Personal loot and gearing up your raid

[Enkrypt]

Acceptance stage is a great place, play a character in computer game. The meta of spreadsheet loot allocation (with a liberal sprinkling of social power plays) is not part of the game anymore and you were confused to even think it was in the first place.

No, I wasn't confused at all. It's been in the game 13 years, and millions of players used that part of the game. I think it's more plausible that you're confused, and not those millions of people. The option "Master Looter" was in the game, so you can stop pretending to be clever.

Momma is wrong again, water boy.

[Mardux]

There are so many people talking about how no one is forced to do things and how it's their choice.

Funny how these people tend to be the same one who conveniently ignored the fact that no one forced them to stay in guilds that allegedly "abused" them. That it was their choice to stay in the guilds that allegedly abused them instead of leaving that guild.

[Dracodraco]

Really? That's the angle you're going to try to spin now? You're being forced into unhealthy behavior? No one forces unhealthy behavior on you. You choose it. That's entirely on you. It's not on Blizzard, it's not on anyone else. Do you know how ridiculous you sound when you make such a claim?

Nobody forces you to join a guild that uses masterlooting, or to let a toxic leadership take advantage of you. That's entirely on you. It's not on Blizzard, it's not anyone else. Do you know ridiculous you sound when you make such a claim?

You do realize that you choosing to do this just highlights that the problem lies with you and not with the loot system at all. You're willing to go through such lengths. All on your own. No one is making you.

It's a problem that's inherent to any competitive game. People that want to perform the best, does whatever it takes to *be* the best. Nobody is forcing them, but if you can play soccer in the A-rank division, you're not going to be happy kicking the ball around with C-rank instead. It's part of what drives a lot of humans to do what they do; We want to be good at something. In this game that includes optimising where we are given the chance. That's why Exorsus and Method ran 7-8 split raids. It's why people are going to run second raids just to have alts ready.

Yes, not being able to boost a toon and feed it loot is a good thing. Yes, making it so people can't trade gear from alts they use in split runs until they overgear the items they're getting so you can't funnel loot to specific characters is a good thing.

So being stuck on Avatar for another 2-3 resets because you lack the amount of geared rogues to get through it is a good thing? Not having 2+ boomkins or hunters for Blackhand causing you to miss all DPS checks in P1 and P2, and not having the ability to gear one up so you can progress past the first fucking 2 minutes of a fight is good design? Are you fucking nuts? Did you ever seriously progress a boss that was actually a "wall", or did you only ever face stuff after your gear got so good that you could ignore compositions?

And there's that garbage excuse, 'we were forced to do it' again!

Of course we're forced to do it. We want to be the best. Masterloot gives us the *choice* to let people that enjoy playing a class do so by making sure it's got enough gear to make up for a perceived class difference, or alternatively, let the guy who doesn't mind using his alt play it rather than the guy who would much rather play his main but has an alt with 10 ilvl more than the other alts, so either he plays the alt or he forces his guild to suffer under his selfish choice.

The fact that you keep repeating that nobody "forces" you, and that there's a choice, just tells me you have never participated in competitive raiding, or alternatively, IF YOU EVER HAVE, you have always played something overpowered or felt okay with being benched 24/7. Most of us are not OK with spending our time like that when we actually know how to play the game and want to be better.

[kamuimac]

Nobody forces you to join a guild that uses masterlooting, or to let a toxic leadership take advantage of you. That's entirely on you. It's not on Blizzard, it's not anyone else. Do you know ridiculous you sound when you make such a claim?

this is only half truth.

system is forcing him

nobody in any of threads concerning ML is denying facts that it was much more effective regardless of social consequences - and just because it was more effective all mythic guilds were copying this model as if gear was what is stopping guilds that are around world 2000-3000 from progression in mythic - same was with loot council - most guilds were blindly coppying this model even if it was misused .

therefore people who wanted to play in mythic had a simple choice - either join a guild and become a victim of abusement or stick to HC ,

blizzard didnt really had any other choice - since all guilds were becoming considered by playerbase as toxic and so many people would rather pug just to get fair shot at loot they had to take actions after all without guilds wow becomes a single player instance symulator.

- - - Updated - - -

It's a problem that's inherent to any competitive game. People that want to perform the best, does whatever it takes to *be* the best. .

the problem is that with passing years that 'the best" evolved into some really crazy high standards/direction that blizzard clearly didnt intended the game to go

you cannot deny that recruiting and performance standards required from raiders are miles above what was required from people in TBC/WoLK ,

and blizzard had to cut it off somewhere.

there is a limit where hardcore becomes to hardcore and is scaring of "normal" people.

and we reached that point back in MoP/WoD - problem is people pushed it even further.

do you think that any of wow devs in the wildest dreams considered possibility that any wow player will spam 1 dungeon 2-3k times during first 6 months of expansion ? and thats exackly what happened to MoS .

blizzard needs to take action for the good of community overall so that "Crazy" doesnt beccome standard/norm .

[Ophenia]

either join a guild and become a victim of abusement

My god this is really a 2018 game after all.

Dat victimization... There were very, very few cases of "abusement" like you all enjoy telling us. Most of the "ninja" were in fact agreed transactions, and I'm pretty sure most of you just had to open your mouth to get your shiny lewt. You didn't, because you were all pussies.

A huge chunk of MasterLooting Guilds were doing just fine with no drama.

You're all talking about MasterLootDrama and praise Blizzard for Personal Looting, but once you'll be in a PersonalLootGuild, you'll see what real "abusement" looks like. Drama will only start with PersonalLoot.

[Cassidin]

I think the whole thing is mostly a non issue. If a guild has a "force trade" policy then you either accept that and stay in that guild - or vote with your feet and leave. This is only likely to be an issue with high end guilds and they have usually had more strict policies - this doesn't change much really. You want in a high end guild - you agree to trade stuff to help gear the raid team up.

The issues I see are:

• Not all gear will be tradable. Especially at the start as people will always get items in their personal loot being higher ilvl than they have - not much will be traded to start with. It MAY mean that it takes just a little longer to start properly gearing the guild. I admit that this COULD be a large problem for guilds going for world first etc - but all other guilds will have the same problem too so its probably not really that bad.
• Someone in your guild may simply refuse to trade. Sure you can then kick them out but you wont get the item regardless. I think this is not likely to happen in high end guilds however as its quite likely someone doing that will screw their chances of getting into another high end guild.

I don't really think this will effect non hardcore guilds much though. Sure they may not like it to start - but it wont really have that much of a knock on effect as specific gearing isn't as important as it is for bleeding edge groups.

Personally I would not want to join a group that would force me to trade - but that's fine - I just wont join it. I don't think there is anything WRONG with requiring people to - they have a choice to join that group of not!

[Kraineth]

I imagine most mythic progression guilds aiming for cutting edge will have a process to trade loot that is tradeable. That sidegrade you got will be more useful on the guy who has a piece 10 ilvls lower.

Changing loot spec to aim for weapons and trinkets will be a thing for sure.

[kooz]

If you don't like master loot, then don't raid in guilds that use master loot. Why does the choice have to be removed to satisfy immature players who aren't capable of making an adult decision?

I'm sure you understand it used to be not so easy to find a guild without ML (prior to this change when it's removed). I was trying to find at least one with epgp for my alt when I had time to do alt raids (being on my main part of LC it was mostly ok, but I consider it rather an exception as I've seen too many shitty ML/LC in other guilds)

[shaunika123]

pray for rnjesus and try to stop yourself from flipping out every week from the horribleness of the system

[Dristereau]

I raid in a Guild that just did Heroic in Legion, and we used PL the entire time. The only major issue was Tier Gear, and that was pretty bad with me being the only DK and having Four Druids. If Tier had just been a token that any class could use, there would be no problem. But in our case during NH I had 1 piece of tier when all of our Druids were 4/6 or higher. However it did not stop us raiding and enjoying the game.

The concerns with BFA are for me weapons and Azerite pieces. Weapons this expansion will be much bigger upgrades than relics as three were needed for those before, Also from what I understand Azerite armour will be untradeable due to potentially having better traits. I could be wrong on that second part but I'm sure I saw something regarding Azerite gear and trading.

[kooz]

Your post is the epitome of the casual player not having a clue how mythic guilds work and why the removal of master looter from the scene is bad and a tragedy when it's being pushed for by idiotic nonsense like your post. Please, try to justify how anything you said is even remotely accurate to the post I made. How you manage to read my post and come to the conclusions in your post baffles me.

My guild endured 700 Argus wipes before we got the kill without losing anyone - the guild is tranquil and pretty tightly bonded to get through that ride intact. I take the back seat on every Mythic mount, pass on the majority of loot if there's anyone else after it and have had zero real drama about loot for most of the expansion, definitely none aimed at officers abusing master looter - the only "loot drama" that comes to mind was when made a choice to give a trinket to a healer who we weren't convinced would stick around over a mainstay who was often dpsing on fights.

I'm not sure how you look at what I posted and think that it's the tyranny of the guild leadership. It's what the guild NEEDS to do to gear up the majority, it's what most of the players will want, it's the only way to maximise the chance of my players getting their gear.

My raiders are all important to me, I've been called too soft by the majority of my guild for being too lenient on declining trials, being loyal to old raiders who are honestly past their prime to the detriment of a strong roster and optimal kill teams and haven't, in my roughly 10 years of being an officer and year of being GM, had anyone quit over loot.

My guild is fantastic, they've endured a crippling expansion where we've lost a GM and scraped out way through three tiers and we're going strong. Fuck off with your uninformed judgements - the guild as a whole is mortified by the removal of masterlooter because of the ramifications it causes with group setup. Is it LESS toxic to bench my casters on the boss that drops the caster trinket?

With master looter I needed, at most, to make sure that every important item that dropped had a recipient or two so that nothing got dusted.
With personal loot we need to bring as many players as can potentially have the item spawn in their bag.

If I benched a caster on the caster trinket boss before, it'd usually be met with the acceptance that another guildie was getting the trinket, so that's one less competition in future.
If I bench a caster on the caster trinket boss now, it's straight up robbing that individual player of a chance of getting it.

I am baffled how you interpret that as getting people in to gear up the loot council. If anything, I'd bring the optimal setup even if it meant fucking over casters on the caster boss if that was my goal, but hey, fuck reason - gotta support the nonsensical tyrannical loot master fiction eh?

Master looter should be restricted to Mythic raid groups with 20 guild members if they really want to eliminate the possibility of ML nonsense in pugs, but fucking over mythic guilds in the process is just retarded, and there's not a soul who seems to want the change who isn't either a casual raider or not in a guild.

Do you even realize that even if all what you said was true, your guild experience could be just an exception and it proves nothing in the view of a bigger picture with the change being aimed at removing toxicity and making the game healthier overall.

BTW, afaik now after the initial race of the true mythic raiders, mythic groups can be formed cross server.

[judgementofantonidas]

Going to ML as much as possible, any tradable gear will be traded to ML and then redistributed. If people don't need anything from a boss outside of TFs and the boss also drops OP trinket no reason not to change your loot spec to help get trinkets assuming you'd be able to trade it.

Personally, the personal loot change is just annoying for our guild. We are usually around world 95-105 guild with 25-26 man roster and we never deny trials loot and keep everyone around same ilvl since we want everyone to be ready for progression on any of the bosses. That doesn't mean we don't optimize stuff like tier and trinkets, etc. We try to keep everyone's play time in raid about same, but with personal loot being forced and azerite items not being tradable someone could get really screwed on loot and if they end up like 10ilvls below others it will be hard to justify bringing them to an end boss if its tight dps check. With master looter we could usually keep everyone around same gear level.

Before someone says that its a myth and personal loot and titanforging won't cause a gap that big. I have seen it happen multiple times in alt runs. Where one alt would be 10ilvls above some other alt.

master loot is no longer an option.

[kamuimac]

I think the whole thing is mostly a non issue. If a guild has a "force trade" policy then you either accept that and stay in that guild - or vote with your feet and leave. This is only likely to be an issue with high end guilds and they have usually had more strict policies - this doesn't change much really. You want in a high end guild - you agree to trade stuff to help gear the raid team up.

The issues I see are:

• Not all gear will be tradable. Especially at the start as people will always get items in their personal loot being higher ilvl than they have - not much will be traded to start with. It MAY mean that it takes just a little longer to start properly gearing the guild. I admit that this COULD be a large problem for guilds going for world first etc - but all other guilds will have the same problem too so its probably not really that bad.
• Someone in your guild may simply refuse to trade. Sure you can then kick them out but you wont get the item regardless. I think this is not likely to happen in high end guilds however as its quite likely someone doing that will screw their chances of getting into another high end guild.

I don't really think this will effect non hardcore guilds much though. Sure they may not like it to start - but it wont really have that much of a knock on effect as specific gearing isn't as important as it is for bleeding edge groups.

Personally I would not want to join a group that would force me to trade - but that's fine - I just wont join it. I don't think there is anything WRONG with requiring people to - they have a choice to join that group of not!

...then people will use any excuse to avoid it anyway - it will be anything starting with milion of versions "gonna save it for OS just in case blizzard retunes my class" following with milions other excuses.

[shaunika123]

master loot is no longer an option.

thanks for the ingenious insight?

[kooz]

chances are most people are going to just forget that ML ever existed in a few weeks after a few resets.

[shaunika123]

chances are most people are going to just forget that ML ever existed in a few weeks after a few resets.

about as much chance as people who lose a limb forgetting they had them before.

[RoKPaNda]

Master looter should be restricted to Mythic raid groups with 20 guild members if they really want to eliminate the possibility of ML nonsense in pugs, but fucking over mythic guilds in the process is just retarded, and there's not a soul who seems to want the change who isn't either a casual raider or not in a guild.

I'm in a Mythic guild, we killed Argus so long ago that this relatively short end tier feels like it's taking forever, and I'm fine with them removing ML. It's funny because this entire expansion Mythic raiders have bitched and whined and demanded that Blizzard fuck over casuals by gutting Titanforging into the ground when it's only a problem for us Mythic raiders and solutions existed that let Casuals keep their fun system and didn't impact us in any way. Now we're whining that Blizzard is fucking over the Mythic raiders to appease the casuals.

I'm fine with ML going. We've had ML for so long that I'm curious to see what raiding is going to be like without it, and in all honesty from actual raiders I'm just hearing a little grumbling, it's from the officers and the clique-y people that I'm hearing the hysterical screeching from because they're terrified that they're losing some of their power or that the gravy drain is about to dry up and they won't be able to get more loot just by sucking up to the right people.

And before you tell me that I'm bitter about loot, I pass on tons of loot for guildies and I still feel that I get loot when I probably shouldn't get it over someone else.

[Marrilaife]

As someone who has been stuck in an endless loop of trial member - no loot - guild disbands - apply to new guild for the entirety of legion...

Fuck master looter in the fucking ear with a god damned rusty rake, and take your cancerous as fuck loot council with you. I have never been so happy to see something be removed from WoW. At least now i wont get stuck behind the gear race all because "trials do not get loot".

I get it can be good for the raid progression, but when it causes you to get almost zero loot the entire expansion, you grow to hate the ever living shit out of it.

So you're saying for an ENTIRE EXPANSION you were changing guilds every 2-4 weeks (which is typical length of a trial period)?

I can't believe this, there are only 2 reasons this would happen:
1. and most probable, you don't do any research before joining a guild and joining some "recently reformed / transferred / created, made by ex-cutting edge / server first / world top x players, aiming high!" guilds that will burn out after a month indeed (never get lured by this trade chat pr, most of these guilds are delusional and won't survive 1 raid tier)
2. you can't join any well established guild due to poor logs, weird play schedule or whatever other reason and are stuck joining unstable guilds who are desperate to take anyone on (and most prone to disbands)

I was in 4 guilds during legion, but hell changing a guild every month or even more often than that is suspicious.

You're also doing yourself a big disfavour for the future, a recruiter in any respectable guild will always check 2 things of an applicant, one is logs and second is guild history, if anyone looks like they constantly swap guilds or takes frequent breaks, it's a red flag. You might have good reasons (like guilds disbanding) to say you're not a guild hopper, but you know... if it quacks like a duck...

[candidlol]

in all honesty from actual raiders I'm just hearing a little grumbling, it's from the officers and the clique-y people that I'm hearing the hysterical screeching from because they're terrified that they're losing some of their power or that the gravy drain is about to dry up and they won't be able to get more loot just by sucking up to the right people.

this x 1000. the gap between good/bad players will become much clearer after this change and so will the gap between good/bad guilds.

some members of my guild wanted to go so far as to close the guild to trials to avoid trials getting better gear than them, thats how insecure/selfish some are.

there still will be some loot shifted around when possible between people that are okay with it, but i suspect when good gear drops first for some players that havent been favored by our loot council most of our raid wont care. there definitely will be some autistic screeching by a few tho, but all they will able to do now is grind along like the rest of us

[Low Hanging Fruit]

It will be fine. Instead of having to chat in officer for a few minutes between kills we just go. Just going is better. Easier. Faster. It also won't generate any drama or other bullshit that happens when some are rewarded and others aren't. Sure in a few cases we won't be able to kill things this week and instead it happens next week because of how the gear is layed out. But I am not in the top 100 guilds in the world so it doesn't matter that fucking much. We will still clear the raid on mythic before the next. Pretty much all that matters.