implement some kind of trade in system. For heroics if you win a piece as a greed roll you are able to sell it to the vendor for a few JP. Or in raids you can trade in pieces of gear to a vendor for boss tokens and the entire bosses loot table is for sale for varying numbers of tokens.
Example: Magmaw drops the stupid mace week after week. No one needs it so you trade them into the vendor for a token. You have 3 tokens you can buy your tank the boots he needs that the the worm hasn't dropped yet. Make the tokens Bind on Guild and require honored with the guild to receive them.
Of course this system allows for some exploiting, but I'm sure that blizz could come up with some way to make it work. I spent five months doing Kara and when prince finally dropped my healing mace the new resto shammy won it. Some times the RNG makes me want to tear my eyes out, and blizz has spoon fed every other aspect of this game to us why not let us have the gear we have earned.

[marcovchb]

It's part of pretty much every MMO to have random drops.

1) It makes things take longer. This is intentional. If it takes half the time to get geared up from a particular piece of content then blizzard needs to either make twice much content by either release more at one time or releasing more often or people will be done with it and get bored/quit.

2) DE. The unneeded drops have a purpose in being disenchanted to provide mats for enchanting. If you greatly increase the chance the drops will be needed it means much less crystal created and a much lower supply.

3) It would be incredibly complex. They don't even have it correctly deciding who can roll on what. What makes you think they can do any better in making sure the right loot drops. Just wait until it's bugged and the boss won't even drop what you are looking for because it doesn't think it is an upgrade for you.

Oh yeah, you are right about it, don't think I havent thought about cons, yet in my defense I must argue, actually I haven't suggested a drop system, certainly I haven't been able to explain myself clearly, I haven't suggested a system that can decide what to drop for an specific party/raid composition, because all of those problems you explained, and of course all the exploitation that surely will arise from such implementation.

Your points are quite valid and I dont look forward to discuss them; I would like to know what are good ideas to improve the current system, I know random drops is norm for MMOs, but it doesnt mean it is the best way to distribute loot.

So this is my idea how this could be improved:
I have thought about a system very much like TOC Trophies.
Lets say we keep bosses with their original loot tables, now instead of a boss dropping an specific item, it drops
a currency item, call it token, trophy, charm, body parts. Now all party/raid members can roll on that item.

The lucky winner can now go to an NPC at dungeon entrance and claim an item of his choice corresponding to that boss loot table.
But this will cause more ninja issues? Well Ninjas will always find their way.
Exploiting? Yeah sure, could be some bugs causing exploits.

But, if you run a dungeon with random people(LFD), it is fair anyone can roll for loot,
and the "chance" problem I speak off wouldnt be quite solved in this example. This is of course a con on this.
Yet lets see its pros: When you run with friends and/or guild, loot can be wisely distributed. For instance a dungeon with 4 bosses will drop 5 items.
After you finish the dungeon you can distribute loot in a way everyone get 1 item that can be traded to the NPC for something of real use.
If the party vastly out gear the instance, then it can be disenchanted for the crystal or traded to that one NPC for some cash or JP or reputation.

EDIT: Very much you idea Chomeric, but from another point of view, btw your idea is pretty cool

[Sunseeker]

I still think that dungeons should only offer challenge and some kind of point-based reward. All gear would then be purchased through vendors. With special "upgrade" pieces available though raid bosses. You'd no longer have to worry about what boss you got or needing to farm a certain boss in a certain raid.

Dungeons would be less of a headache because there'd be no need to run it a million times for loot, and hoping you win it. IMO the game would be more fun overall as designers could focus on the lore and challenging fights over a thousand variants of tank gloves.

[Ceridith]

Completely random drops is flawed, and guaranteed drops can be flawed as well.

Why not a combination of the two?

Randomly dropped "pieces" of loot that are dropped by bosses, different types and quantities of which can be assembled into a final piece. Similar to bosses dropping loot tokens, but a little more complicated in that you need to collect the right combination of tokens for whichever item you're working towards.

[Deleted]

Having a guaranteed drop would certainly take out a lot of the fun, in my opinion. It's exciting to hope for that one special upgrade to drop, instead of knowing it'll drop for sure.

I only had 3 shields during Wrath: 1 from Emblems of Heroism, 1 from Naxxramas and one from the Gunship. I never saw any shield drop inbetween that, yet I never wanted a shield to be a guaranteed drop.

This is just my opinion, of course.

[SilkforCalde]

3) It would be incredibly complex. They don't even have it correctly deciding who can roll on what.

Ummm yeah they do. What a silly thing to say.

---------- Post added 2011-01-28 at 10:29 PM ----------

Having a guaranteed drop would certainly take out a lot of the fun, in my opinion. It's exciting to hope for that one special upgrade to drop, instead of knowing it'll drop for sure.

I only had 3 shields during Wrath: 1 from Emblems of Heroism, 1 from Naxxramas and one from the Gunship. I never saw any shield drop inbetween that, yet I never wanted a shield to be a guaranteed drop.

This is just my opinion, of course.

I had every single shield in WotLK except for the 258 ToGC 25 shield which I passed to a guildy because I had a 251 shield and I wanted a 264 / 277 shield and hated that damn coffin.

[Linry]

bad RNG is bad, im sorry to hear that you're having problems, but this is the way the game works, no game will just hand some one in the group gear. bliz also has to make sure people are not geared in one day, RNG makes is so people have to go back, making sure all of bliz content is seen.

[Ynna]

There's actually a psychological reason for this, but I can't be bothered to look it up. What I remember is that when the chance of reward for a behavior is random, that behavior will become more frequent.
Situation A: <Press button ----> Reward> In this situation you'll only press the button, when you need/want the reward.
Situation B: <Press Button -----> Random chance for a reward> Here you'll press the button as often as possible, just in case you get your reward.
Works with pigeons, works with people.

[Numeanor]

Farming one item for more than month is not fun at all. Farming it for 6 months is annoying.

[kidcybersaint]

Actually, you might have a point somewhere in there...

The 'Chance' system might not be the TOP BEST, but it does the job, i have no problem with it, and believe me when i tell you that i had a few HC's that i runned more than i wanted cause some piece of loot didnt dropped, but it's a matter of luck i suppose, i'm happy with it, BUT (there comes the but), another system might be worse, imagine a system where the boss only dropped the piece of gear taking in account the worst piece of all 5 players, then you would be running HC's with ppl in greens hopping to kill the boss cause they have a guaranteed drop. So NO TY.

But when you say:

or worse the dropped item is of no use for anyone in the raid/party?

Well i have to tell you, you damn right in there. A few days ago with my guild we downed Baradin Hold Boss, imagine the drop:

ROGUE

Guess what: No Rogue -.-'

It's a pretty bad feeling i tell you, when you have all the other classes in the raid except a rogue and its rogue gear that drops..

So i wouldnt mind a 'Chance' system like the one we have atm, BUT, the chance had to be usefull for the raid itself... If some class isnt there IT SHOULDNT drop that class gear. Simple as that..

[evan_s]

Ummm yeah they do. What a silly thing to say.

I hope you are being sarcastic because they clearly don't have things properly setup for needing items in a dungeon. My resto shaman can need a STR ring/cloak etc with dodge and parry on it. A mage or warlock can need on a piece of gear with spirit or a trinket that has a proc that only activates for heals. There are many other examples i've seen doing the DF and i'm not talking about a full group that joined together where anyone can roll on anything.

---------- Post added 2011-01-28 at 11:38 PM ----------

So this is my idea how this could be improved:
I have thought about a system very much like TOC Trophies.
Lets say we keep bosses with their original loot tables, now instead of a boss dropping an specific item, it drops
a currency item, call it token, trophy, charm, body parts. Now all party/raid members can roll on that item.

This works well enough for tier gear for armor sets but would get pretty boring in the end if everything was bought with currencies or tokens and in the end this really doesn't really do anything about points 1 and 2.

[SilkforCalde]

I hope you are being sarcastic because they clearly don't have things properly setup for needing items in a dungeon. My resto shaman can need a STR ring/cloak etc with dodge and parry on it. A mage or warlock can need on a piece of gear with spirit or a trinket that has a proc that only activates for heals. There are many other examples i've seen doing the DF and i'm not talking about a full group that joined together where anyone can roll on anything.[COLOR="red"]

Shamans get stats from strength. They are allowed to roll on Str gear that is mail / rings / cloaks / necks on purpose.

Mages / locks are allowed to roll on any caster gear.

This isn't a bug. This isn't a mistake. This was done on purpose. So yea, I'm not being sarcastic, you're just being narrow-minded.