On the surface, loot trading may seem like a good solution to stopping ninja looting. However, this is false.
Loot trading will create a whole new type of ninja looting. All it takes is 2 members of a party. Let’s say your party is fighting through the dark, decaying halls of Scholomance. After some struggle, your party reaches Darkmaster Gandling. You finally manage to kill him, and each party member right clicks to see what precious loot he drops. A [Tomestone Breastplate] drops! You’ve wanted this chest piece for a month! That sweet, sweet 2% critical chance! Your mouth waters at the mere thought that this chest piece could soon be yours. You cast your roll… 89 on a Need! The other rogue rolled a 33! It should be yours… right? Nope. That rogue is running Scholomance with his guild. He and his 3 other pals just all rolled need so they could trade it to their rogue pal. A mage rolls a 98 on your leather chest item, and they hearth out. You are left empty-handed, stinging with bitter resentment.
Loot trading can also be used for extortion. Let’s say the same situation happens, but the guild instead of stealing your chest item tries to sell it to you. They charge 50 gold and extort you out of your hard-earned money.
Loot trading allows groups of people to easily ninja loot and will require more GM intervention than the previous system.
On a side note, it was NOT IN CLASSIC. And that’s what this whole project is about. Revitalizing Classic, including its game problems, yes?
This will cost Blizzard more money, is a worse experience for the players, and is a benefit to no one. Loot trading has to go.
Too often, I see people on this forum telling Blizzard that Loot Trading must go, but not why. I hope this reaches a CM and eventually, the ears of the Classic team at Blizzard. Best of luck to your project, and we all eagerly await Classic!
Some solid points. Has it been officially confirmed that loot trading is going to be the system in Classic? It rings a beel, like I feel like I read one of the devs saying that it definitely is going to be the system—when they were giving examples of so called qol changes that will make it into classic—but ive also been reading so much lately that its hazy. Also, you gave some examples that are pretty out there, have you ever really been extorted by nerarious pals? Be honest. Becsuse I feel like their reasoning might be to encourage a considerate community thats ready to be like “oh you want that? Youre farming it? No problem! Im grinding and planning on running it again anyway, because this is classic and we’re all just doing our best to survive.” Where as in retail its so easy to feel like “quack you! Get back in lfg and get a different thing thats just as good because everything is so quacking evenly leveled that it almost doesnt matter! #saturatedwithtoomuchcontent”
The attitude of players from 2004 to today has changed. If there is an exploit, some players will use it to their advantage, even if it means burning other players. I don’t think this exploit would be that common, but with HoJ runs in BRD, this would be disastrous. I don’t want this un-Classic exploit in the game.
And it seems sharding on launch along with loot trading are still not set in stone, but as players, it’s imperative we make sure they hear us.
And no, I’ve never been a victim of ninja looting with the old system back in Classic, and on undocumented servers. I do believe loot trading would make it more common.
Loot trading will be put in the game for a very good reason. It will be there for raiders. Back in the day, the GMs would get bombarded with requests to swap loot from raiders because the master looter either gave it to the wrong player, or gave it to them before they calculated if they had enough DKP for it, etc.
From my understanding, once classic is launched, it will have a very minimal upkeep and moderation staff. They can’t spend all their time swapping gear for people.
That fault lies with the Master Looter in your raid for being incompetent.
I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think adding loot trading to the game’s entire loot system is a good idea. Bind on Pickup exists for a reason. If it HAS to exist because Raid Leader’s are too stupid to give the right gear out, so be it, but don’t let dungeons suffer for it too.
Yes, that came up in either the BlizzCon panel or the interview/Q&A before. You can find the links to both in the stickied thread:
The likely reason is Blizzard’s changes to the entire customer support structure, trying to maximize the situations in which players can resolve problems by themselves as opposed to needing a GM to handle it.
When groups are charging you money on items you rolled for and/or using their statistical advantage to roll for the items you need, you’ll regret advocating for this.
This is just going to create more situations that require GM intervention.
The loot trading system in modern WoW works only because of personal loot. It would be a disaster with the old loot system. Bind on Pickup was integral to the game’s dungeon/raid drops. This shouldn’t even be a debate.
It’s still BOP for the group, it’s not like you can go out and sell it on the AH, the sky is NOT falling.
In a community this is a non-factor. Maybe a little more ninja-ing? Maybe? But it’s not like you’re going to see people getting screwed on loot left and right.
I mean a rogue rolling on mail/plate/2H to “sneak” to his friend is still a ninja.
The falsehood of this is none of those situations “require GM intervention”. Players can throw all the tantrums they want about not winning the loot they want, but opening tickets because one lost a loot roll is a waste of time (and part of why Blizzard changed up their support system so much). GMs will not intervene.
If someone lost a loot roll, filing a ticket will accomplish absolutely nothing. That was true in vanilla, it is true in Retail. (The only time GMs stepped in were when the WINNER of the loot roll filed a ticket to move the item to another eligible player, or a Blizzard-defined scam occurred.)
I get it. I do. People want to maximize their individual odds of winning loot. (The sadly humorous thing here is that those same people don’t like anything that lets others maximize their individual odds. Fairness is only supposed to be balanced in their favor.)
I think you’re grossly underestimating how often this happened. It’s been a while, but I remember reading somewhere that it was their 2nd most common reason for requesting GM help (being stuck somewhere was #1, and we got a button to fix that later on). I’m also fairly sure that loot trading is an all or nothing venture. It would take considerable coding to make it only work in raids.
The fact it won’t accomplish anything won’t keep players from filling out those tickets. And the person you quoted is correct: loot trading will increase the number of tickets made, not decrease them.
But set aside tickets for a moment, and just consider the gameplay implication. The OP is right: the system encourages coordinated ninja looting. If a couple friends invite a random stranger or two for a dungeon that stranger’s chance of getting loot is greatly reduced. Then there will be all the shady things where people roll on gear they don’t need, and then hold the group hostage. Demand gold, throw a tantrum if they’re on the other end of the spectrum. As long as the chance exists that they can get traded that item, then their behavior will linger and last until the matter is settled. Whereas without loot trading they accept it and move on.
As someone else said…the system works in Current WoW because of personal loot. Let’s put it like this: what’s the point in adding loot trading? According to Ion it’s to cut back the number of tickets made from people accidentally rolling on gear. Please…how often did that happen? So incredibly rare. Just put a verification ‘Looting this will bind it to you’ prompt, and no more loot trading needed.
This topic has been beaten to death in several other threads, but here is what doesn’t get enough attention:
I’m not looking forward to being harassed for items I have won legitimately. Whispers from players begging and pleading for items, and when the winner puts their foot down, toxicity erupts from one or both players.
There’s just way too many cons, but this one has unnecessary toxicity written all over it.
Exactly! And this is why Bind of Pickup exists in the game. Trading gear creates so many negative social scenarios. I think making sure the individual can’t be cheated by a group is more important than making sure incompetent raid leads don’t accidentally give the wrong loot to people.
I will repeat a suggestion made several times before.
IMO, ANY need roll should bind that item to the winner and make that item untradeable. This should apply to every item, whether it is BOP, BOE or bind on use like a pet, mount or recipe.
This would go a long way toward eliminating exploitation of the loot trading system.
![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
on the forum before claiming no one has said why (or countered that why):![:joy:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/joy.png?v=6" ":joy:")