Master Looter

[JessicaJones]

I know the topic has been covered a lot.

But with Josh spilling some of the beans on how Method geared - 6 splits, 6 coins on one boss, leveling 3-4 professions etc and how BFA has turned out so far, do you think there will be a change at some point back to guild only Master Looter?

The same thing is being achieved by the top guilds but it seems to be hurting the more casual raiding/player base.

For instance, I'm 3/9m at the moment, not impressive I know, but I'm 410 equipped ilevel (409.50). The average ilevel of my raid team is about 402. The lowest member in my raid group is 398. That is a huge disparity between top and bottom and it's mostly based on luck.

To add a bit more context, at the end of Uldir, I was 390 equipped, roughly 3-7 ilevel higher than most of my raid group - again just due to RNG. I mean, for me all this personal loot stuff has worked out great, but I think it's far more detrimental to the raid, other players, guild and maybe ?game? as a whole than the benefit it gives me.

Think it would be interesting to hear people's thoughts now that 2 tiers are out and we've seen the gearing process through 2 WF races.

Method's Loot/Gear Strategy Explained, World First Race Tactics - this is the name of the video I'm talking about (lost password for main mmoc account so I don't think I can post links).


(Courtesy of "wesos de queso") Quick review of how Method geared for the raid:

1 - On the plate run everyone sets spec into dps and kill only the first boss 6 times and coin it to get the weapon so they can trade it later to the mains.
2 - 5 times Mekkatorque and Grong. To get 20 breath of Bwosandi for crafting purposes. These 2 were the least impactful bosses overall.
3 - Do full M+0 and 5 M+ in every single character they had to get 15 hydrocores. (75 dungeons in 2 days on average per player)
4 - Learn Engineering to craft a 400 engineering helmet, equip it then scrap it and unlearn engineering.
5 - Learn Jewelcrafting to craft a 400 jewelcrafting rings, equip it in both ring slots and unlearn jewelcrafting.
6 - Learn Alchemy to craft a craft a 400 alchemy stone trinket, equip it in both trinket slots and unlearn alchemy.
Side note: To do this, Method had to completely empty the auction house in 3 different severs. There were not enough resources in the entierity of EU-Tarren Mill to level these 3 professions in all of their characters. They had to transfer 4 guild banks full of resources across from several different servers and Scrype managed the logistics. Method is about 100+ million gold in debt.
7 - In the cloth/leather run they killed Stormwall Blockade and Opulence because they had the least impactful azerite pieces.
8 - The overall strategy to trade the BiS azerite pieces is to kill the bosses which drop the worst traits first. E.G. Cloth characters that need the Clonclave of the Chosen azerithe shoulders will join a party that already killed Grong and Mekkatorque multiple times so they have the best chance to get it.
9 - In the cloth/leather run they killed and coin King Rastakan 6 times in a row to get the Staff in all of their alts so they can trade Jadefire masters staff later to the main dps casters. Joshpriest killed King Rastakan aproximetely 30 times.
10 - Josh doesn't know what the mail run did because he doesn't play any mail character.

While it doesn't effect the majority of players, you can see that top guilds are still finding ways to "abuse" gearing (smart use of game mechanics). The only population it seems to really hurt are the guilds/players that clear Cutting Edge Content in an organised setting that don't have the time to gear and split 3+ characters and the only real benefit to super casual players who collect their RNG drops (which is totally fine btw), while their game experience would be altered to no degree whatsoever with the re-implementation of guild master looter.

[nlc]

I don’t think they brought in forced PL because of the top guilds and so I don’t they think they would get rid of it because of them either. Personal loot was brought in for philosophical reasons rather like the GCD changes. They’ve started to reverse themselves on the GCD so maybe they will reverse themselves on master loot as well? Who knows! I hope they will.

[Onikaroshi]

I don’t think they brought in forced PL because of the top guilds and so I don’t they think they would get rid of it because of them either. Personal loot was brought in for philosophical reasons rather like the GCD changes. They’ve started to reverse themselves on the GCD so maybe they will reverse themselves on master loot as well? Who knows! I hope they will.

Eh, don't kid yourself, they brought it in because too many tickets were "so and so stole my loot!" and most of the were not legit, so to save money they just removed loot from the equation.

[burek]

The only population it seems to really hurt are the guilds/players that clear Cutting Edge Content in an organised setting that don't have the time to gear and split 3+ characters

That's just not true as those guilds were hurt by master looter split runs even more. The difference now being that the bullshit method did was only done by a handful of guilds, while in legion you had even guilds around rank 500 doing a split run. It's much more difficult now to gain an advantage so fewer guilds are going to do it.

[Morgaith]

It would surprise me if blizzard didn't add masterloot back as an option for guildruns given what a shitshow BFA has been and forced personal loot has been a big part of that for many people.

[MisterBigglez]

Eh, don't kid yourself, they brought it in because too many tickets were "so and so stole my loot!" and most of the were not legit, so to save money they just removed loot from the equation.

Which was stupid because personal loot was forced in legion for any pugs, which was more than enough to calm the crowd of players QQing about someone stealing loot. Anyone complaining about loot being stolen from them in a guild using master loot is just a salty twat who felt entitled to that piece of loot. PL has really shown us just how bad it is for anyone competitive. Not to mention just how flawed the system is when you get a piece of gear, but can't trade it because of the ilvl, even though its a piece of shit and your friend with a terrible item could hugely benefit from it, but nah, fuck helping each other out.

[Onikaroshi]

Which was stupid because personal loot was forced in legion for any pugs, which was more than enough to calm the crowd of players QQing about someone stealing loot. Anyone complaining about loot being stolen from them in a guild using master loot is just a salty twat who felt entitled to that piece of loot. PL has really shown us just how bad it is for anyone competitive. Not to mention just how flawed the system is when you get a piece of gear, but can't trade it because of the ilvl, even though its a piece of shit and your friend with a terrible item could hugely benefit from it, but nah, fuck helping each other out.

That's the thing though, even in a guild with a completely fair system, or rules in place, people still felt entitled to loot because they either didn't understand the rules, didn't read the rules, or didn't care. Look in any ml thread and they're full of people whining about it, and very few are legit

[Alvito]

It would surprise me if blizzard didn't add masterloot back as an option for guildruns given what a shitshow BFA has been and forced personal loot has been a big part of that for many people.

Sadly they were genuinely surprised when people in mass asked for azerite gear to be open to trade. So there is a big disconnect between what they think people want, who they listen and what goes into the game. The removal of master loot is a killing blow for some raids. There have been many reasons for people to stop raiding or not want to bother with progression or wipe nights. Master loot let people gain something for showing up for those nights. Now it is all about being there for the kill and nothing else.

[Maquegyver]

A revamped Master Loot is the prime feature of 9.0... Similar to the reselling of revamped scenarios in 8.0... This is their MO now. They take a loved feature away. Add some spice to it and sell it as the new thing an xpac later.

[Onikaroshi]

A revamped Master Loot is the prime feature of 9.0... Similar to the reselling of revamped scenarios in 8.0... This is their MO now. They take a loved feature away. Add some spice to it and sell it as the new thing an xpac later.

If that's the case.... when can we have revamped reforming, or revamped tank states, etc

[durrtygoodz]

Master Looter is never coming back, they're adamant about it. Blame the rank 1000 guilds that started doing "splits" because they felt they needed it to improve their rank. Instead of, god forbid, actually playing better. So now loot is ruined for absolutely everyone and this shit system will plague us until nobody bothers raiding anymore.

[beelgers]

That's the thing though, even in a guild with a completely fair system, or rules in place, people still felt entitled to loot because they either didn't understand the rules, didn't read the rules, or didn't care. Look in any ml thread and they're full of people whining about it, and very few are legit

This is entirely the issue (entitled people who thought wrongly that they should have received loot). This is why it isn't coming back. It didn't matter how transparent the process. I would post on the forums every drop and why drops went a certain way following our very clearly laid out loot rules and a couple people would still feel cheated.

Sad really. It was one of those times Blizzard "fixed" a problem nobody was asking to be fixed. Now that there's no more ML, too many people like that it saves them from big bad raid leaders, that they'll never revert it. Its much like titanforging. Nobody asked for it in the first place, it stirred up tons of drama, but they'll never revert it because of how many people liked the change.

[Kushana]

[...] So now loot is ruined for absolutely everyone and this shit system will plague us until nobody bothers raiding anymore.

Well, it wasn't ruined for me. I loathed master loot. I hated it when I was a raid leader even when using a transparent loot system, there was always the possibility I would naff it up, since I was doing 4 things at once. Plus dealing with people who disliked any decisions I made was... tiresome. I disliked it as a raider, as I never felt the loot system's priorities aligned with what I though they should be. And while I can't recall ever getting dicked over by a ML's malfeasance, I certainly knew people who were.

I can understand that guilds that used it as a tool to achieve some meta goal (like Method and their main gearing) are inconvenienced by its departure. But for me and the groups I raid (and raided) with, it was one big collective shrug.

[Rustedsaint]

Fk masterlooter ,fk loot council and fk dkp systems.
I have seen plenty of pug raid leaders switching to masterlooter to screw over people once a mount dropped or loot that their friend needed. And I seen plenty of hardcore raid guilds die due to loot issues due to loot council.

[durrtygoodz]

Well, it wasn't ruined for me. I loathed master loot. I hated it when I was a raid leader even when using a transparent loot system, there was always the possibility I would naff it up, since I was doing 4 things at once. Plus dealing with people who disliked any decisions I made was... tiresome. I disliked it as a raider, as I never felt the loot system's priorities aligned with what I though they should be. And while I can't recall ever getting dicked over by a ML's malfeasance, I certainly knew people who were.

Sounds like a you problem rather than a ML problem. And btw, you still had the choice to not use ML, and use PL. Now there's no choice for anyone.

[Weeps]

Eh, don't kid yourself, they brought it in because too many tickets were "so and so stole my loot!" and most of the were not legit, so to save money they just removed loot from the equation.

That is my feeling as well.

Master looter is never coming back.

[rrayy]

This is entirely the issue (entitled people who thought wrongly that they should have received loot). This is why it isn't coming back. It didn't matter how transparent the process. I would post on the forums every drop and why drops went a certain way following our very clearly laid out loot rules and a couple people would still feel cheated.

Sad really. It was one of those times Blizzard "fixed" a problem nobody was asking to be fixed. Now that there's no more ML, too many people like that it saves them from big bad raid leaders, that they'll never revert it. Its much like titanforging. Nobody asked for it in the first place, it stirred up tons of drama, but they'll never revert it because of how many people liked the change.

It was a problem. Just because you did things the right way doesn't mean every one did and Blizzard has access to a lot more data than you do. There absolutely was loot abuse and one person should NEVER be allowed to control all loot and be allowed to exploit others to gear themselves faster. Everyone in the raid who contributed to getting the boss down has an equal right to the loot and one person shouldn't be allowed to decide who is or is not worthy.

Oh, and don't give me this nobody asked for it. Tones of people did.

[nToxik]

Master Looter is dead. It's not coming back.

[Kushana]

Sounds like a you problem rather than a ML problem. And btw, you still had the choice to not use ML, and use PL. Now there's no choice for anyone.

In an effort to make your opinion seem more popular, you claimed that raiding was worse for everyone. And I contradicted you, and said it wasn't worse for me, it wasn't worse for the people I raid (and raided) with, and that contrary to your hyperbole, we wouldn't be stopping raiding anytime soon.

And no, back in Vanilla and TBC and WotLK, there was no personal loot. But once we did get it in Mists, that allowed all of us to shrug and say "Good riddance" to ML when we switched.

[Mardux]

ML wasn't the problem. Splits weren't the problem.

Casual guilds using ML inappropriately and casual players refusing to leave those guilds were the problem. And rather than hold people accountable for their own actions (or inaction) they complained to blizzard. Blizzard took the easy route and just removed the system that was working fine.