Master Looter

[PraisCthulhu]

Personal loot definitely needs improvements if they get rid of ML, but you are going the completely wrong direction. They shouldn't come up with a more complex, complicated, and "relaxed" rules PL system. They should simplify. ZERO TRADING OF BOP items then just tune around the fact that people will gear up a little more slowly. Simple is better and trading of BOP items IS NOT NECESSARY. It didn't even exist in the game for years, in fact, and the game grew like crazy in those years.

And during those years, master loot existed. And dungeons weren't personal loot, you had to roll on everything. And the game grew like crazy.

Using your logic they should get rid of personal loot and just have everyone roll on everything and the high roll gets the item like the good old days. At least then I could pass on items I don't want so I wouldn't be taking loot I don't need from people who do need it.

[IceMan1763]

And during those years, master loot existed. And dungeons weren't personal loot, you had to roll on everything. And the game grew like crazy.

Using your logic they should get rid of personal loot and just have everyone roll on everything and the high roll gets the item like the good old days. At least then I could pass on items I don't want so I wouldn't be taking loot I don't need from people who do need it.

I have never advocated rolling everything back to Vanilla, that's a huge leap from what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that sometimes getting rid of a feature is necessary. I was simply pointing out that in no way is trading of BOP loot a "fundamental mechanic" for this game. The game could easily be designed without it, hopefully in a way that would be better than both old school straight up rolling for loot and the mess that was loot distribution in Legion.

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1) If that's what is required to remain ahead of others in a competitive landscape, fucking let them be miserable. Why be so hellbend on policing others? Also, if Blizzard actually cared about fun we wouldn't have Titanforging and Legiondaries among other things.
2) Then that's too bad for the people who don't have the time, you shouldn't be playing competitively if you're not willing to do everything you can to make it.
3) There was always a method to trade in some form, be it the AH or BoEs. Without it player interaction couldn't have evolved beyond just communication. And no, split runs aren't a good reason to eliminate trade.

1) Competitive landscapes which are unfair aren't very popular. Hey how popular is raiding these days compared to the past? Hmmmm....
2) Oh trust me I would never participate in mythic raiding under the current game design... it's barely skill based at all at this stage and would be an absolute waste of my time. "not willing to do everything you can to make it" is the exact kind of thing a no lifer would say about mythic raiding right now. You don't want competition because you know you're trading on your free time more than your skill level right now. That's what mythic raiding was for Legion... the battle of the no lifers.
3) Split runs are an excellent reason to eliminate trading. Trading BOP items was actually not always in the game, proving you have no clue what you're talking about.

[Justpassing]

Beacuse it's forced.

[lummiuster]

If I outgear an instance, I don't *want* as much gear as the people who are undergeared. Giving more gear I don't need does not make the game more fun. Giving gear to my guildy who needs it *is* fun.

They said the same thing about secondary stats going into Legion and for several patches in Legion, but they never actually fixed the problem, so pardon me for being skeptical of their claim that suddenly ilvl will *always* be an upgrade.

Forcing personal loot and making ilvl mean more still won't change the fact that there will be BiS pieces. Because, at its core, DPS is based on equations with gear being a variable, there will *always* be a variable that gives you the highest result when you plug it in, that is just how it works.

All that said, I'm actually fine with only personal loot so long as they also address personal loot's short comings. As of now, it is a pretty weak system if you're in a group that plays together consistently week to week. They can improve it for organized groups while still maintaining how it currently works for Pugs. Maybe instead of 80% guild groups getting access to master loot, 80% (or higher) guild groups can get access to a version of personal loot with more relaxed rules for trading gear (instead of having to be lower ilvl, maybe up to 10 ilvl higher becomes tradable, maybe make all rings and trinkets tradable since they are far less dependent on ilvl).

You missed an important point. The main reason why they want forced personal loot is to make guilds weaker. They said that they had to make Mythic raids very hard because they know that everyone will have their BIS very fast. They also said that because of this, in 7.2 Mythic guilds had so strong gear that they skipped normal and cleared Heroic Antorus on the first day. This lead them to make antorus harder which at the same time killed the raid experience of pugs. Pugs (have the disadvantage of being geared through personal loot on top of being disorganized) are now only inviting people that are 950il+ for normal run.

Beside the way they vision their game is that everyone gets reward from a raid. Not just those in need. The next problem is extremely fast alt gearing. GM/officers bring their broken alts in your heroic/mythic raids and they get same item level as someone who played for months in 2weeks.

People seem to dislike it because they are mapping Forced personal loot on the current state of the game they are playing. So they can only see the disadvantage but they have failed to imagine how the game mechanic will be different and how superior it is in overall.

[Whatever Dude]

Why do you care so much if people do split runs? It's a fucking game. If people want to burn out doing them just to try for world first then that's there choice.

Because casuals, when given the chance, absolutely love to take away any toys from hardcore players, but whine constantly in favor of the exact same thing you're talking about when their toys are threatened. They are, historically, massive hypocrites.

I see people on the official forums especially, who have a real axe to grind with anyone who is actually good at the game and plays more than they do. There's an incredibly toxic inferiority complex going around the WoW players.

[woopytywoop]

I don't get the logic of people hating master loot when they are in a shit guild that prioritizes some people. that's the only plus side of it, people in shitty guilds with shitty management won't get scammed. Guilds that don't give trials any loot are guilds that don't need trials at all. While it's very reasonable to prioritize main raiders who helped progressing a long time with the juicy loot, if they give a main raider a tier piece for WF/TF reroll over a trial for whom it's a clear upgrade, than it's just a shit guild not worth joining.

However, do you really think it will be different in those shit guilds? They will just give eachother loot they got on personal loot over you.

Any half decent guild that is worth joining will do the content that is needed for their members to gear up.
I remember my guild even doing NH on alts with personal loot just to trade the OP trinkets to the people needing them in ToS.

However pro-forced PL people need to be also aware there are some downsides as well.

eg. pleb alts getting juicy gear they can't trade.
eg. no point in carrying the casual players in your guild through heroic as you won't get extra loot and it will just make the farm harder.

And finally the personal loot UI sucks donkey balls and when someone gets an item she or he doesn't need, there should be an option to let people roll an item in a separate loot window. Now often you have 3-4 items getting rolled through each other or people missing the roll because they have another chat window open.

I also fucking hate getting whispered whenever I get an item if I need it or not and already despise forced personal loot for that. If I don't need it I want to be able to see the people who would want it and let them roll for it, and to prevent ninja or whatever, I should be able to trade it to whoever I want. And this should be a standard UI element on PL before they will force it.

TLDR: forced personal loot will suck in another way.

[Frolk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nWMlxf4lI

I've never disagreed more with a video. Why are high end raiders complaining their taking Master loot away? I thought high end raiders hated being forced to do split runs? Don't guilds like Method hate running 5+ characters through heroic every week? Wouldn't forcing personal loot make it easier for other guilds to compete with method? Why are people complaining about removing Master loot as an option? Aren't you tired of Method winning every single race? Don't you want more people to take up high end raiding?

What's wrong with forcing it for a few weeks until a few guilds have killed the final boss on mythic? Or restricting heroic clears per account during the WF race and banning account sharing players?

Spoken like a true player who only read about mythic raiding on forums, ONLY the few top 50-100 guilds does split runs, maybe some were 10/11M, not done a single split run ever.

How about we let ppl chose for them self, we dont need Blizzard tell us how to distribute loot., its worked fine for OVER A DECADE.

[IceMan1763]

Spoken like a true player who only read about mythic raiding on forums, ONLY the few top 50-100 guilds does split runs, maybe some were 10/11M, not done a single split run ever.

How about we let ppl chose for them self, we dont need Blizzard tell us how to distribute loot., its worked fine for OVER A DECADE.

The game has probably lost 80-90% of its playerbase over the last decade... maybe they should change something?

[Hctaz]

Method is like the only guild that requires 5+ characters per player. Banning that kind of behavior seems reasonable. Anything to make the playing field more fair. Maybe we'd see more new blood.

The issue with split raiding isnt how fast a raid is cleared, it's how unfair it is to new potential WF raiders.

This doesn't stop split runs at all though. All it does is change the item level required of alts. Before, it was common to have plenty of undergeared alts. Now, all of your alts will be required to have a certain item level so that they can trade their personal loot acquisitions to the appropriate people. Can't wait for that.

[IceMan1763]

This doesn't stop split runs at all though. All it does is change the item level required of alts. Before, it was common to have plenty of undergeared alts. Now, all of your alts will be required to have a certain item level so that they can trade their personal loot acquisitions to the appropriate people. Can't wait for that.

Trading of BOP items needs to also end or they will have created this exact nightmare scenario... ML is technically gone but WF guilds like Method will still attempt to split run on some level as you describe. Sadly, they will have only succeeded in making split raiding harder and even more exclusive to guilds like Method who have the time to do it. Split raiding needs a death blow, not a bandaid.

In addition, guilds will attempt to force trades among their players if new trial/raider Bobby got the best DPS trinket but 2 year vet Billy doesn't have it yet.

I think, along with removing ML and BOP trading, they should take bad luck protection and apply it to every high ilvl item. That is the most fair system I can personally think up.... PL only, zero trading of BOP items allowed, but bad luck protection is behind every single item so you WILL get that item as long as you roll for it (kill the boss OR roll a coin) enough times.

[Scrysis]

See, that is the main problem here:
ML gets removed because very competitive guilds that compete for world firsts are investing a lot of time to funnel loot to specific characters.
If you remove trade restriction in guild runs, this behavior will not change. And if it does not change, then there is no reason to remove ML in the first place.

Aaaahhh. I see what you're saying now, and you do have a point.

I think then, they need to re-implement actual raid lockouts, since I think that should bring the problem under control without screwing over most of their raiders. That should bring the issue under control. Sure, you can still funnel loot to one person, but that one character can only go once, and every character that did the instance is now locked out as well. Guilds would have to sport huge, unfeasible rosters to funnel loot to every one of their characters.

[Onikaroshi]

Aaaahhh. I see what you're saying now, and you do have a point.

I think then, they need to re-implement actual raid lockouts, since I think that should bring the problem under control without screwing over most of their raiders. That should bring the issue under control. Sure, you can still funnel loot to one person, but that one character can only go once, and every character that did the instance is now locked out as well. Guilds would have to sport huge, unfeasible rosters to funnel loot to every one of their characters.

You use characters without locks for split runs... running locked characters would make no sense as they don't count as being there for loot. Changing loot lockout has zero effect and would be a negative impact.

[IceMan1763]

Aaaahhh. I see what you're saying now, and you do have a point.

I think then, they need to re-implement actual raid lockouts, since I think that should bring the problem under control without screwing over most of their raiders. That should bring the issue under control. Sure, you can still funnel loot to one person, but that one character can only go once, and every character that did the instance is now locked out as well. Guilds would have to sport huge, unfeasible rosters to funnel loot to every one of their characters.

I know your intentions are good, but I just do not think this is the right solution when getting rid of both ML and trading BOP items seems so much simpler.

The guilds I would feel REALLY bad for under your suggested scenario are what I call the "halfers". They're good enough to maybe kill one or two Mythic raid bosses when it launches, but no more. What does the raid leader of that group do? Also keep in mind the RL doesn't now for sure what his group is actually capable of killing. Going for Mythic and being unsuccessful could be really demotivating for the guild since now they can't just go down to Heroic because they're locked out. There are much easier and better ways to solve this issue, but regardless I hope Blizzard sees that they need to look at their WHOLE gearing and loot distribution system and consider changes, JUST removing ML with no other changes alongside it I think actually might be the worst loot system the game has EVER seen.

[franksredhot]

I think (possibly) one of Blizzard's motivations is to make the raids easier. Here's my logic:

* When gearing isn't an issue for top raiders (bc of split runs), then the mechanics have to be super tough

* Remove gearing issue

* Allow/justify making the raids less mechanically demanding

Now I'm not saying this is a good or even logically consistent reasoning (you still have this same issue with addons that are overpowered). But they have mentioned pruning classes and an emphasis on cosmetics. I'd argue that those cater toward more casual players. So it would make sense that other big decisions would lean toward making the game easier for new/casual players.

That's just my initial thought.

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

Since these forums have been infested with socialism as of late...let me put it you like this.

Personal loot is basically state controlled production, the product being loot. But just like most centralized governments it fails to get resources to those who need them most, and the user can get mad as they want but the only person to blame is the RNGesus and blizzard themselves.

With Master Loot-as the weeks progress the higher ups get geared and then gear starts to get distributed much faster to the rank and file more efficiently and more fairly as time goes on

Under Komrade Hozzikostas Personal Loot system-the production and distribution of loot will remain constant throughout the expansion. That means even if you're undergeared or overgeared the loot system is controlled a robotic bureaucrat.(the most bureaucratic kind of bureaucrat)

This means that under Forced Personal Loot more loot will go to waste, players will remain undergeared for much longer, and Guild leaders will be roughly equal to their subordinates which means they honestly will just float over to guilds that are already higher geared. Progression will start to slow and grind to a halt as everyone tries to catch up.

It's the collapse of the soviet union all over again.

[Deleted]

I see a lot of people saying 'just remove the restrictions on trading personal loot'.

If that happened nothing would be changed. Split runs would be the same and guilds like mine would just still have master looter only people would have to trade their gear which, imo, would feel shittier.

[IceMan1763]

I think (possibly) one of Blizzard's motivations is to make the raids easier. Here's my logic:

* When gearing isn't an issue for top raiders (bc of split runs), then the mechanics have to be super tough

* Remove gearing issue

* Allow/justify making the raids less mechanically demanding

Now I'm not saying this is a good or even logically consistent reasoning (you still have this same issue with addons that are overpowered). But they have mentioned pruning classes and an emphasis on cosmetics. I'd argue that those cater toward more casual players. So it would make sense that other big decisions would lean toward making the game easier for new/casual players.

That's just my initial thought.

I think your logic is a bit off on the last statement... "mechanically demanding" insinuates that the difficulty is focused on movement/skill/coordination/solid rotation/reaction time etc. Why would that have to change because split runs are eliminated? I would actually argue the exact opposite is true.

Your first bullet hits close to the mark, but it's not the mechanics per se that have to be tuned super tough due to things like split runs (and in Legion, accounting for higher AP levels as well). In order to assure that these guilds have at least some challenge, what has to be tuned super tough is basically dps and healing/HP/survivability requirements. Take NH, for example. A lot of guilds hit a brick wall not because of super punishing mechanics, but because they simply didn't have enough health to survive certain mechanics. But why was their HP pool lower? It was a combination of lesser gear but also less paragon levels that those mechanics were CLEARLY tuned around having. A lot of raiders simply didn't have the free time to keep up with the Methods of the world as a group when it came to outside of raid time investment, but Blizzard still tuned Mythic for WF guilds doing WF things like split runs, 1000s of M+ Maw runs, and farming AP until their eyes bled.

I think a reconsideration of how loot is distributed and gearing is handled for WOW would allow the team tuning raids to again focus on fights that are fun and mechanically demanding rather than demanding you farm AP for 3 more weeks so you have enough HP to survive a mechanic.

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Personal loot is basically state controlled production BLAH BLAH BLAH more completely irrelevant BS

Oh god can you please spare us your comparison of WOW loot systems to political philosophy.

[Mrkew]

ML = loot actually helps the group
PL = loot goes to trials and bads
You don't have to be a high-end anything to recognize that PL is terrible for an organized group. But I don't take personal loot from you. I don't care if you use it. Why do you want to take the option of using master loot from us?

[Cebel]

maybe make heroic loot untradeable for the 1st month? Trying to think of a solution to split runs. Ban guilds who do split runs with more than 3 characters? Banning guilds who do above a certain number of split runs from getting a WF kill as cheating?

Or just let the players do what they want? It's literally not an issue. Signed, ex-top 3 world raider.

[shaunika123]

That's exactly the problem with it, it being used as a tool to steal loot from large majorities of the playerbase. It's growing issue as well as an issue that directly opposes the Dev's desire to make raiding more available to people.

please, explain to me how you can "steal" loot, when you need the vast majority of the group in the same guild to be ML?

and if you join a guild that "steals loot" for the top officers from the regular raiders

then join a different one.

punishing people who use the system properly because a minority abuses it just makes no sense.

also what makes you think the same guilds wont just force you to trade your personal loot to them?