So I had watched the classic panel at BlizzCon, and something stuck out to me that could be a potential problem with Classic. That thing is implementation of Loot Trading with the usecase of: You are in a raid, and loot gets accidentally Master Looted to the wrong person. Rather than having to involve Customer Support and a GM, you can just trade the loot to the correct person.
I think loot trading is a good idea for when a group has Master Loot selected: if you are in a ML group it’s known that loot is handled differently and this would lighten the load on CS staff that Classic will have.
However, I feel that if it is implemented for all loot types, this will GREATLY harm the classic experience. When it comes to group environments, specifically dungeons, loot trading will encourage people to roll on items on the behalf of others with the intent to trade it to their friend.
An example of this would be: I’m running Wailing Caverns with a group, I’m a rogue and a druid/priest came into the group together. It is expected that we are using group loot, and if Leggings of the Fang drops, it is expected that the druid and I will both roll on it, which is a fair method to distribute the loot. However, if loot trading is available for Group Loot, the priest could roll on the item as well, and if he wins he can trade it to his druid friend. This gives the druid a 2/3 chance to win the item because of their pre-existing relationship. This is unfair and will EXTREMELY disinsentivize grouping with random or unknown people, which is half of what the Classic community feel is about (the other half is getting to know and make friends with those unknown people)
Overall, I feel that loot trading ONLY applied to Master Loot is a reasonable deviation from a true Vanilla experience, but if Loot Trading applies to ALL loot types, the vanilla experience as a whole will be negatively affected.
I think that’s a fair compromise. Most loot mistakes that this is intended to correct are master loot mistakes. Any loot that you don’t have ML on for is loot you don’t care about anyway.
However, it is not as unexpected as implied by this that any of the other three players could choose to roll on it. Whether to sell, disenchant, or even wear in an offset, every player in the group of five is eligible to roll. Who rolls is a matter of social etiquette, verbal agreements, and personal actions.
And, really, why do you think some people make such a big deal about ninja looting? It’s not because everyone obeys that social etiquette. People can and do roll when they supposedly shouldn’t by other people’s interpretation.
Versus if the priest wins, they can disenchant it (in front of you for maximum insult) or vendor it. Versus the tank rolled too, won, and claims they’ll use it for their damage off-spec set.
If the rogue loses the roll to the priest, the outcome is the rogue loses the roll to the priest. Doesn’t matter if the priest vendors it. Doesn’t matter if the priest disenchants it. Doesn’t matter if the priest has the ability and chooses to trade it to the druid. The priest won fair and square.
So make friends. So put your own groups together, doing the work to eliminate everyone you’re terrified might roll against you.
Seriously, you know why is this example always put forth with the poor little loser all lonesome and so unfairly treated? Because it makes the best victim soundtrack. Not because it’s a good argument.
The reason I use the so-called “loner” example is because that is how a lot of people might come into classic. Not everyone starts out with friends playing the game, I know I didn’t. But through those random groups and unknown people I found friends and a guild to spend days of in-game and out-game time with.
Yeah, anyone COULD roll on anything that drops, but the occurance of caster needing on a shield to disenchant or vendor it would in no way be as common as rolling on something for a friend.
I can’t say that could never happen, because sure there are people that are selfish and value the 50s from vendoring Leggings of the Fang would give them over the benefit another player might get from using it. But making it extremely easy to give a player a double chance at loot by bringing a friend, I can say with confidence that it would be abused.
I’d say this is totally as issue. The addition of loot trading was cited to be a solution for the customer support problem. If it is kept only to Master Loot (the use case cited by Ion) then this solution serves it’s purpose but does not impact other elements of grouping/dungeons, where it being available for all loot types would.
There are always secondary impacts of changes, and Loot Trading being ML only would accomplish the goals Blizzard has for LT, but without it’s splash damage affecting the rest of the game.
Loot trading only being applicable to Master Looting seems pretty legit to me. Blizzard gets their reduced ticket volumes and players don’t have to worry about group coordinated ninja looting in dungeons.
And honestly, loot trading is not really a gameplay change. The only impact it has on gameplay would be the group coordinated ninja looting. With this compromise the only additional way ninjaing would happen in a 5 man pug would be with master looting turned on. And of course that’s going to raise a red flag for most people to begin with and doesn’t detract from the potential of ninja looting with master loot on.
My memory might be hazy, but I remember loot trading being added in Wrath of the Lich King, at the same time as they added the Cross-Realm Dungeon Finder. The problem it was trying to solve had to do with GMs not having the power (the tools from developers) to delete an item from one realm and create it out of nothing on the other realm. If two players were in a group, one won an item, say by accidentally hitting [Need] instead of [Greed] or simply deciding the other player needed it more, they had no way to trade it. Worse, tickets to GMs couldn’t get the item moved because the players would no longer both be in a shared instance server.
EDIT: So, yes, the actual problem loot trading was implemented to solve is not going to be an issue in WOW: Classic. However, what isn’t mentioned tends to be the fact that in vanilla a player could ticket a GM and say “I clicked [Need] on this item by accident and won. This other player was there at the kill and eligible. Please transfer the item to them.” Didn’t matter if a third player wanted it and thought they should get it. The ticketing player won the roll and was considered the owner of the item.
You act like that exact thing won’t happen. When loot trading in lfr was a new thing my guild joined together and needed on everything. We then traded it to each other effectively screwing the 7-10 players who weren’t in our guild. If I could go back I wouldn’t have done it but it will happen.
Now replace the priest with a warrior who claims that it’s an upgrade to his leveling set. Later, the warrior trades with his druid friend. Congrats, you’ve been ninja’d and you wouldn’t even know it.
![:construction:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/construction.png?v=6" ":construction:")
My name is Gnocci and I endorse this thread.