Changes for LFR, Flex, and RDF

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
21

And you can still do that if they made it harder to do it. I want a better power equilibrium and more groups to be available. Keeping current statu quo is just bad for the pug scene when stuff like GDKPs or Hard reserve becomes the norm.

Which is why I’ve talked about making it so it would consider if your rolling main spec or offspec. Moreover, with the amount of ninjas in pug having a fair chance at a roll is better than no chance at all. Or to have to participate in a GDKPs pyramid scheme or just not being able to roll on an Hard reserved item.

No system is perfect but master loot was still not designed for pug groups, that’s where the evolution of wow leaded us and how they made the pugging scene better. Master loot is great for premades, it was never meant for pugs.

22

I dont really think you get to define what the intent was, unless you have a quote from Blizz stating their intent. They wouldnt make it an option if there was no intention for it to be used.

23

Actions are louder than words.
They made master loot guild only in WoD and Legion and even went as far to remove it after.

24

And then Ion said it wasnt a good choice. I also dont think making a change like 15 years after the fact defines intent from 2004. Again, if it wasnt intended itd have never been an option.

Group loot is also an option you can choose when you form your own pugs. Nobody else should have to conform to your paranoia.

25

Ion said that group loot was a better choice, not master loot.
You can use group loot like master loot if all your group agrees to.

26

Incorrect.

27

Then find your quote because that isn’t true.
And even then I wouldn’t use Ion as the truth of their intentions. lawyer speak.

28

You can find it on either the shadowlands or dragonflight interview with him. Cant remember which expansion they talked about it for.

Hes the lead game dev who also gave the go ahead to remove master loot that supposedly was the action that you tried to say was proof of intent 15 years after the fact.

29

I do not think he ever said that master loot was superior or good for pugs. So I’m just gonna settle for that.

He’s done many things that I can agree or disagree with. Not a package deal.

30

First lets not make this a Master Loot Good vs Master Loot Bad thread. That isn’t the point of it.

Second, the reasons given by Ion for the removal of master looter is to give those players who aren’t master looter or loot council agency and not have their loot at the mercy of others. In addition, he said that at the time (pre-BfA it looks like). It was only guilds using master loot in retail at the time. Everyone else was using personal loot.

Third…

Asmongold: Now that we’re talking about loot. Why do you not want to bring back master looter?

Ion: What if I told you… I kind of do want to bring back master loot, and the team does? It’s something we’ve been reflecting on a lot in the last year, year and a half, looking at places where we and the community have differed over the years and reevaluating some of our thinking. Loot is a tricky one. Going back to Legion, we had personal and group loot in parallel, and maintaining two versions of loot in terms of how the data is setup, the UI experience, the code… was a mess. That was something we wanted to get out of for a bunch of reasons, and at the time we were looking at group loot, saw a bunch of problems with this structure we’d built, and were like “lets tear it down, lets lay new foundations, lets build a new system that’s all personal” and over the last few years we’ve been iterating on it and refining it and adding rules and exceptions, but there’s a lot of problems with it. Clarity around what’s tradeable is pretty bad, the feeling of “hey an item just dropped and it’s technically an ilevel upgrade, but I’m not going to use it and I can’t give it to my friends” - that feels pretty bad. We certainly haven’t solved degenerate behavior from world first guilds, if anything it’s gotten worse with all the cross server stuff and buyers. So yeah, we’re taking at hard look at where we want to land going forward. The challenge is, well we spent a solid six years building new foundations, and so it’s not just something where you can flip a switch and say “alright, everything works the way it did,” but I think there’s a lot to be said for keeping personal loot in some spaces like outdoor world, trash in dungeons and raid, I don’t think anyone needs group loot trappings there. But the core experience of killing a raid boss, there’s four things on the corpse, figure out what you want to do with those four things - that’s something we’d like to get back to. I don’t have the ability to promise that all the work to make that happen can occur in just the next few months, but in terms of a long-term heading, that’s what we’re thinking.

Fourth, what they actually decided to do was Need before Greed with upgrades to that system of looting. Specifically…

We’ve improved Group Loot a lot from when it was last shown in 2016, and are continuing to work to remove other edge cases. For example:

  • In the past, Need/Greed only knew if something was equippable or the right armor type, not if it was meant for your spec or not. This is now changed.
  • First off, you can never Need for anything your class cannot wear. No warriors sniping cloth robes with a need roll and giving it away or trolling.
  • We also have mainspec and offspec functionality built-in, which changes based on the current loot spec you set.
    Main spec takes priority, then Off spec, then greed. So while a Ret paladin can’t off-spec loot a shield away from a main-spec roll from the Tank, anyone rolling greed could never win it over them. This also means that if you swap specs for a specific fight, like going Holy, you can still main spec roll for your desired items if they come from that boss without having to worry about hurting yourself by being flexible to your group.
  • Players won’t be able to win multiples of the same item – say that 2 sets of Shoulders drop. While you can roll Need on both of them, winning one will ‘remove’ your roll from the other.
  • Additionally, players can’t Need on a piece of loot if they’re wearing the exact piece at the exact item level, though in the event where this occurs but the dropped piece has a Tertiary stat or Socket, that roll would be possible (as those are upgrades).
  • Lastly, even after winning the roll, items remain fully tradeable without restrictions to any player that was eligible as a looter – as-in, if you weren’t locked to that boss previously. Inversely, this means that players who have already killed Boss 1 on Normal for the week can’t join for that boss and have loot traded to them (similarly, the need/greed pane won’t appear for that player).

I can’t link it, because Blizzard seems to have deleted the thread for it and I can only get this via sites like wowhead and bluetracker.

htt ps://ww w.bluetra cker.gg/wow/topic/us-en/1352473-changes-experiments-to-raid-rewards-in-dragonflight-season-1/

31

You always have to take it in context. And it’s not about it being bad or not, it’s about it being used in pugs which clearly Ion never defended. People used personnal loot for pugs because it’s a better system for pugs. Personnal loot also dropped more loot and loot tuned for your spec, there is no reason to use any other loot system over it if you have the choice.

The excuse about coding are just excuses.

The trading restrictions are not a master loot issue.

Wouldn’t surprise me that all this removing master loot from guilds was to mainly remove it from world first guilds that did split runs with it, which didn’t stop them.

And yes group loot with priorities that they added is the better loot system.

Personally when we talk about RDF or LFR you gotta understand why it was made. And I think they were mistakes to a certain point which they couldn’t have foreseen before implementing them.

And I think priotizing the casual raiding scene for pugs by removing master loot and adding soft lockouts is preferable to LFR. Same goes for adding scaling to leveling dungeons so RDF isn’t needed.

32

I think you are considering one major factor of why they were introduced.

Which is the lack of players willing to take on the leadership of the group. It takes time and effort to make a group. Normally the reward of doing that is being able to choose the way loot is handled. Whether that be GDKP, ?SR with MS > OS, or just plain MS > OS… as well as decided in anything is HR.

If we already have a lack of leadership in forming these groups. It is going to be massively negative to remove their only incentive while not replacing them with some form of automation.

33

I do not see it that way.

People play the game and will keep playing the game and forming group without master loot as this is the case when they removed it.

It was never meant as a way to reward leadership, but to control loot.

More groups would be formed if loot rules were standardized for pugs as you wouldn’t have to find the perfect group. Same goes for soft lockouts as you would be able to leave if the group can’t clear and just clear with another group.

34

Why would they continue to form groups? If there is no benefit to taking the initiative to form a group. Why would they not just wait for someone else to do it while they play something else, watch youtube, or do any number of other tasks like the vast majority already do?

I’m not saying that the current Need Before Greed system that retail has isn’t the better option for the average pugger because it is (since it is effectively what an MS > OS ML is suppose to do), but within a no automated system world were you take away the benefit of being the one to form the group. Why assume the 1% of players who are willing to take up that role would continue to do so?

35

Because people want to clear content and play the game? Because they do not want to have the arbitrary barriers like GS that other people might make? Leading a group the right way can also make you clear way faster which is why I do it.

Because they still did it after ML was gone. If anything to a certain point making it too pug friendly is a danger for guild groups and established groups because that makes pugs way more attracting. Which is why to a certain point I think it was fine for things to be this way for now in Classic, but with Cata really there’s no reason to stop there.

Cata raids will be way harder and that’s a good enough reason to want a premade group.

36

You are one of the few. If this was the case… that same thing would apply to right now. However, it doesn’t. A majority of groups have arbitrary barriers like GS and Logs that they make. It also has absolutely nothing to do with master looter. There aren’t going to suddenly be more people willing not to have those arbitrary barriers because master looter is gone.

37

I mean I don’t think I’m one of the few as many people kept running groups without master loot or have ran groups that weren’t master loot.

You asked for reasons to make your own group and bypassing restrictions made by other people is one that still exist like you said with or without master loot.

38

If you are referring to Classic yes you are one of the only few that doesn’t have some arbitrary restriction in who they invite to a group.

If you are referring to Retail… they are worse then classic in that regard, and it is to the point that if you get left behind you are screwed because you don’t have the Raider-io required for “good groups”.

As for what I asked. I asked why the 1% that are forming groups in classic will remain to do so if the benefits of them doing exactly that are removed from them. What you have offered is a reason why people would currently or in the future choose to start forming their own groups. Being able to bypass gearscore, warcraftlogs, linking achievement, etc has not increased the number of people willing to form groups by any margin.

Those who choose not to form their own group already have chosen that being able to bypass arbitrary barriers is not enough for them to take on the mantle.

39

I don’t think you understand what I’m saying or are just trying to bend my words. Where I have I said this? Your last post was also pretty weird. Trying to tie this not being about masterloot when you asked the question.

Requirements in Classic will get higher as harder content will be added, like in Cata.

I think that first saying that it’s the 1% is bias, many people can form groups. You’re not the 1% for forming a group.

And I do not see the logic behind what’s your point here if there is a point. You’re really stretching my answers to nonsense. Those got used because content got harder.

You didn’t ask what more gains people had for forming their groups if master loot was removed but what gains they had.

I’m totally fine with people making groups having less gains if that means more groups for people that want to pug generally. I do not think the few making group matters more than the many that want to pug. And if that means that you do not want to make group yourself then I’m fine with it as many more groups will be made easily.

40

here

Correct, but that has nothing to do with master looter nor people willing to take the mantle of leadership to form a group to bypass arbitrary walls set up by players.

Yes, many people can form groups. However, the reality is that many people are not forming groups, and are not willing to form groups. This is why so many people are complaining about the lack of groups due to GDKP being a thing. They blame GDKP for those leaders not instead running a loot system like SR or MS > OS. Instead of you know taking on the mantle themselves and forming a non-GDKP group.

The people who do however choose to form groups are the minority of the player base by a vast margin. It isn’t a bias, it is simply a fact or we couldn’t have the issues that we currently have.

Also… yes I’m in that minority who forms groups. Yes, I do have “arbitrary barriers” because I ensure the group is capable of doing the content that I am recruiting for. No, I don’t care about your gearscore. Yes, I do check logs.

No I’m responding to what your answer actually is.

No, I specifically asked. In the situation that you put forth. In that, the leader of a group is no longer allowed to choose how loot is distributed and there is no automated system. Why do you think that the people who are currently forming groups because they can do exactly that would continue to in the future form a group instead of doing anything else with their time while waiting for someone else to waste their time to form the group like the majority of players currently do.

Your response to this was… If they form the group themselves, they can bypass arbitrary barriers that the player base sets up. That is why I do it.

Your answers also apply to right now… while there is still master looter… but there aren’t more people forming groups to bypass “arbitrary barrier”. The majority choose to wait and be invited instead of avoiding those barriers you claim are a benefit to avoiding, but the removal of master loot is supposed to make those already not enough benefits good enough.