Personal loot the perferred loot method moving forward

[xpose]

Only reason they would be removing it is because it requires extra code to be written and they no longer want to do it. Otherwise it makes zero sense for them remove something thats already implemented and doesn't impact anyone unless they choose for it to. This isn't a gameplay decision and is more a business resource decision.

If you approach it from the business perspective of resources then it become obvious that they shouldn't be spending extra time on code that a small subset actually uses.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

But again, forcing it isn't really very fair or good either. If people like PL or ML fine, let them use which they prefer.

That really isn't my choice. I am going to be honest it going away isn't going to lead me towards quitting or anything. Extremely minor subject.

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Then they should remove every aspect of the game with any social interaction.

They have been going that way for a pretty long minute now.

[xcitng]

Ive never been payed to play nor have any of my peers. Where are you getting information that top 50 guilds are being payed to play? Outside of the handful of streamers who are doing that on their own it simply doesnt exist.

The top 2 are for sure, Method gets more money if they are world first ect

[tearsofflame]

They're pushing it because the bad out-weighs the good. More people who ninja loot out-weighs the pro guilds who actually fairly distribute loot. It only takes one person to ruin it for everybody so I'm fine with it being personal loot for everyone. Pro guilds can still just open trade and trade whoever was eiligible for that loot for that boss.

[Deleted]

They're pushing it because the bad out-weighs the good. More people who ninja loot out-weighs the pro guilds who actually fairly distribute loot. It only takes one person to ruin it for everybody so I'm fine with it being personal loot for everyone. Pro guilds can still just open trade and trade whoever was eiligible for that loot for that boss.

PROVE it. You're basically saying that the majority of mythic raiding guilds engage in ninja-looting, that's what you're saying.

[tearsofflame]

PROVE it. You're basically saying that the majority of mythic raiding guilds engage in ninja-looting, that's what you're saying.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that if you are not in a guild then you que up for raiding. Which then if it's set to master looter, those reports get sent to blizzard of people who have been loot no distributed correctly. Casuals who play/raid outweigh the 1% of pros who actually play. That's what I'm saying. I never said guilds ninja loot. I said as a whole community, more stuff get ninja looted than properly distributed. Not that guilds are doing it.

[Oneleg]

Forced PL is a horrible idea for a ton of reasons, I'm not even sure where to begin. I will try to categorize my thoughts though.

My most immediate concern is for guilds that are not full guild groups because they either had a pug or are trialing new members. In these situations, most people understand that they are pretty much going to use bonus rolls and their only shot at getting loot is if something would otherwise be d/e'd or just taken for transmog (or, again, their bonus rolls). Forced personal loot is the game effectively forcibly including people into the loot people that normally wouldn't be present.

The next concern falls under the "trading" function. If trading isn't changed, the gaps between the haves and the have-nots are simply going to widen. Imagine back in Nighthold if Drought of Souls went to a Frost DK over a Warrior, and that DK couldn't trade it because it was a 5 ilvl upgrade over his current trinket. That trinket is MASSIVELY better for the warrior and the DK isn't even likely to use it at all, yet now he's stuck with it.

A piece that's a 5 ilvl upgrade for you drops with your 2 worst secondaries? Too bad you can't trade it because it's a 5 ilvl upgrade. Feels great to finally win a piece of loot when it's actually just 60g after a brief conversation with a vendor.

In short, the trading rules for personal loot make getting loot less exciting across the board for guild groups, because not only do you need to have the RNG that your item dropped, but then you need the other layer of RNG that it dropped FOR you OR is tradeable on someone else that doesn't need it.

Another component of trading concern (and still related under the feelsbadman category) is when something drops that is an upgrade and is tradeable, you now get to carry that loot around until your loot council tells you to trade it. Sure, you could tell your council to shove it and go on about your business, but you'll also be going on about finding a new guild.

I mean, there's no way that having to ask a raider for a piece of gear to distribute DOESN'T introduce some degree of toxicity, and there's no way forced personal loot won't get policed by any serious progression group.

This also doesn't fix splits what-so-ever, it just changes what they look like. We'll just see all plate splits (or nearly all plate splits as 4 holy paladins may not function), nearly all mail splits (tanks obviously won't be in mail), all leather splits, and nearly all cloth splits (again, tanks won't be in cloth and PROBABLY need more than just priests healing but maybe not). Hybrids get higher prio than other specs since they have access to the most trinkets and it's pretty rare for a boss to just be an across-the-board "trinket" boss. As the tier progresses, you'd also just swap the DPS hybrids that already have their DPS trinkets to roll on trinkets still needed.

So you now have more obnoxious splits I guess because leather gets the most trade-ability of any armor type? Oh, not to mention you'd also probably modify your splits so that if a given boss drops, say, a healing trinket, you'd go shadow priest heavy in the cloth splits so that they could flex their loot spec over to healing to try to get the trinket to trade.

Sure, splits will be less rewarding you could argue since there's a chance you won't be able to trade the loot, but I doubt that chance fully discredits splits all together.

And then even for non-splits, hybrids become the go-to to fill out your raid with. You definitely want 1 of each class, but for my melee DPS I'm going to value feral druids, windwalkers, and ret paladins higher than other specs (unless their numbers are garbage) because I can ask them to roll for specific trinkets on specific bosses once they have theirs. For ranged, Boomkins get the highest priority followed by Shadow Priests and Elemental Shamans for the same reason.

And frankly, if I can keep my tanks to some combination of Druid/Paladin/Monk, that's ideal for the same reason.

So just to recap, my hot take:
This change makes raiding feel worse for any guild group in between (and mostly not including) casual groups (who I am assuming likely just use personal loot now anyway?) and hardcore server/world first groups (who are not really going to see major changes due to continuing to do splits anyway).

Maybe there's a way to tweak personal loot to make it more viable going forward (boss specific BLP, for starters), but you're still left with issues like being forced to give loot to trials (as an example).

Ok lets go back to normal master loot, and see 2 whole pieces of gear drop off every boss, and no one needs any of it, it all gets sharded.... With our guild we run personal loot all the time, gear gets traded constantly without an issue, there is a mod, that I can't remember the name of that if run by a person with lead or assist allows people to put items up for roll, we have no issues with loot. I do agree with you on the ilvl thing, we should be able to trade anything as long as we don't equip it.

[Deleted]

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that if you are not in a guild then you que up for raiding. Which then if it's set to master looter, those reports get sent to blizzard of people who have been loot no distributed correctly. Casuals who play/raid outweigh the 1% of pros who actually play. That's what I'm saying. I never said guilds ninja loot. I said as a whole community, more stuff get ninja looted than properly distributed. Not that guilds are doing it.

You have no clue what you're talking about. In order for ML to be used, 80% of the group must be from the same guild. That excludes the vast majority of PUGs.

[Leodric]

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that if you are not in a guild then you que up for raiding. Which then if it's set to master looter, those reports get sent to blizzard of people who have been loot no distributed correctly. Casuals who play/raid outweigh the 1% of pros who actually play. That's what I'm saying. I never said guilds ninja loot. I said as a whole community, more stuff get ninja looted than properly distributed. Not that guilds are doing it.

You know the restrictions of ML? Also if those restrictions would be gone (like it was in previous expansions), of course way more stuff would get properly distributed. I am playing WoW since Vanilla with some breaks between and in all those years I saw maybe 2-3 people ninja looting something. Yes it was shitty, but life goes on.
Not saying that my experience is the standard in WoW, but I have lots of friends and people I am still in contact with who play WoW and I never heard the issue of ninja looting.

How come you think more stuff gets ninja looted than properly distributed? Such a imprudent thing to say. If that would be the case the forums would be full of threads trying to stop ninja looters.

[Stockers]

Current situation:

1. Boss dies, everyone bar ML moves on.

2. Loot gets link in raid chat

3. People /roll on what they need, and we encourage using common sense over items

4. Player gets item.

5. Loot done, and trash already cleared.

6. Next boss.

New system:

1. Boss dies, people get loot

2. Raid chat gets spammed with "who needs this?"

3. Players get spammed with "you need that mate?"

4. Half the group are stood around fucking about with loot.

5. Other pack slowly clearing trash and getting pissed off half the raid are slacking.

6. Group finally catch up and help clear.

7. I get a PM from member X saying "member Y is keeping his item as he will use it as the stats are better for his off spec, should he ever use it, but it is a huge upgrade for me"

8. Have to explain there is little I can do, as neither myself or the RL have any control over loot these days, and suggest making a post on the Blizz suggestion forums.

9. Finally get to the boss, kill it...

10. Rinse and repeat.

[Sosuke Aizen]

Taking away choice is almost never good and its not good here. If PL is so great, it wouldn't have to be forced upon people. ML should be allowed for groups that like that sort of thing. What you're really saying is "i like it, so fuck everyone else"

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I didn't say "I like it, so fuck everyone else", I don't do a play on words so if I wanted to say that I would. Like I said, everyone has their opinion but some of you feel that if others don't agree then we are forcing our opinion on them. No, that's not how it works - if two parties don't see eye to eye, it's completely OK.

You've been doing that same sort of stuff in this thread though, its really ironic.

If you like PL why not make a guild that exclusively uses that? Its better for everyone to have more options.

This is starting to sound like the "if you don't want to fly, use a ground mount" discussion. This current expansion, we've used PL and we use ML so I don't have a problem with either option. I do love the idea of getting rid of ML but it is not something I would lose sleep over.

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Very true. But it can work for you as much as it works against you. I mean if 5 weapons drop for your guild at once its a major gain instead of just 1 or 2 that might. Once people get the item they can trade them to those without. I mean really its just better in every way.

Oh I completely forgot that we will be rolling on weapons in BFA. Those DW/MH&OH/MH&Shield loot days were at the back of my mind :/

[Stabatya]

Current situation:

1. Boss dies, everyone bar ML moves on.

2. Loot gets link in raid chat

3. People /roll on what they need, and we encourage using common sense over items

4. Player gets item.

5. Loot done, and trash already cleared.

6. Next boss.

New system:

1. Boss dies, people get loot

2. Raid chat gets spammed with "who needs this?"

3. Players get spammed with "you need that mate?"

4. Half the group are stood around fucking about with loot.

5. Other pack slowly clearing trash and getting pissed off half the raid are slacking.

6. Group finally catch up and help clear.

7. I get a PM from member X saying "member Y is keeping his item as he will use it as the stats are better for his off spec, should he ever use it, but it is a huge upgrade for me"

8. Have to explain there is little I can do, as neither myself or the RL have any control over loot these days, and suggest making a post on the Blizz suggestion forums.

9. Finally get to the boss, kill it...

10. Rinse and repeat.

So in the first example you say “we encourage common sense” and use that to negate all the possible loot drama? Really? No one in your raid has ever bitched about being passed over for an item they think they deserved? No ones ever complained about loot going to officers/friends over raiders with higher contribution? No one in your raid has ever rolled need on something that’s a minor upgrade for them but a major for their fellow raider? No ones ever complained about their “BIS” going to someone else? Sounds like you must have the perfect guild, congrats! Sadly this isn’t the case for the other 90% of the player population.

1. Boss dies, people get loot.
2. Everyone understands loot is individual now.
3. Trash is being cleared 10 seconds later.
4. Next boss.

[Stockers]

1. Boss dies, people get loot.
2. Everyone understands loot is individual now.
3. Trash is being cleared 10 seconds later.
4. Next boss.

Not quite.

As for my guild? Yeah, of course we have had drama before from people complaining about loot, they are either given suitable words of advice or just straight up removed. Most of us are early to mid 30's (myself 35) a few old 45ish I think he is, the youngest being 24, and given how long the large portion of us have been raiding together, I would like to think we are over the loot drama shit, and hold our friendship and needs of the guild over personal progression. I have been tanking with the same 2 guys since the end of Cata/start of MoP, and we rarely roll on the tank stuff merely asking amongst each other... "do you want that?" And the rest of the guys, especially for tier pieces and trinkets is always fine with similar quick conversations, like "oh it completes my 4 set" "no problem, i'll pass". I often find if there is any drama, it is from new people in the guild who are yet to form the strong bonds we have, the worst are the ones that join as a group or 2 or 3 friends. Maybe it is just down to your (yours or gm/officer/rl) leadership of the raid and guild.

[Stabatya]

Not quite.

As for my guild? Yeah, of course we have had drama before from people complaining about loot, they are either given suitable words of advice or just straight up removed. Most of us are early to mid 30's (myself 35) a few old 45ish I think he is, the youngest being 24, and given how long the large portion of us have been raiding together, I would like to think we are over the loot drama shit, and hold our friendship and needs of the guild over personal progression. I have been tanking with the same 2 guys since the end of Cata/start of MoP, and we rarely roll on the tank stuff merely asking amongst each other... "do you want that?" And the rest of the guys, especially for tier pieces and trinkets is always fine with similar quick conversations, like "oh it completes my 4 set" "no problem, i'll pass". I often find if there is any drama, it is from new people in the guild who are yet to form the strong bonds we have, the worst are the ones that join as a group or 2 or 3 friends. Maybe it is just down to your (yours or gm/officer/rl) leadership of the raid and guild.

So you see the problem here right? Yes loot council can work well amoungst a core group of people playing together. Unfortunately that leaves new players on the outs. So while y’all having a grand old time passing out all the loot to your friends you’ve been playing with forever, the new recruits are salty. Herein lies the issue with this entire discussion... Guildmasters, officers and long standing guild members are deftly against this change because it compromises their system. Everyone else (the majority) is for this change because it evens the playing field, they contributed to a kill, they deserve just as much chance at reward as anyone else.

As I said previously, I don’t seriously think ML will be removed. From a personal perspective I don’t have an issue with it as I’m generally one of the first on my server to level cap and/or within whatever guild I’m playing in. I get in groups early and by the time the serious loot is being handed out, I’m well regarded as a valuable raider. That doesn’t mean the system is good, works well or that it isn’t a massive cock block for newer players with less time to invest.

I’m curious. If blizzard made personal loot award an additional 2-3 items guaranteed. Would you swap? If not, why not?

[Prime92]

This plus the whole "secondaries should be worse than ilvl" is depressing.

Why not just remove secondaries and make everything a flat ilvl, and ilvl determines your power?

Why even have loot anymore?


This game is getting depressingly simplified, and there is no good alternative raiding game. It sucks.

Exactly. And that's all because some "players felt compelled to use sims and couldn't decide if an item is an upgrade for them or not". Basically it's becomming a World of Idiotcraft, where everything is being flattened and made as obvious as possible and boring.

[Stockers]

So you see the problem here right? Yes loot council can work well amoungst a core group of people playing together. Unfortunately that leaves new players on the outs. So while y’all having a grand old time passing out all the loot to your friends you’ve been playing with forever, the new recruits are salty. Herein lies the issue with this entire discussion... Guildmasters, officers and long standing guild members are deftly against this change because it compromises their system. Everyone else (the majority) is for this change because it evens the playing field, they contributed to a kill, they deserve just as much chance at reward as anyone else.

As I said previously, I don’t seriously think ML will be removed. From a personal perspective I don’t have an issue with it as I’m generally one of the first on my server to level cap and/or within whatever guild I’m playing in. I get in groups early and by the time the serious loot is being handed out, I’m well regarded as a valuable raider. That doesn’t mean the system is good, works well or that it isn’t a massive cock block for newer players with less time to invest.

I’m curious. If blizzard made personal loot award an additional 2-3 items guaranteed. Would you swap? If not, why not?

That's a fair point and understood, and I agree with the salty new recruits lol, we've all seen it!

At a stage when I had time to have more than a main and half arsed normal/heroic raiding alt, I had a proper alt in another raiding guild, and I remember as a trial, I wasn't eligible for loot for the first few weeks, which I understood and happily signed up for, and missed out on some juicy epics!

But it is the PL system which removed abilities like this, thus allowing trials/alts/pugs (who are only there for curve/bonus roll)/whatever free reign over loot, without any influence from the guild leadership. Again, a guild I was in during early Cata operated a EPGP system, no my idea of fun, but it helped with getting flasks and food, and even one of my mates is in a normal/heroic guild now and they use EPGP, and are urged to donate Bacon for weekly bonus EP, LAME!

I'm sure there are some guilds out there who still use these systems, as well as loot council and can operate them fairly. But then you have no control over who gets BFA version of Deathbringers Will, Titanforged of course, when you just bring that new recruit along and he gets it, after one of your long serving DPS has been waiting weeks for it, its a minor upgrade for him, not even BiS, but that poor guy who is still running with a dungeon blue... has to miss out because of a raid leader not having control over the loot that drops, only to see that recruit either vanish and not log on for 14 months and come back at the start of the final raid tier, or randomly leave the guild on a Saturday afternoon, and spot him 3 weeks later still guildless!?

We're having another guild meet up in May, at Nottingham this time, and even some of the guys who've only been in since after Christmas are coming, as well and us who are the old timers. I know there are guilds out there who will always favor their friends and long term members, and sometimes I agree to that, but i'm not here to scare people away and make them resent myself and my officers, which is why we try to be as fair as possible, and if needs be explain why something has happened. If they get salty and go nuts, then they are not right for us.

Anyway! There is no way raids should be having ML removed, by all means set the default to PL, but ML options should still be there and eligible to use, even if it means a vote system similar to the vote to kick, where as when the option is selected, as long as 70% click yes, it can be activated, that way people can still have the option to leave should they not agree to the raid loot rules, or even just find a guild that runs only on PL, but forcing ALL raid teams to lose ML is not on. If they were to dish out 50% more loot if you switched to PL... I am sure the temptation for more epics will be there, there will be potentially 7/20 (ish) people getting loot per boss rather than just 4 people. Now making the loot so you can trade regardless of ilevel upgrade or not, this would be a no brainer. But from my point of view, there is no pro to swapping from ML to PL. I wish Blizz wouldn't say something like this, then have so much speculation surrounding it without any confirmation, or at least shortly followed by further details. Oh well.

[Powerogue]

Our raid group has used personal loot this entire expansion. Saves a lot of stupid arguments fighting over loot. I forgot other options even existed. We share loot rather than compete for it, and it makes for a much less stressful raiding experience.

The only bickering that's ever happened was deciding whether to discuss loot in guild or raid chat (basically whether we'd let PUG members roll on gear someone didn't need), with the general consensus being "only when we really need to get our ilevels up" but almost all of our wipes have been due to not understanding mechanics rather than ilevel push anyway.

[Leodric]

Our raid group has used personal loot this entire expansion. Saves a lot of stupid arguments fighting over loot. I forgot other options even existed. We share loot rather than compete for it, and it makes for a much less stressful raiding experience.

The only bickering that's ever happened was deciding whether to discuss loot in guild or raid chat (basically whether we'd let PUG members roll on gear someone didn't need), with the general consensus being "only when we really need to get our ilevels up" but almost all of our wipes have been due to not understanding mechanics rather than ilevel push anyway.

That's wonderfull for you and your raid group and it's nice to hear that you guys agreed on it and chose this option of using personal loot. I still enjoy using ML and a loot council which decides who gets loot depending on what puts the raid most forward. As long as your guild can choose and my guild can choose everyone should be happy, right ? Since we can all choose what guild we want to join in, no changes needed.

/thread

[Powerogue]

That's wonderfull for you and your raid group and it's nice to hear that you guys agreed on it and chose this option of using personal loot. I still enjoy using ML and a loot council which decides who gets loot depending on what puts the raid most forward. As long as your guild can choose and my guild can choose everyone should be happy, right ? Since we can all choose what guild we want to join in, no changes needed.

/thread

The completely unrestricted trust system that was rife with ninja looting was an "option" too, but good riddance to that crap. I'm still waiting on a compelling argument as to what Master Looting systems accomplish besides add excessive complexity and competition that sours the experience of raiding.

[Leodric]

The completely unrestricted trust system that was rife with ninja looting was an "option" too, but good riddance to that crap. I'm still waiting on a compelling argument as to what Master Looting systems accomplish besides add excessive complexity and competition that sours the experience of raiding.

There are plenty of arguments if you would actuelly read the thread why ML is superior for most guilds, hence why it's chosen by most guild. If you want to stay ignorant to those facts then that's your choice of course. I can tell of my experience that it does not add competition between me and my guild mates because we want the best for our raid. Complexity of course, but that's why you have a loot council deciding it, people who actually like to deal with that kind of complexity.

Again, I still need to see a compelling argument which justifes to force guilds using a loot option they don't want to use and are happy with something which exists since early WoW.