The Weekly Marmot - The Value Of Loot

[Lore]

[Thels]

Lore,

Have you ever had to deal with those people who said: "Go ahead and give the loot to Johnny over there, I can wait." while they really desperately needed the gear much more than 'Johnny'? I've had to deal with such people in the past, and practically had to shove the gear pieces in them to accept, because they failed to understand that if they didn't accept a piece of gear every now and then, they'd become useless to the raid.

Of course there's the opposite end of the spectrum, where people that got their BiS list filled out, then totally disappeared, or requested to join raids on their alts.

[Lantis]

or requested to join raids on their alts.

I think I hate that more than anything. This is in part why I was happy to see valor upgrades put into the game, so I know I'll get to play with very geared people without any trouble once they get all their gear.

[Bovinity]

Have you ever had to deal with those people who said: "Go ahead and give the loot to Johnny over there, I can wait." while they really desperately needed the gear much more than 'Johnny'? I've had to deal with such people in the past, and practically had to shove the gear pieces in them to accept, because they failed to understand that if they didn't accept a piece of gear every now and then, they'd become useless to the raid.

Or we do it because we're so grossly outperforming some other people in the raid that we figure they'll need that extra boost before we do.

[Aggathon]

Or we do it because we're so grossly outperforming some other people in the raid that we figure they'll need that extra boost before we do.

^ This. The only people I've ever had refuse gear are either people we just brought in for a warm body that had no intention of raiding and knew it should go to a primary raider, or it was someone that was just stomping other people despite a gear differential.

The more annoying thing is when a piece of loot drops and EVERYONE that wants it passes it. Like:
Timmy: I don't need it THAT badly, let Jimmy have it!
Jimmy: It's not that important of a piece, go ahead and give it to Johnny
Johnny: I got a piece of loot in the last 2 months, go ahead and give it to Timmy
Timmy: Naw it's no big deal, I can wait.

It's like F*** stop being so damned nice and someone admit they need it! lol.

[Tengenstein]

What annoys me is when you have 3-4 people doing that, rather than helping me clear trash.

[Fetzie]

^ This. The only people I've ever had refuse gear are either people we just brought in for a warm body that had no intention of raiding and knew it should go to a primary raider, or it was someone that was just stomping other people despite a gear differential.

The more annoying thing is when a piece of loot drops and EVERYONE that wants it passes it. Like:
Timmy: I don't need it THAT badly, let Jimmy have it!
Jimmy: It's not that important of a piece, go ahead and give it to Johnny
Johnny: I got a piece of loot in the last 2 months, go ahead and give it to Timmy
Timmy: Naw it's no big deal, I can wait.

It's like F*** stop being so damned nice and someone admit they need it! lol.

"I'm rolling 1-3. 1= Timmy gets the item. 2=Jimmy gets the item. 3=Johnny gets the item"

[Aggathon]

"I'm rolling 1-3. 1= Timmy gets the item. 2=Jimmy gets the item. 3=Johnny gets the item"

Haha, I've so done that, or I've just made them roll and forced whoever won to take it.

[sifuedition]

Usually, when I see that, it's because there is a rare drop that they want first, i.e. weapon. They all want to "sacrifice" on that bracer/neck/ring so that they get less contested rolls on that helm/weapon. Altruism is pretty rare.

[Jordrith]

Usually, when I see that, it's because there is a rare drop that they want first, i.e. weapon. They all want to "sacrifice" on that bracer/neck/ring so that they get less contested rolls on that helm/weapon. Altruism is pretty rare.

In my experiences, this is the case most often.

[First Normal Form]

I don't see Thunderforged drop % helping. Humans are horrible at measuring low probability events. 5% vs. 10% just won't be noticeable. I hope I'm wrong, and of course it depends on what the percentages are. I'm in a 25-man guild on a dying server that is having the typical problems, so typical we're downright cliche. Our five-year tenure tank had to take a leave of absence, then we lost 3-5 DPS who wanted to go to a livelier PvP server, and it just cascaded like it never has before.

What's also different is that we have raiders who nearly refuse to do 10-mans. In the past, we've dropped down to 1-3 10-mans until we could re-field a 25-man. But our OT-now-MT hates 10-mans, and a lot of our key players do too. It's almost as if the better their resume, the less they want to do 10-mans. It's almost elitist, as if they're saying 10-mans are for casuals.

Some thoughts:

0. I don't see server change cost reductions helping much, or cross-server Help Wanted devices helping much either. Lore is/was a high-level raider, and his guild is famous partly because of Lore. People will hop servers for a top guild or a famous guild. Nobody's going to hop servers for humble guilds, even those who are humble just because they struggle to fill their raid team.

1. A tiny ilvl boost for 25-mans, like 1 or 2. We'll get the loot whores and the obsessives and you can have the rest. But I have a feeling Blizzard is done with ilvl differences, and there'd be holy heck raised by reasonable people who hate the idea.

2. Return the old-school LF mechanic, call it something else if you need to. It would be helpful to be able to pop open a screen to find a list of PUG raiders. Any improvements to make it more like Lore's described LF device, or like an in-game OpenRaid, would be great.

3. Server mergers.

Or, just let 25-mans wither to their stability point. The reason they are arguably harder, is not necessarily content-based, but that the social organization challenges can be more... challenging. Maybe people don't want that aspect of the challenge enough, organizing 25 raiders toward a common goal. They want a reasonably easy to assemble team to go tackle hard bosses. Why should Blizzard engineer carrots to force people to choose their second happiest option, just so I can have my happiest option? My only responses are that 25-mans are more 'epic', harder to organize, and should be justly rewarded in an mmorpg, and to ask, "What's next? 5-man raids? Why not?". These are hardly debate closers.

For my guild, I imagine we'll die until we absolutely can't do 25-mans anymore, shed the 25s-Only raiders and those who want to try their luck with other guilds, and then rebuild from a 10-man group, possibly with a server change.

[First Normal Form]

What annoys me is when you have 3-4 people doing that, rather than helping me clear trash.

Hah, heaven help you when spirit jewelry drops.

We have been filling our raid with guests from another guild. We need to gear them up a bit, so we've been rolling them through our farm bosses. The mage scores a belt, then is sheepish about rolling on the bracers. "Oh no, I don't want to be a pig. I'm very happy with my belt, thanks". Dude, we're here for you! Your ilvl is my ilvl. Shards don't kill bosses. Grab the #%$#$ bracers! I've taken to inspecting our guests during loot distribution. Sheesh.

[hailmary]

i dont know of one single person who would not be in a raid for anything but gear ... the only person i could think of that would not want gear from a raid .. i cannot

this is the one thing that would be nice - i dont raid but i do pvp so bear in mind there is no difference when it comes to gear in this game or any other like it that it is what people are after

there does come a certain point when there would be absolutely no way for a person to get all of the gear they would like and in that situation the dispute of gear and who gets it .. i would want that rare person who would not care about getting some gear that would in no way improve their toon. it would be like myself gearing for a different spec while doing arena and not my main spec .. i would end up with 50% of the gear i would want to be effective ..

there should really be a monthly planner for raiders or raid leaders showing in a loot table somehow .. a road map of gearing and at what point the player would simply not be able to get enough of the gear for it to matter if it was given to them based on what they have equiped

there is somewhat of a point where trying to get gear is pointless

just as for trying to get a legendary would be only for the asthetic value of earning it and never be used for more than a week or two of the remainder of an expansion.

it would be nice if they threw something like this into your character tabs to show what would be an upgrade and how many drops were obtainable during the current tier for that character.

it would certainly make it easier to divert people away from trying to farm gear or dispute of who it mattered more to ..

someone who could finish their set with the remaining time in the tier or a person wondering if they should be rolling for gear at that point

i cant conceive of the individual who just wanted to down bosses other than only wanting to have the achievement or experience it outside of raid finder

as for myself had i known that i would have just enough time in order to gear out my spec for arena - which doesn't matter as much - when they retire my gear i can still purchase it through honor... its not as much of a set back

keep in mind i come from a lower pop realm and the chances of getting gear during a current season or tier is harder than if i were in a larger community of players - i still cant imagine not wanting gear or drops ... there just wouldn't be a reason to be there for most people

[Bovinity]

i still cant imagine not wanting gear or drops ... there just wouldn't be a reason to be there for most people

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.

[Rhastia]

As soon as you said Eddie Izzard, I knew exactly where you were going with that. Well, either that or something about poking badgers with spoons.

[Thels]

We have been filling our raid with guests from another guild. We need to gear them up a bit, so we've been rolling them through our farm bosses. The mage scores a belt, then is sheepish about rolling on the bracers. "Oh no, I don't want to be a pig. I'm very happy with my belt, thanks". Dude, we're here for you! Your ilvl is my ilvl. Shards don't kill bosses. Grab the #%$#$ bracers! I've taken to inspecting our guests during loot distribution. Sheesh.

Exactly that, yes. It's usually people that are new to raiding, and don't understand they need the gear to keep raiding with us.

i dont know of one single person who would not be in a raid for anything but gear ... the only person i could think of that would not want gear from a raid .. i cannot

I know of lots and lots of persons that raid because raiding on itself is enjoyable. Sure, I know a few that are doing it purely for the gear, but only a few.

If I was raiding just to get better gear, I'd stop raiding. What's the point just to see a virtual number go up slightly every now and then. No, working together as a team and managing to kill those bosses actually gives an awesome feeling of success. That doesn't mean we don't care about gear at all. Sure, gaining gear on it's own feels good, and as an experienced raider, you know you need better gear to continue progressing, but getting better gear is not nearly as fun as killing a boss for the first time.

[Aggathon]

There are two kinds of raiders:
People who kill bosses to get loot
People who get loot to kill bosses.

[Mwawka]

The correct answer to where loot should go is and always will be, wherever it serves the group best. If that's me then I happily take it, if that's someone else then I pass it along. If it's equal between me and someone else then whoever wins the roll. That's how my group deals with it, but sorting out loot in a 10 man of friends is easy.

[Sharku]

I mean no offense to anyone reading this reply.

Lore,

Awesome to see such a frank marmot, I don't always agree with your point of view but this time things were different and I am glad that you have slightly changed your opinion on the state of 25 man raiding because "so long as 25 people want to raid together means 25 man is alive/viable or whatever" never quite cut it for me.

I think that the damage done to 25 man guilds since 4,0 (except those very well established and always reasonably successful (Ensidia/Vodka perhaps excluded)) will be impossible for Blizzard to now undo and I very much think that RNG solutions such as Thunderforged loot will do very little to attract enough of the right kind of people to 25 man raids. Loot however, unless we are all kidding ourselves, is integral to continued and successful raiding regardless of difficulty. It therefore demands a guarantee of some sort, which we already have at least in the quantity of drops we get when a boss is killed. This means that in order to help promote 25 man, which it undoubtedly needs, some sort of guarantee needs to be in place, whether that be in the form of an achievement, mount or whatever else. A full on return to the WotLK raiding model would help 25 man (not that I am suggesting that would be appropriate or the right thing to do), but the backlash from people who then have to do both difficulties would be too severe for Blizzard to cope with, unless they were very clever with loot tables or something.

The ultimate problem with maintaining an active raiding guild in either 10 or 25 man difficulties is actually quite simple; Instant gratification and the McDonalds phenomenon. If players are not immediately garnished with loot, drowning in a sea of valor and in the top 10 progressed guilds on their realm, after, say, 6 weeks of a tier's launch, then they automatically think that their guild is garbage and they can go elsewhere. Now, 100% of us may think that is true and I hope that 100% of us would stick by our guilds and work out how to improve them, but in reality, there are only a few (say 20%) members of your, mine or anyone's raid teams that could actually justify that level of douchebaggery! This causes more problems for a 25 man guild than it does a 10 man guild, because finding 2 people is easier than finding 5 in either case and with 10 man being more prevalent, it is easier for you to end up there too.

The point I am trying to make is, that possibly around the time of the launch of the LFD tool or earlier, Blizzard has enabled and empowered the community to dissolve itself into an instant-gratification seeking, loot whoring ball of snot that has no threat of consequences, has no patience, no sense of guild loyalty and one that certainly won't be there to support a guild through hard (progress/loot-barren) times. Everything going great for your guild and lots of loot and progress coming in? You bet your bottom dollar they will be there to stay. IRL issues? What IRL issues, I got me some loot to git, baby!

Unless average players, i.e, you me and the rest, can accept that not being in the rank 1 guild on your realm is actually ok and that being in a guild ranked lower than 10 on your realm is ok too, then really raiding in general, but 25 man especially, has nowhere to go for the majority of people partaking in it. So the only answer in my opinion would be for Blizzard to actually have the stomach to revert some of the changes they have made in recent patches, such as anything remotely cross realm related. Server community was very important with regards to raiding guilds and should be still if for no other reason than the sense of responsibility it brought to people who felt like they represent their guild. Now, people only think that their guild represents them and if it "sucks" then that obviously reflects on their pretty little asses too! "Better get out before my rep is tarnished by this terrible guild"

Blizzard needs to swallow some pride, take it on the chin and either merge servers, ditch LFD/LFR in its current format but enable it through battle tags/real ID so that its all same-realm groups if you do solo queue and lastly, take the big difficult step of just being honest and coming out and saying that "10 and 25 man guilds are different from each other, not in major ways, but different enough that 10 and 25 man guilds need different kinds of support in order to maintain themselves, we tried to make them the same by force, but didn't forsee the train wreck that would ensue for 25 man raiding guilds, so here is our solution, we will iterate on it as this expansion goes on and take (sensible) views and opinions on board from those partaking in both raiding formats or those who feel that access to or maintaining their raiding guild is made difficult by XYZ reasons. We won't be ressing the Lich King any time soon though"

Obviously, a reduction in server transfer cost would be welcome, but won't help much without a battle.net based solution which must be better, more specific and more tailored to players seeking guilds and vice versa than the current forum is. I would sub that kind of web development myself if I could trust Blizzard to come up with something as good as I want, as useful as 25 man guilds need it to be and if it was as helpful a solution as I think it could be.

I just wonder if Blizzard are loving WoW to death?

[Leucifer]

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.

You're doing it again Bov. You're thinking like a rational person. You really have to stop that. Be like a method actor.... put yourself in the shoes of those people.

Oh, and people will SAY that they're not, but honestly..... I'd bet that 90%+ do it for the loot in some way, shape, or form. I always liked getting new gear, to be honest. There were certainly pieces that I really wanted, but I'd only raise a ruckus if there was something really out-of-whack going on. Say, like.... person who already it geared to the teeth and a slight upgrade drops for them when there are clearly other people who could use an item, but that individual has a world-class hissyfit because it's their "BiS" by some really small margin. That or the "OMG I HOPE A MOUNT DROPS!!!!" bullcrap when we haven't even STARTED the fight. Like.... really? You haven't even DONE ANYTHING YET and you're freaked out about loot?

Gah. Making myself aggravated here now just talking about it. :P

Anyway, I get ya Bov. There are/were some fights that I really, really enjoyed and loved doing them. Yogg is one of those that comes to mind. I used to run that one for giggles all the time. For me, it was always a true joy to run with a great team (definition may vary). That to me was always the pinnacle of WoW.