World buff removal is a good start, but loot will be a massive problem

[satella]

Loot scarcity is an important part of the experience, but the randomness of drops will not make the lucky ones feel better, but will only serve to make the unlucky ones feel bad. Need some improvements on the RNG aspect.

For example, keeping the amount of loot the same, but dropping tokens that represent the approximate value of the dropped loot, with three types of tokens:
-Gear tokens for all slots except projectiles, with the best trinkets and 2-handed weapons costing the most, and idols/librams/totems costing the least.
-Projectile tokens for the highest dps projectiles for each tier.
-Consumable tokens for mats needed to create all consumables, such that professions are still needed.

I realize some bosses are more difficult than others, and drop better gear but that could be fixed by not allowing the loot previously dropped from them to be bought until you actually kill them, and allowing harder bosses to drop more tokens. So getting Choker of the Firelord without having killed Ragnaros at least once would be impossible.

Exchanging tokens between raid tiers is an optional feature that I don't know if many people would like, but it would incentivize the clearing of older raids.

MC tokens for BWL tokens, BWL tokens for AQ40 tokens etc. The exchange rate would have to be thoughtfully considered.

Buying legendary items with normal tokens is a bad idea, instead it's better to have each final boss drop a guaranteed legendary token, with all other bosses having a miniscule chance of dropping one. Creating new legendary items for each raid tier that all classes could use in some way would keep things fresh and not favor some classes over others. Or, a new system in which legendary tokens would be exchanged for legendary gems that would fit into hidden sockets on a select few items. Imagine the diversity of bonuses you could create.

Additionally, the tokens would be tradable to anyone within 7 days of acquiring, with a distinction between the eligible players who participated in acquiring the token, and those who did not.

Trading the item to a person that was not eligible for it at the time, would bind it to that person permanently. Putting it on the auction house would automatically bind it.

Any profit from trading or selling the tokens would be automatically split between all eligible players and sent to their mailbox. This would effectively eliminate the corruption associated with greedy loot masters. When trading the token to eligible players, if any amount of money is traded with the item, the item would be bound to the receiving player, and the profit split between all eligible players, so greedy loot masters would be unable to extort eligible players.

The guilds wanting to sell items would not be forced to bring bad players into the raid, and doing split raids to gather as many tokens as possible would be a viable strategy for the most hardcore while still giving the more casual guilds a smoother gearing experience, with less drama.

Thoughts? Anything to add to the system that I didn't think of?

[anveena]

>removing world buffs is good for class diversity

This makes zero sense. Hunters aren't going to be more in demand because warriors will do less dmg. The exact opposite of what you're saying is what's going to happen. A bunch of these meme specs are hindered by their mana pools. Making encounters last longer is a huge problem for them.

Your loot system is a waste of time. Just buff the meme specs if you want them to be viable.

[satella]

I don't know how you define class diversity, it must be the exact opposite to my definition.

Loot system had nothing to do with the "meme specs" as you call them, you didn't read everything, or didn't understand it.

[WaltherLeopold]

Fury warriors, rogues and mages are still going to be the best dps by far in a no world buff setting.

I don't see how removing world buffs is going to make hunters, shadow priests, ret paladins, ele/enha shamans, feral/balance druids any more lucrative and improve class diversity in raids. The issues with these specs & classes are mechanical and systemic, not just world buffs.

[satella]

Another person who only read a small insignificant portion that has nothing to do with the overall post and decided to reply to that.

I don't care if they keep world buffs or not, I don't really care if they fix hybrids, what I do care about is the randomness of the loot.

[Tronski]

I don't know how you define class diversity, it must be the exact opposite to my definition.

Loot system had nothing to do with the "meme specs" as you call them, you didn't read everything, or didn't understand it.

He did. You said so in your first sentence. But some classes/specs will be unplayable to the point of not getting a spot at all.

Many people don't seem to get that season of mastery means extreme min/maxing and mastery of the game. There is no room for boomkins, ret palas, or even hunters that will spend most of the fights oom.

The loot scarcity is supposed to be an extension of this.

[satella]

He did. You said so in your first sentence. But some classes/specs will be unplayable to the point of not getting a spot at all.

Many people don't seem to get that season of mastery means extreme min/maxing and mastery of the game. There is no room for boomkins, ret palas, or even hunters that will spend most of the fights oom.

The loot scarcity is supposed to be an extension of this.

Don't care about class diversity. Don't care about world buffs.

[Schmilblick]

Loot and no class changes.

[Dequanacus]

Sounds mindnumbingly boring and guilds that would disperse over loot drama shouldn't be capable of clearing the content in the first place.

[Hellobolis]

isn't this system the opposite of loot scarcity?

if you funnel all the tokens to 1 character, that character goes to the vendor and buy BiS gear in 1 or 2 raid clears. so then all you need is some alts to do split raids and you're all set. inb4 boosting communities take over.

maybe initially it would work if your guild decides to spread the loot out, but any chars joining the game later would still get the fast guaranteed gear track.

and how would it be less drama? it would make gearing the GMs girlfriend kinda situations worse.

i'm all for some bad luck protection for items that never drop, but tokenization to this extreme degree will just replace the current problems with just as bad ones.

[satella]

Sounds mindnumbingly boring and guilds that would disperse over loot drama shouldn't be capable of clearing the content in the first place.

Are you the type of person who likes loot crates and gambling? People do love their randomness and skinner box type activities, I don't. Guess I'm an outlier.

[Hellobolis]

wait and you want to make it selleable/tradeable to characters that didn't participate in the kill too?

that's removing scarcity even more. the market would get so oversaturated with tokens that just buying a full set of gear would become dirt cheap after a month or two.

the only way you would keep any scarcity is to make less tokens drop so even guilds that set up token farms have a hard time gearing their own characters before the next content comes out. which is exactly the kind of endless treadmill system people hate in retail.

[satella]

wait and you want to make it selleable/tradeable to characters that didn't participate in the kill too?

that's removing scarcity even more. the market would get so oversaturated with tokens that just buying a full set of gear would become dirt cheap after a month or two.

the only way you would keep any scarcity is to make less tokens drop so even guilds that set up token farms have a hard time gearing their own characters before the next content comes out. which is exactly the kind of endless treadmill system people hate in retail.

Tokens only have a duration of 7 days until they become bound, and you can't get an item from a boss that you haven't killed. Did you read that? Guilds are already selling items, this way they don't have to bring bad players to kill potentially harder bosses.

I never mentioned how many tokens would drop, or how much each item would cost, that is not what this is about. Try to understand the underlying idea here.
Numbers can be tweaked, like the 7 day duration, that is not a number that is set in stone, just something to make the idea easier to understand.

If it helps, just think of a number of tokens dropped that would best suit your needs.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

People will shit on this but I am willing to bet a season will come along that makes loot mostly very small factor. As in most everyone will get BiS fairly easily. This will be the most popular season and they will go for forward the the change afterwards.

Then they just affix bosses to do certain things differently from time to time. Maybe they enrage or threat drop. Plus moments of healing debuffs. Or have windows where they take reduced damage and windows of increased damage that make you change things up. This is how you reflavor the game a bit.

But making it so everyone is gear starved with bosses having more health. Whelp. I guess they hate money.

[Hellobolis]

Tokens only have a duration of 7 days until they become bound, and you can't get an item from a boss that you haven't killed. Did you read that? Guilds are already selling items, this way they don't have to bring bad players to kill potentially harder bosses.

not getting an item from a boss you havent killed is a non issue since u know, bosses drop tokens not items. but that aside killing the boss once is a formality in classic.

I never mentioned how many tokens would drop, or how much each item would cost.

yeah you did, you said the amount of tokens dropped approximates the value of the loot. so enough to buy multiple items per boss. and this is what it's about, this is the very core of if the idea is workable or not.

as an aside, do you mean tokens or badges/currency? since your idea sounds a lot more like badges/currency than it does tokens.

Try to understand the underlying idea here.
Numbers can be tweaked, like the 7 day duration, that is not a number that is set in stone, just something to make the idea easier to understand.

If it helps, just think of a number of tokens dropped that would best suit your needs.

thats what i did. first i went with your idea of multiple items per boss, then i pointed out that wouldn't work, then i went to the obvious conclusion: you balance it around how long you want it to take players to get geared, and if that's at any point before the new content comes out, it means everybody past that point gets cheap freebie gear, kinda like catchup gear in retail. but if it is at the point new content comes, you just invented the eternal loot treadmill. you end up in a nasty catch22.

and that's the issue. you take the legitimate problem of bad luck on certain drops and then propose to fix it by completely removing any RNG at all, which just opens you up to a whole new slew of problems. you need a bit more of a middle ground instead of such an extreme solution.

ironically most of these problems could be fixed by moving to personal loot for the tokens, but u know.. that's another one of those really popular retail ideas...

[satella]

not getting an item from a boss you havent killed is a non issue since u know, bosses drop tokens not items. but that aside killing the boss once is a formality in classic.



yeah you did, you said the amount of tokens dropped approximates the value of the loot. so enough to buy multiple items per boss. and this is what it's about, this is the very core of if the idea is workable or not.

as an aside, do you mean tokens or badges/currency? since your idea sounds a lot more like badges/currency than it does tokens.



thats what i did. first i went with your idea of multiple items per boss, then i pointed out that wouldn't work, then i went to the obvious conclusion: you balance it around how long you want it to take players to get geared, and if that's at any point before the new content comes out, it means everybody past that point gets cheap freebie gear, kinda like catchup gear in retail. but if it is at the point new content comes, you just invented the eternal loot treadmill. you end up in a nasty catch22.

and that's the issue. you take the legitimate problem of bad luck on certain drops and then propose to fix it by completely removing any RNG at all, which just opens you up to a whole new slew of problems. you need a bit more of a middle ground instead of such an extreme solution.

ironically most of these problems could be fixed by moving to personal loot for the tokens, but u know.. that's another one of those really popular retail ideas...

You can't get an item from a boss that you haven't killed, meaning you can't purchase an item unless you've killed the boss that used to drop it. I think you need to reconsider what you truly understand about my ideas, because getting that wrong is too basic.