"Personal Loot is here to Stay"

[MiiiMiii]

Exhibit A: A selfish prick that thinks only he deserves rare mounts, not matter how much he fails.

Truly not sure if you are trying to say I am the one that is "Exhibit A" or what? Or is the guild master "Exhibit A"?

If it is me, how am I selfish? I want the whole raid to have an equal chance. And how do I fail? Did you watch my HPS logs?

You need to work on your communication skills either way.

[Akka]

I swear the theme of the last 3 expansions were, what else can we remove from the game until what remains is completely unplayable?

For a hateful one-liner, this one is actually surprisingly accurate.

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Sometimes, objectively better solutions are worse.

Like how from MoP onwards they reduced everything that matters with gear into 'ilevel upgrade = upgrade'. Objectively? It's a better system. You get upgrades and instantly know its an upgrade. However; Realistically? it's bad because its boring. There's no depth to min-maxing your character any more other than just getting the biggest number. That's why this azerite system is here -- it's trying, albeit badly, to solve this.

It's the same way with personal loot. Objectively? It's fairer, there's more loot overall, there's less useless loot (no paladin tier piece for raid with no paladins f. example); However, what Blizz is missing the point in is ITS JUST NOT FUN. There's something inherently satisfying with seeing what drops, and sharing the loot -- because its a social experience.

In an MMO, moving to 'objectively more convenient but less social / less deep' systems is counter productive to the point of the game. That's what makes it so bad.

I would agree completely if not for the bit that "objectively better" is a not the adequate term - if it makes the game less fun, it can't by definition be "better". I'd say it's more an example of "streamlining" or, as you said in your last paragraph, "convenient", than "better".

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Honestly?

I just wish the gear colours mattered again, and the scaling was removed. Rather than everyone being swamped by epicness as they get showered in high-level slots through doing practically nothing, I'd so prefer a system where the words actually meant something again.

Hit the level cap, play a few hours, and say hello to being fully purple with procs all over the place. You get to 300 item level via quests, and then do a bit of easy raiding to more than double your output.

It's just boring. There's no depth. "Uncommon" isn't uncommon, it's laughably common.

Well, actually "uncommon" IS uncommon, because EVERYTHING is "epic"

Completely agree with the spirit of your post though. But that ship has sailed since, well, WotLK at least...

[satanicway]

Raiding is the smallest part of the game and was for years if you remove looking for raid. It's never been the center focus or overly popular blizzard had to make a lot of changes for it to get to this point.

The vast majority of players in classic or tbc never stepped foot into a raid.

Not really true. Raiding is what makes wow survive, it is like this since TBC, and the expansion that made it what it is today is WoTLK.

Players on Classic and TBC were still so new to the game that dungeons were fun enough.
Things were so hard because knowledge was so difficulty to get about the game that doing the dungeons was major effort for some people and took hours upon hours.

Since WoTLK dungeons were very accessible. Raids are the track you need to run to get your carrot. Remove that, and the game loses its unique feature, and start to compete with mobas, shooters, and other kind of games with small group competition.

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I've been playing MMOs for twenty years and was always of the opinion that players should have never had control of loot in any of them. I think its something Blizzard should have started in Wrath so people would have stopped whinging about it by now (lol, yeah right as salty fucks still drone on about the 2009 addition of DF).

I also HIGHLY doubt forced personal loot is affecting sub numbers in any meaningful way. Other stupid shit in BfA for sure but not that.

It will not affect numbers now, but it will in the future.

This is slowly corroding the middle of the pack mythic raids. As they suffer and stop raiding, people leave the game, but those are very small numbers for sure. Most of people dont even set foot on Mythic. But with this, in the long run high-end guilds lose material of recruitment, and their need of players will further cause problems for the middle of the pack guilds. You have less guilds for the high-end guilds to recruit from, so the middle of the pack loses more of its better players on a percentual scale. With this people on low Mythic guilds that want to step up their game and try to raid more seriously will have less guilds to go, but will be chased after by those guilds, causing problems for low mythic guilds to hold their best players. In the end the entire "food-chain" of guilds will suffer, and the gap between the high-end guilds and the common folk will increase, and the "path of progress" will be so convoluted that people will not feel like they can even try to progress.

Low Mythic guilds will suffer because they will never improve, because theyr best players will leave for middle of the pack mythic guilds, those mythic guilds will not sustain enough numbers to improve because they will be scarce and their best players will be taken by high-end guilds...

This happens since Vanilla, and EVERY time blizzard made a move that caused a big loss for middle of the pack raiders the game suffered huge losses.

Every time they did it the game shrinked badly. And it will happen again with personal loot.

Will it be the end of raiding and wow? No.
Will it be another big loss for the game? Yes.

The guild "food-chain" needs a steady income of new players and improving players. Personal loot cause problems for middle of the pack guilds, and reduce the incentives for people to fixate on a guild.

[Hellborne87]

I've always been amused how worked up some people get about the loot change to personal. There's really two sides to this situation; Master loot was great when I was an officer of my longest tenured guild because you wanted loot to go to the people who most, "deserved" it (based off attendance, performance, need, etc.) and you hated that a trial could come in and get BiS items and things that your veteran raiders could use.

The flip side of the coin, however, I experienced once my guild died and I began having to trial with multiple other guilds. It really sucks going in to a raid with 19 people you don't know, already stressing about proving yourself via parses, punctuality, mechanics, and survivability and also being a good personality fit - I guess where I'm going with this is that trialing isn't necessarily an enjoyable experience and I was fortunate enough to not have to experience that from MSV to basically Uldir. But to be cock blocked from loot on top of all of the above, just really sucked. I'm showing up and contributing to the boss kill as much as any other raider here, and to raid 2, 3, even 4 weeks sometimes with the possibility of being discarded at any moment and watching gear go to all of the raid leader's friends and favorite players sucked.

Not saying either side is right or wrong, just more so saying that I get each side's argument and ultimately, I'm ok with the changes. It does, however, seem like it has had a pretty negative effect on the community and the health of the raiding guild population.

It will not affect numbers now, but it will in the future.

This is slowly corroding the middle of the pack mythic raids. As they suffer and stop raiding, people leave the game, but those are very small numbers for sure. Most of people dont even set foot on Mythic. But with this, in the long run high-end guilds lose material of recruitment, and their need of players will further cause problems for the middle of the pack guilds. You have less guilds for the high-end guilds to recruit from, so the middle of the pack loses more of its better players on a percentual scale. With this people on low Mythic guilds that want to step up their game and try to raid more seriously will have less guilds to go, but will be chased after by those guilds, causing problems for low mythic guilds to hold their best players. In the end the entire "food-chain" of guilds will suffer, and the gap between the high-end guilds and the common folk will increase, and the "path of progress" will be so convoluted that people will not feel like they can even try to progress.

Low Mythic guilds will suffer because they will never improve, because theyr best players will leave for middle of the pack mythic guilds, those mythic guilds will not sustain enough numbers to improve because they will be scarce and their best players will be taken by high-end guilds...

This happens since Vanilla, and EVERY time blizzard made a move that caused a big loss for middle of the pack raiders the game suffered huge losses.

Every time they did it the game shrinked badly. And it will happen again with personal loot.

Will it be the end of raiding and wow? No.
Will it be another big loss for the game? Yes.

The guild "food-chain" needs a steady income of new players and improving players. Personal loot cause problems for middle of the pack guilds, and reduce the incentives for people to fixate on a guild.

You have basically described my exact situation. Objectively, I'm a, "middle of the pack mythic raider". I've gotten a few Cutting Edges, but usually fall just shy of CE on most tiers. But I also parse well and get AoTC the first week or two. Middle of the pack. Anyways, right after these loot changes and BfA got stale (not saying their is a connection, who knows?), all of my guildmates stopped playing and all the guilds around my progression started to vanish. I can absolutely see what you're describing here.

[satanicway]

You in your past posts have said if people have a problem with the loot system they could find a new guild, now your saying that them leaving because they are sick of being stuck on stand by it's bad. If people are leaving your "cutting edge" guild because they aren't getting a spot often enough that's your guilds fault not theirs, your guild lousing a whip to crack to keep obedience isn't going to win you much sympathy from me or many other players ether.

I am a mere raider, so no one is leaving "my cutting edge guild".

People don't getting a spot often is the norm not the exception. Sometimes a class is bad for a progression and the guild will focus a boss for 2-3 weeks. Your arguments only show you have no real idea of how raiding really works.

You don't need a "whip to crack", you need things to use as INCENTIVES to avoid needing to resort to extreme punishments. For example, rules that punish you with DKP/EPGP loss if you do not use dps potions on the fights. Sure you can just talk to everyone, but in 25 people there will always be some guys that think they dont need to use pot on that try. Add a punishment and people will not take the risk, don't add it and someone will want to avoid the gold expendure, and everyone else will start to either doing the same or being very mad at that person, and this start in-guild stress. (This is just an example)

You can reward people for doing their +10 M+ for the week, and that makes sure people don't lazy and get this important source of gear that will help progression. There is alot more you can do with good management and Master Loot to incentivize good behavior and reduce bad behavior in raids.

Humans need incentives and punishments to work properly in a group of people because we are all different and we have different opinions on what we should do, and this will cause conflict when you are in a competitive team.

Yes they could do better then just PL, but ML isn't better it's just another kind of bad. Maybe add a ML system that is elective, if you don't join in the pool the total ML drops goes down, and the PL player can't receive any loot from the ML pool. Are you A trial who ain't going to see any loot for 3+ weeks, to a guild who loves to string along trials, and has a waiting list of 3+ people for the item you really need? Take fate into your own hands! they can still dole out loot as they see fit, and you can take a shot at getting it on your own.

Your system does not work. People would be forced to agree with ML or be kicked.

There is a WAY simple system: The guild that wants ML can use ML, the guild that does not want it can use PL. It was in place on Legion btw.

The trial that entered knew the loot rules, if they disagree don't join! The current raiders that worked hard to reach the current guild progress should not lose an item to someone that just joined, did not to reach that progression and are not trustworthy yet.

This trial argument just show me that people that dislike master loot are the ones that either never really raided with consistency, or are guild hoppers, or yet bad players that always fail their trials or get kicked from guilds.

Don't have to, Blizzard decided to inhibit loot funneling from everyone by making it PL, so it's still a fair race, and you lost your whip for "Incentivising" your players to behave. Now everyone has softer rules ! kicking all your members because you can't actually manage them without fear of lousing loot? well shoot their goes your cutting edge...

Loot funneling was never a real issue, and it still happens. People now make run of same kind of armor and tunnel loot the same way it always happened. Mythic+ ensures everyone has ilvl to pass items. So bad argument again.

And your argument about managing players just show you lack experience in leading anything in your life.
You need rules, incentives and punishments to make a group of humans beings work properly. Our society does that with laws and regulations, our companys does that to make co-workers work as a team, sport teams do that to make players work as a group. Humans need carrots on a stick to improve behavior, and we need punishments to reduce our tendency to slack.

If people didn't have the intent to make things run smoother, and the threat of being left behind for 1 raid or so wasn't enough to deter them from what ever it is you didn't want, then they probably should be removed from the guild? If you find that you don't have the required numbers because to many people broke your rules maybe you should lighten the rules some instead?

Leaving a player behind for one raid is a complex punishment because it punishs the whole guild too. Many times you need certain classes, people with experience in certain aspects of a fight, and those persons will feel their "diplomatic immunity".

All your arguments shows that you know NOTHING about leading.
You lose people because you don't have lighter punishments to avoid making their actions scalate to a level that a kick is required.

If there is the right incentives and punishments you avoid players getting lazy, or causing social problems from the start, if you dont have those rules their behavior scalates to a point where you have nothing else to do besides kicking the player.

Yes you can talk to people, but talking rarely has a persistent effect. Incentives and punishments have a way more stable effect on people behavior. Explaining why the rules are as they are, and why the punishment or reward is important, i am not saying you should treat people like children, but the information alone does not mold action, punishment and rewards does.

If some one is missing a fight they are getting screwed that is the sad fact, if they then get first dibs on loot from another boss then the person who did both of the fights, and got nothing from the first, and needed the second gets screwed. If he Is given equal/grater chance at the drop because he dose need it, and he is needed for the other fight player 1 is benched on, then player 1 is still screwed. If player 1 gets something that no one else needs and is told that was his reward for staying behind then he didn't actually gain anything at all and was still screwed. Someone always gets screwed when you overstock on players, that's the nature of the beast.

That is why EPGP/DKP exists.

The problem is the FEELING.
The player on replace on a Master Loot guild will not feel like they are being gravely punished for staying out of the fight as much because they presence is still being counted, they are progression on their objetive to get the loot. Someone will get the loot for that boss they could not go, and those players will lose priority, and by that your own priority will rise.

Your lack of knowledge of how this system works and how it is way less punishing to be on a replace with Master Loot just shows how ignorant you are to raiding.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

What game are you playing that it takes 3 hours for a mythic dungeon?
Either way, personal loot and dungeons are married. They can not be separated at this point. M+ requires it, so it will never return for 5 mans for sure. Raids, I'm sure are still up for discussion, but I'd just move on at this point. Personal loot really isn't any worse than masterlooter other than the trade rules. You actually get MORE loot with personal loot.

If you have problems with the trading system, that's what you should be discussing.

[satanicway]

I wish we got back regular need/greed loot from bosses. But today, with M+ chests and all this BS, it's a long gone dream.

In raiding, I agree with personal loot a lot. If you joined a guild when they are already established, you would NEVER get the legendary or that cool mount. That stuff was reserved for the Officers. If you are defending that practice you probably were an officer yourself.

Yeah because people work and effort should amount to no rewards...
Get real, the rules for those things were there when you joined.

On TBC, when Alar dropped for us everyone agreed that the guild leader should receive it because it was FAIR. No one would be there if it wasn't for him. And i was a mere raider.

Want to get a legendary or cool mount? Make your guild. Put in some effort. You want to lazy around and have the same chance as everyone, and that is cheap.

You can always find a guild of like-minded people that always roll on mounts. I played on some of then, and it worked well too.
But yes, most of the time rare mounts are for raid leaders and important officers that carry the work that must be done to manage the raid, it is their fair reward for the work done.

Now legendaries, like WoTLK/Cata style ones that are guild efforts needs to be given first to people that everyone on the raid can trust that will not leave the guild. I don't like those legendaries exactly because of that. Having lots on your guild is very important for progression, and higher progression guilds would stalk lengedary using players from lower guilds for recruitment. Giving a legendary to someone that is not a core member of the guild, that is a friend to most of members, and that everyone trust will not leave is a good way to cause major progression issues because you will lack legendary wielding characters.

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God forbid respecting your raiders enough to give everyone a fair chance. Instead, just use your lowlie raiders to throw gear the elite of the guild don't need, and make them carry you to that Tiger mount you want.

No one use lowlie raiders. A more evenly geared raid has more chance of getting kills and ending in the acquisition of the "tiger mount" then hoarding gear.
And if someone carry someone is not the lowlie because those are more oftern inexperienced, low geared and worse players then the average dedicated core member of a guild. If they are better then the players they are joined in they will notice, leave, and apply to better guild. That is how it always worked.

My guilds (4) all did this in EU. I think you are being delusional if you think it was rare.

Expansions: Classic, TBC and WotLK. Every single rare mount, every single legendary, every single "BIS" item, allways going to the Officers first. The game was fun enough to endure it, but it was still some BS.

So you are an entitled guy that belives you deserve things without working for them.
Make your guild if you didnt agree with it. Or protest the fairness of the rules for loot distribution with your follow guildmates.

Most probably you are the problem not the system. Most of raiders NEVER had issues with it, but a minority vocal group keeps yelling like they were being robbed.
Guess what, they most of the time were the worst players, that stayed less on a single guild.

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I've always been amused how worked up some people get about the loot change to personal. There's really two sides to this situation; Master loot was great when I was an officer of my longest tenured guild because you wanted loot to go to the people who most, "deserved" it (based off attendance, performance, need, etc.) and you hated that a trial could come in and get BiS items and things that your veteran raiders could use.

The flip side of the coin, however, I experienced once my guild died and I began having to trial with multiple other guilds. It really sucks going in to a raid with 19 people you don't know, already stressing about proving yourself via parses, punctuality, mechanics, and survivability and also being a good personality fit - I guess where I'm going with this is that trialing isn't necessarily an enjoyable experience and I was fortunate enough to not have to experience that from MSV to basically Uldir. But to be cock blocked from loot on top of all of the above, just really sucked. I'm showing up and contributing to the boss kill as much as any other raider here, and to raid 2, 3, even 4 weeks sometimes with the possibility of being discarded at any moment and watching gear go to all of the raid leader's friends and favorite players sucked.

Not saying either side is right or wrong, just more so saying that I get each side's argument and ultimately, I'm ok with the changes. It does, however, seem like it has had a pretty negative effect on the community and the health of the raiding guild population.



You have basically described my exact situation. Objectively, I'm a, "middle of the pack mythic raider". I've gotten a few Cutting Edges, but usually fall just shy of CE on most tiers. But I also parse well and get AoTC the first week or two. Middle of the pack. Anyways, right after these loot changes and BfA got stale (not saying their is a connection, who knows?), all of my guildmates stopped playing and all the guilds around my progression started to vanish. I can absolutely see what you're describing here.

Can you agree with me that ML is an incentive for someone to stay on a guild?

I can agree with you that being a recruit is not the best experience, but isnt that somewhat good for the game?
People already guild hop alot, guilds already struggle to keep their top players on the core, manly for middle and low mythic guilds. Removing yet anoter icentive for people to keep playing where they are furthers the problem.

I was never personally a very loot centric person so maybe that is why my opinion on this is very guild centric.
I want to kill bosses, i don't care about getting loot. When i was a RL in the past, but now i am only a raider because of lack of free time, i was always the last one to get gear, both to give an example to people on the guild, and because all i wanted is killing new bosses.

I believe a system that helps organizing the guilds, and gives incentives for people to stay where they are and keep progressing as a group is a better system, even if it causes recruits to feel unrewarded.

I seriously don't believe recruits deserve the same loot then the rest of the players on the core, simply because they did not take part on the harders step, getting the boss down for the first time. Progress takes alot of time, consumibles, effort, and it should be rewarded. A recruit is in fact carried by those that did the hard work, they getting things that no one else needs is already reward enough in my opinion.

I was a trial in the past and i NEVER ever felt bad about this. In 2-4 weeks you leave the recruit tag behind, and if you proved your worthy you will be part of the guild as a full member. That is a good process imo.

[ParadoxT]

Yeah, but if you have been long enough in the races, you must've had wipes that we've had that I described. Most guilds have. Rendering the loot targetting mostly irrelevant. Although few RLs will acknowledge this publicly

Right...but that doesn't change the perfect attempt where you hit a gear wall. One doesn't cancel out the other.

[Marxman]

God forbid respecting your raiders enough to give everyone a fair chance. Instead, just use your lowlie raiders to throw gear the elite of the guild don't need, and make them carry you to that Tiger mount you want.

Not everyone deserves a fair chance. Some players are better than others. Some are more reliable than others. Some put in more effort to the team (recruitment, strats, farming consumables, etc.). If you're more valuable to the team, you get more rewards. That's not only how raiding used to work, it's how society works generally. This simple-minded idea that "everyone deserves everything equally!" is just not realistic.

Every single rare mount, every single legendary, every single "BIS" item, allways going to the Officers first. The game was fun enough to endure it, but it was still some BS.

Why wouldn't they go to the more trusted members of the guild first? Especially with legendaries, you have to give them to someone whom you know is going to be there, be able to perform, and not run off with it to another guild. Our first set of Warglaives in TBC went to probably the most immature person in the guild, a teenager who everybody hated... but he was good, and showed up every day. Well, basically as soon as he got his 2nd Glaive, he ran off to another guild. Oops. We gave it to someone who wasn't trustworthy.

It's not "BS"... it's just putting the needs of the many over the needs of the individual.

[Onikaroshi]

Raiding is the smallest part of the game and was for years if you remove looking for raid. It's never been the center focus or overly popular blizzard had to make a lot of changes for it to get to this point.

The vast majority of players in classic or tbc never stepped foot into a raid.

In vanilla yea, but by SOO Raiding was one of the higher participated "limited participation" activities. With 33%ish of players stepping into the new flex raid. I'd argue PvP has lower participation. And if you only look at non-queued content it is definitely lower.

[Mardux]

Half a year in you'd have to be an absolute control freak (possibly in a position that you could use to your advantage for loot) not to admit that forced personal loot has been a real blessing to the game. The only downside I see in the system is that you can't trade loot that's higher than the one you are currently wearing if it has wrong stats (which makes sense, sadly, with the ilvl "perches" to upgrade your azerite caches and/or get access to LFR/Warfronts). Most people keep their "highest ilvl pieces" around though so this is an initial problem at best. An incredible improvement to the game. Fuck circle-jerking loot councils.

I agree with that last sentence. I disagree with "fuck the LCs that used ML correctly and appropriately" sentiment that is constantly spewed by the anti-choice, anti-ML crowd.

[ping-pong]

Right...but that doesn't change the perfect attempt where you hit a gear wall. One doesn't cancel out the other.

Gear walls get nerfed or we all wait a week. If you consider entire progress of a guild, loot system is irrelevant. If you only consider a few pulls where it would have mattered, yeah, it is relevant. But it is equally relevant to both systems in different few pulls. In the end, people should stop fussing about it. It will not make or break anyone's progress. You guys should use energy on more important things than on discussion about imagined QOL you "lost".

[ParadoxT]

Gear walls get nerfed or we all wait a week. If you consider entire progress of a guild, loot system is irrelevant. If you only consider a few pulls where it would have mattered, yeah, it is relevant. But it is equally relevant to both systems in different few pulls. In the end, people should stop fussing about it. It will not make or break anyone's progress. You guys should use energy on more important things than on discussion about imagined QOL you "lost".

So you are for the insane opinion that it won't make or break anyone's progression but then explain how it will break progression?

[Mardux]

Not everyone deserves a fair chance. Some players are better than others. Some are more reliable than others. Some put in more effort to the team (recruitment, strats, farming consumables, etc.). If you're more valuable to the team, you get more rewards. That's not only how raiding used to work, it's how society works generally. This simple-minded idea that "everyone deserves everything equally!" is just not realistic.





Why wouldn't they go to the more trusted members of the guild first? Especially with legendaries, you have to give them to someone whom you know is going to be there, be able to perform, and not run off with it to another guild. Our first set of Warglaives in TBC went to probably the most immature person in the guild, a teenager who everybody hated... but he was good, and showed up every day. Well, basically as soon as he got his 2nd Glaive, he ran off to another guild. Oops. We gave it to someone who wasn't trustworthy.

It's not "BS"... it's just putting the needs of the many over the needs of the individual.

It is BS though, their claim that everything went to officers first that is.

[deepjazz]

best change blizzard has done in wow... there is no problem with this system.

[satanicway]

best change blizzard has done in wow... there is no problem with this system.

And what was the problem if having both options?

If you want you can use Personal Loot, if not you can go with Master Loot.
We had both for entire Legion, so why change now?

It is not the best change, in fact is a so bad one that will cause huge loss of players into the game in the future.

[trapmaster]

best change blizzard has done in wow... there is no problem with this system.

This is the reason wow playerbase kept going down day to day... are you that serious?

[ping-pong]

So you are for the insane opinion that it won't make or break anyone's progression but then explain how it will break progression?

You seem to be less inteligent than I thought at first. I'm signing off. Cheers mate.

[Dikka]

A recruit is in fact carried by those that did the hard work, they getting things that no one else needs is already reward enough in my opinion.

If you truly believe that... Here is an idea.
Why don't you take money from your recruits?
I mean if you truly believe rewards are unfair you can always, always compensate that with gold!

You can take a reasonable amount of gold from your recruits for every boss they kill. Call it "carry tax".
Sure your recruits will understand...

You are welcome.

[satanicway]

If you truly believe that... Here is an idea.
Why don't you take money from your recruits?
I mean if you truly believe rewards are unfair you can always, always compensate that with gold!

You can take a reasonable amount of gold from your recruits for every boss they kill. Call it "carry tax".
Sure your recruits will understand...

You are welcome.

It will start to happen if things are not solved another way.
But it feel less fair then giving the loot to the ones that worked hard to reach the given progression.

The amount of gold is questionable, it is less transparent, and for what that gold will be used and how it will benefit the whole guild is less clear, that is why your ideia is way worse then Master Loot.

But if nothing changes, punishing people with gold costs will be the way for guilds to get back on track. Would you like that to happen?
And more, how much to charge? Some people have many caps of gold, wille others struggle to have consumibles to raid. So how to make it in a fair way? See the problems? See how your argument is pathetic?

Have a nice day.