PST - Episode 88

[Lore]

This week:
1:06 - Are addons giving us too much information?
9:12 - Should I look for a new guild before transferring servers?
12:45 - Should the new LFR loot system in MoP also apply to Normal and Heroic raids?
17:32 - Will Alchemy and Cooking be required for raiding in MoP?
23:14 - How will tanking change when each tank has only one taunt?
30:37 - Would raids feel more epic if you could start on heroics from day 1?
34:52 - Is there any way to predict what our roster will be like if we're taking a break til MoP?
39:48 - How many times are you going to ask me to sign up on Tankspot?

[Leucifer]

39:48 - How many times are you going to ask me to sign up on Tankspot?

If you are watching PST or The Weekly Marmot on a regular basis, you SHOULD at least be registered here. Even if you don't see eye-to-eye with Lore all the time, support your community. Again, this is one of those things ..... if you want a vibrant WoW community.... BE PART OF IT. Don't sit on the sidelines and mope that there isn't one. Even if you're not a donor, simply being registered gives strength to the argument for TankSpot's continued existence.

[Lore]

Looks like you didn't actually watch the question

[Leucifer]

Looks like you didn't actually watch the question

I apologize as I have not had a chance yet. Normally I get to at least listen while at work, but not getting that opportunity today. It'll have to wait for tonight.

I just want to show some support for you and the TankSpot community though. Again, I may not agree with everything you say Lore, but I'll still jump to yours and TankSpot's defense as I feel this is FAR BETTER than the official forums.

So, forgive me plz, and I'll make it up later. Promise.

[The3rdNipple]

Didn't answer my question this week.... maybe next week....

-The3rdNipple

[peacemaker91]

You'll be able to gain each specialization of cooking on one character. But I can see the bigger feast being simpler since not everyone will have mastered each spec.

source:
http://www.wowhead.com/guide=5.0&pro...ssions-cooking

[Lore]

You'll be able to gain each specialization of cooking on one character. But I can see the bigger feast being simpler since not everyone will have mastered each spec.

source:
http://www.wowhead.com/guide=5.0&pro...ssions-cooking

Good to know, thanks!

[Mortauk]

HELP! I have 835 accounts and I'm out of ways to spell Mortauk! Ha! That last question was epic!

I am looking forward to getting max cooking in each spec!

[zorillo]

Having more than one account doesn't improve my odds of getting a question answered? Lies!

[reasonyousmile]

so heroic throw, THEN taunt. got it.

ahead of my time, i am.

[Flipp]

For now the very best food available is single food, giving you +300 for a single stat. You need to have the specialization at 600 to learn and create it, but it is tradeable, for example http://mop.wowhead.com/item=74650.

[Toypop]

12:45 - I disagree Lore. Before you do a Marmot on it I think you need to remove your hardcore raider hat and think out of the box for a moment as you are kind of out of touch with how the majority of these Normal mode guilds work.

The guilds that such a system would benefit play more casually than you. This leads to a number of problems that you would rarely encounter.

Firstly and rather obviously, the officers in these casual guilds are also casual and don't have the time to administer the type of loot systems that the more hardcore guilds use. Finding people to take on this responsibility is difficult plus you have a higher turnover of officers compared to more hardcore guilds.

More importantly and the key point IMO is that they have unstable rosters.

They may have many different players each week. The typical problem is that they might have a core of six or seven players and then have to fill spots with "social" members who just happen to be online that night and who may only raid once a month or once per tier. Sometimes they even have to grab a "friend from another guild" or if they are really desperate /2.

The issue then becomes one of how do you tempt those "filler" players that are outside of the core to join the raid? They won't spend two hours raiding if they don't have a fair chance of winning something. That rules out most of the loot systems you use that distribute loot based on who would get the greatest upgrade, attendance levels etc etc.

To further complicated matters, in order to get a raid together it is very common for people to have to change specs - whether that be because they are missing a healer, tank or ranged DPS etc. Say hello to another looting minefield!!

Remember: you raid for the purpose of guild progression with relatively fixed rosters where as these guys are more interested in just being able to put a raid together each week! Your personal ideals about what raiding and guild play should be about, go straight out of the window. A "pain in the ass" for you is "no raid" for them.

Most of these guilds end up reverting to the /roll system with main spec priority but this leads to no end of drama when the guy that turns up every week finally see's his item drop but one of those "social" members wins it. Same goes for the tank that switched to healer spec and wants a piece that a full time healer needs... Or can he still Need on that tank piece against the two "filler" tanks?!

Having the Raid Finder loot system as an option would be an absolute godsend to these guilds.

Lets not beat around the bush here; RF is in danger of strangling and killing off those guilds, Blizzard should be doing everything they possibly can to help facilitate their raids and try and preserve that important social infrastructure. After all, they are the fertile breading ground where your future recruits first sample raiding.

So Lore, before you dismiss the idea of this system even as an option, perhaps you could suggest to all the thousand of casual guilds out there a loot solution that better solves the problems I listed above? Good luck on that!

[Aggathon]

@Toypop
Disclaimer at the top: since your implication of 7ish core raiders implies 10 man raiding, my responses are more geared towards 10 man raids, who currently are at a statistical loot disadvantage and if it makes any sense at all for the LFR system to work for a type of guild it MIGHT be 10 man... but that's a different discussion. Point is my responses are aimed at 10 man raids.

Okay, first off how hard is a loot council loot setup for any casual guild to set up? It literally takes no time and you just need 2 or 3 people to discuss in ochat who gets loot if there even ever IS more than 1 person that needs loot. Often times the only loot that multiple people need are like tier pieces or rings or something, and if they're both equally deserving then just have them /roll. If one person has gotten a ton of loot (you don't even need to track it, in a 10 person guild it's not hard to keep in your head who's been rolling in loot and who's been loot starved due to drops) then give the piece to the guy who hasn't. Hell, in my experience after the first couple weeks it really came down to "HEY, anyone want this? Okay you spoke up first here you go, no one else is saying anything" Not hard. Not complicated. Takes ZERO time to setup.

Re: spec change. Ya they need loot to do their alt spec well, but how often are they spec flopping, how important is it for them to have gear for their other spec? To my knowledge the LFR looting system doesn't really address this very well either, so imo a loot council situation is better. I still maintain that main spec > off spec. If a main raider needs the upgrade for their main spec and someone is an off spec for 1 or 2 fights, then give it to the main spec guy unless it's absolutely critical to the raid to have that off spec geared up. Problem solved. In my opinion a loot council approach is far superior to the LFR system in this regard.

Solution for the "filler" raider. Any loot that they want, do a /roll between them and your raiders that want the item. If one of your raiders win, then the loot still went to the guild and you're fine, and if there's more than 1 of your raiders that needs loot, you have a higher probability of getting loot in to the guild anyways. You could even go so far as to if you guys win the roll, discuss in gchat who really gets it (if you do a loot council structure) or if you do like a DKP bid system just do it in gchat or something. If they PuG guy wins then he got loot, hurray!

As far as LFR killing off more "Casual" guilds. I have two responses: 1) LFR IS designed for the more casual person that can't raid on a consistent schedule. It's a quality of life increase for those players, how is this a bad thing for those guilds? Typically it helps. They don't have to find fillers, if only 5 people are on they can just queue together and still have fun. 2) I think statistically more people raided normal in DS because they were able to gain entry to the raiding scene due to LFR. Someone may want to back me up on this, but I'm pretty sure LFR has seen an INCREASE in the number of normal mode guilds, not a decrease.

Furthermore, I think for a 10 man guild setting, the raid finder loot system would lead to either statistically less loot (or at least the same amount) depending on what boss tables look like because there's a chance that no loot at all drops, 2 random people just get gold. There's no chance for offspec stuff, no chance for DEing it into enchanting mats. I mean that kinda happens later in the game once a lot of people have the loot they want, but with the LFR system this could happen like... week 1 and 2, that would suck.

Raid finder loot system for 10 man raids is not better, it's just lazy.

You want less loot drama? Decrease the focus on loot. Get loot to kill bosses, don't kill bosses to get loot.

[Mortauk]

I agree with Aggathon setting up a loot council is easy as can be. DKP and other like that are not difficult at all either. When we run 10 mans we just roll. As it is a guild run we are more concerned with our guild being able to progress so a lot of people pass if it would help some one else more than themselves. If you are regularly needing to pug several people you should seriously think about a merger. The New LFR system works because people need on items no matter what. If I had that problem with my guild I would be looking for a new one.

[Toypop]

@Toypop
Disclaimer at the top: since your implication of 7ish core raiders implies 10 man raiding, my responses are more geared towards 10 man raids, who currently are at a statistical loot disadvantage and if it makes any sense at all for the LFR system to work for a type of guild it MIGHT be 10 man... but that's a different discussion. Point is my responses are aimed at 10 man raids.

Yup when talking about casual guilds you are talking mostly about 10 man's especially since the Cata changes.

Okay, first off how hard is

To be honest you could use that to justify just about everything. I mean "how hard is it become a serious guild? Kick some weaker players, do a bit of recruitment, read EJ, watch some Tankspot videos etc. Before long you are doing heroic raids".

That isn't me being sarcastic either, I mean that analogy is absolutely true and I agree with what you are saying.

They "could" do that already, the fact that they are not using it even though the option is there is justification enough to ignore that option. They aren't going to start using it. It just isn't that organised and never will be no matter how much someone like Lore would preach it. There isn't the appetite when raiding at a level where they often do worse than /2 pugs!

As far as LFR killing off more "Casual" guilds. I have two responses: 1) LFR IS designed for the more casual person that can't raid on a consistent schedule. It's a quality of life increase for those players, how is this a bad thing for those guilds?

It depends whether you want to see that scene dying out. We are talking about guilds that do manage to put a raid together most weeks with a bit of effort. The temptation however is to throw in the towel and give up now that RF exists. Heck maybe that is a good thing but I don't know what the long term impact on the organised raiding scene would be if the bottom of the pyramid starts to disappear? I have seen many Normal mode guilds complaining about a drop in sign ups as a result of RF and the more of a pain it is to raid Normal the more attractive RF looks.

You want less loot drama? Decrease the focus on loot. Get loot to kill bosses, don't kill bosses to get loot.

In my experience that simply isn't the philosophy at that level! We might wish it was the case but if you are trying to organise a raid in one of these guilds you won't have much joy by trying to sell it as an opportunity to see bosses!!

They need simple and clear loot rules to avoid the endless drama and minimal administration requirements. You may be right that the RF system gives them less useful loot than without but the simplicity and lack of drama is far more important.

I wish I could explain just what a nightmare it was trying run raids in one of these guilds when it isn't your full time hobby. It was a living hell. I'd have done anything to just farm out that work to an automated loot system where everyone knew the score. No more bloody whispers yippeee! You are right it is lazy! WoW is just something they log on to a few of nights a week for a bit of a laugh. They don't love it enough to do anything that even remotely resembles work! It really is just a game to them.

The other benefit for the option of an RF system would be its use for pugs. The amount of ninja looting in pugs and BH in particular is beyond ridiculous. The RF system is practically a no-brainer for those guys. The amount of tickets and forum threads that would disappear over night if that were introduced would make it worth it!

[Aggathon]

Toypop, I ran guilds for 4 years before I finally burned out on leading (and to an extent WoW), and I ran them at every level, from extremely casual (only doing like karazhan, maybe the occasional ZA) to extremely hardcore (US top 75 consistently, even a US top 10 kill of a major end-wing boss in ICC). The philosophy and ability to explain to your raiders and focus on "get loot to kill bosses, don't kill bosses to get loot" works on EVERY level, if you make that your focus. If you explain to raiders, "hey, you're gonna have fun here, you will get your shiny purple loots, but if you bitch about loot you're not gonna get any and might find yourself looking for another guild," everyone's life is better. Guilds have philosophies and mission statements and atmospheres, and the guild leaders and officers can 100% shape that both with their own philosophies and in the people they recruit. Assholes/lootwhores just aren't worth the headache at any difficulty level, TRUST ME.

The things you describe aren't symptoms of the system, they aren't impossibilities, it's attitudes and people and it's not a reason to change the system just to take a lazy way out for loot distribution. AND if you want sub-optimal loot distribution, there's already the NB4G system. It's right there, in place, need if you need, greed if offspec, pass if you don't want it and if everyone passes it gets DE'd.

I have to agree with Lore completely that loot distribution (regardless of which method between loot council, DKP, or rolls) is part of the guild community and is something officers just have to deal with. I'm 100% with Lore on this one.

I also really liked how you only picked apart specific parts of my post and not the counter points that already addressed a lot of your concerns, that was cute.

[Tipton]

I can see one advantage of the LFR loot system for Heroic and Normal. And that's that you could remove raid locks, and just have 1 loot per player in 25/10/Normal/Heroic. You could run them multiple times, you just get loot the first time you kill that boss.

[yeezy]

if you are looking for a new guild i think it is better to focus on the server first before the guild. Unless you are planning to transfer servers alot to find the perfect guild it would be better to just get into any of the high pop realm ranked high on wow progress. In any of those realms you will have lots of guilds which you could potentially join. And if it doesn't work out you have lots of other guilds on the realm to goto.
i would recommend to not goto any low / medium pop realms unless you are ok with spending lots in transfer fees

[Fetzie]

As far as I know, Tricks of the Trade and Misdirection are still in the game in the current beta build and work the same as they do on live.

[tawnos]

Two reasons I disagree with the part about not including the Pandaria loot system as an option - for one, at least on some realms, pugging is a huge thing now. I pug on alts all the time and a ton of people in the same kind of situation (lots of time in game, but no such thing as a time of the week where one can guarantee being on consistently). Random loot rolls aren't a terrible solution, but for pugging I would far prefer the Pandaria option. Pugs where you need 2 pieces of loot and someone else needs every single slot are annoying. The Pandaria system would serve to even out distribution of loot in this common situation.

Another reason I like the Pandaria method is to allow for casual guilds to care less about composition. Early in this release I was running with a casual guild on the days I could make it but it ended up just being too hard to make any gear progress - their base raid comp was bear, blood dk, boomkin, tree, mage, rogue, frost dk, holy paladin and they pugged two spots. With my resto/cat druid that was 8 people on the vanquisher token. The Pandaria system would have made this a much more viable raid but instead it just became too hard to maintain and fell apart. Sure in a hardcore guild you just get people to reroll but that anything that can be done to ameliorate the issue for casual guilds should be insofar as it doesn't cause a detriment to others.

Depending on how you intend to play the game I would agree with the above poster that it might be better to pick a server first and then look for a guild. Unless you are in the extremely hardcore segment of the playerbase the odds of a guild staying together just aren't that great, and having multiple options that work is a good thing. I don't think I would ever pick any realm/faction combo that wasn't in the top few in terms of population now matter how perfect the guild was.