The Weekly Marmot - The Value Of Loot

Well, I think that blaming Blizzard for the decline of 25-mans by changing them to the same loot ilvl and then wondering about the value of loot is a bit contradictory.

Most of the people who immediately jumped ship to 10-man raiding when the change was made were raiding 25-mans for the loot, not the experience. IMO, anyone who still thinks the way to cure 25-man raiding is to give them better ilvl loot...is raiding for the loot, not the other way around. Don't fool yourselves.

If you're truly raiding for the 25-man experience, then loot ilvls shouldn't be an issue for you, as long as you're equal with other modes of raiding; 25-mans are equal, if not a little better than equal right now. The 'organizational costs' shouldn't be an issue for you, because that's the price of the experience you say you are looking for.

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Originally Posted by mavfin

Most of the people who immediately jumped ship to 10-man raiding when the change was made were raiding 25-mans for the loot, not the experience. IMO, anyone who still thinks the way to cure 25-man raiding is to give them better ilvl loot...is raiding for the loot, not the other way around. Don't fool yourselves.

If you're truly raiding for the 25-man experience, then loot ilvls shouldn't be an issue for you, as long as you're equal with other modes of raiding; 25-mans are equal, if not a little better than equal right now. The 'organizational costs' shouldn't be an issue for you, because that's the price of the experience you say you are looking for.

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Well Lore pretty much got this one spot on. The problem isn't that there aren't enough people for 25mans its that there are too many things separating them from forming cohesive units. There may be 10's of thousands of people who want to run 25mans but if they are divided into thousands of separate units (faction, realm, and especially schedule) it becomes virtually impossible to form 25mans. It may be somewhat cynical to buffer those 25mans with a layer of people who are raiding only for the loot but its preferable to just not having the mass of people available at all. Not everyone who think its worth a try is raiding for the loot, even if they do benefit from the added mass of those who are.

The "experience" people want is not the problems of getting 25 people in the same place at the same time, but rather encounters that require that many people. I don' think anyone in the history of MMOs has enjoyed that part.

There are also a lot of people left in the middle, that just switched to 10 people out of convenience.

The majority of people that raided 25 mans during TBC and WotLK didn't instantly jump over to 10 people when 10 mans dropped the same loot. They already had a team of 25 people together, so they just raided 25 for a while longer. Eventually people quit the game, and sometimes they are replaced, but sometimes you got a bunch of holes to fill, and then the question is "Do we continue raiding 25 man, and worry about recruiting people? Or do we shift down to 10 man to get more or less the same content and gear, and have our 10 best raiders available?"

A lot of those people wouldn't mind switching back to 25 man, if it was easy to get 25 people together.

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Originally Posted by Bovinity

Then why are they raiding at all? If "there just wouldn't be a reason" without gear, then you're saying they don't like raiding, they only want loot? It makes no sense. I honestly don't understand that whole "raiding for loot" mentality.

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For most people they do not fill every single slot with the highest item level gear in the game. I assume that people would raid for the same reason in pvp i get bummed when i lose a bg. I want to be able to do better in the game and help other people do the same. WoW has made it a game based around gear, it's no longer a game of strategy outside of if if i blow my cds on you and you arent as geared as i am .. youre gonna die... if you go up ugainst a boss and youre not geared or someone else isnt then you are only as strong as your weakest link .. surely you do have to have a fair understanding of how your class works and the game itself .. but being able to be efficient at getting bosses down is not made easier without being geared or other players for that matter. So sure doing it to help someone else get gear is fine .. but the inverse- of saying that you only raid for the fun of it .. or i would play the game even if i never downed a single boss is equally unsound of logic. That would be like saying i like getting stomped in a bg and i dont enjoy spawn camping other teams in their gy or being able to face roll them into the ground. I like things being difficult to the point of absurdity. I assume your toon is geared in 450 item level gear from scenarios and you enjoy your contributions to your raiding group.

My apologies dear friend, but it appears I am having difficulties with regards to the reading of your post so kindly directed to me. If, perhaps, you could find the time to rephrase and reformat it into something more appealing to my eyesight, I could give it the attention and reply that I am certain it deserves.

Regards,
Your Friend Bovinity

Hailmary: There is a difference in "Raiding for the loot", and "Getting good loot to make Raiding easier". Yes, in order to progress in raiding you need better and better loot, as you down harder and harder bosses. So yes, if you want to raid, then of course you have to work on getting better loot, and most people will probably be somewhat happy by getting better loot.

That doesn't mean they're doing it for the loot. Sure, after clearing a raid instance for the first time, the thrill of the first boss kill is over, and you're only returning there for the loot. But that loot is a mean, not an end goal. You farm the instance to get better gear to down harder bosses.

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Originally Posted by Thels

That doesn't mean they're doing it for the loot. Sure, after clearing a raid instance for the first time, the thrill of the first boss kill is over, and you're only returning there for the loot. But that loot is a mean, not an end goal. You farm the instance to get better gear to down harder bosses.

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And to have the best edge with whatever the next raid content is. You're better off if you can start the next raid tier with full heroic gear of the previous tier.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

And to have the best edge with whatever the next raid content is. You're better off if you can start the next raid tier with full heroic gear of the previous tier.

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While that's sort of true, there's certainly an inflection point of gear vs grinding boring shit where farming becomes not worth the bother.

For some of us it's fairly soon after the last boss is killed...some people take a bit longer.

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Originally Posted by Ion

While that's sort of true, there's certainly an inflection point of gear vs grinding boring shit where farming becomes not worth the bother.

For some of us it's fairly soon after the last boss is killed...some people take a bit longer.

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I personally almost always "take a break" after we finish the final heroic boss or decide to cut progression for a tier until a few weeks before the next tier when I resume raiding. It's the only compromise I've been able to find that keeps me sane.

you raid to get gear. this mythical person who does it for some other reason does not exist. its not that you cant raid for the fun of it- someone who isn't interested in it at all is probably not that into raiding - i saw people fully decked out in raid finder gear inside of the first few weeks of the expansion release mixed with drops from the normals or crafted.. if someone tried to raid with you and they still had on sub par gear you would still drop them like a hot potato ..

the point of what is being changed is how will it effect guilds internally because of the changes is pretty much what lore is talking about even though he goes the long way around in explaining it ..

Ive seen people leave guilds based on loot rolls

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Originally Posted by hailmary

you raid to get gear. this mythical person who does it for some other reason does not exist. its not that you cant raid for the fun of it- someone who isn't interested in it at all is probably not that into raiding - i saw people fully decked out in raid finder gear inside of the first few weeks of the expansion release mixed with drops from the normals or crafted.. if someone tried to raid with you and they still had on sub par gear you would still drop them like a hot potato ..

the point of what is being changed is how will it effect guilds internally because of the changes is pretty much what lore is talking about even though he goes the long way around in explaining it ..

Ive seen people leave guilds based on loot rolls

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Clearly you haven't been reading the posts by various people (including myself) who said exactly the opposite of that. We DO raid because it's fun. Gear is a byproduct, not the goal. Once I've killed all the bosses in a tier, I rapidly lose interest in grinding out more gear.

Most of my guild was that way as well. We had trouble getting people to show up for farm nights all the time, but progression nights were never a problem.

Of course, the level of gear-grindyness in MoP has basically turned me off from playing at all...

Hailmary: You've clearly indicated by now that you yourself are raiding for the gear, and I really question your motives. Are you really spending all that time in the game, just to see the ilvl on your character sheet climb up?

It's in my opinion why Looking For Raid failed the goal it was meant to fill: Giving casuals a chance to see the encounters and raid. Sure, they know what the bosses look like now, but the encounters are so undertuned, it basically comes down to zerging all the bosses down. I don't know of anyone who enjoys stepping into an LFR after the first time they've been there.

It seems to lead to the opposite. Casuals run the LFRs once, and since it's pretty dull, and since they don't need the gear, they stop running it, while Raiders keep on running the LFR instances that still drop upgrades, since it helps them with progression.

Honestly, I think the game would be better off without LFR.

Uhm.

No. Contrary to popular belief, I will not conceed that I only raided for the gear:

1) I wanted to see the fights and how Blizzard challenges me to be better at my class
2) I wanted to see the lore behind the zone, and how it ties into the story of that expansion
3) I wanted shiny gear because stats are nice but I enjoy vanity.

In the end, the third option is LAST on my list because I frankly didn't really care about the gear as much; only because it was a means to progress.

You're pushing your presumptions on people. I would ask you don't.

To be fair to Hail, I thought that people only raided for loot too, until I actually started raiding at a decent level.

For a lot of players - specifically those that are casual or semi-casual raiders - it can seem like all you're doing is chasing loot trying to claw your way up to the next rung of the ladder, and eventually it starts to feel like the loot IS the goal. It's understandable I suppose.

one caveat, when i'm going after a transmog peice i raid solely for loot. but then again it is Ulduar.

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Originally Posted by hailmary

you raid to get gear. this mythical person who does it for some other reason does not exist.

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Yes they do. See Ion, Bov, Kren and I. Half the people that have posted in this thread disagree with you on that.

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its not that you cant raid for the fun of it- someone who isn't interested in it at all is probably not that into raiding

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Why would somebody that doesn't raid matter when it comes to how loot drops?

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- i saw people fully decked out in raid finder gear inside of the first few weeks of the expansion release

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I doubt it.

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mixed with drops from the normals or crafted.. if someone tried to raid with you and they still had on sub par gear you would still drop them like a hot potato ..

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If they can put out better dps or heal better or tank better than what we currently have, I would let them have a go in a test raid. No matter what gear they have.

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Ive seen people leave guilds based on loot rolls

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That's just sad. And, to be honest, you are probably better off without them in your team if they'll bail out over something that trivial.

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Originally Posted by hailmary

you raid to get gear. this mythical person who does it for some other reason does not exist. its not that you cant raid for the fun of it- someone who isn't interested in it at all is probably not that into raiding

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I'll disagree with this; I enjoy raiding, I enjoy the challange and I enjoy working to solve the puzzle that are the fights. Do I like getting loot, sure, it's nice and necessary, but when you're in loot council guilds if loot is your only motivator, then you need to find somewhere else. Personally, I think a fair loot council weeds our the loot ladies of the evening and shows you who's there for the challange and the fun and who's there for the loot.