Personal loot doesn’t really feel like “personal” loot

Community General Discussion
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Yes, another thread about this ridiculous system. This isn’t about bringing ML back but about improving PL.

  • Main point: The game dictates what gear you can trade. If I want to give away a 390 ring that’s a 3% upgrade for me but a 15% upgrade for someone else then why cant I do that? It doesn’t need to be ML to work, they just need to get rid of these insane restrictions on PL. It doesn’t feel like the gear I get is actually mine because the game dictates what I can and can’t trade. 5 ilvl 2% overall upgrade for me but 15 ilvl 10% upgrade for someone else and I can’t choose to give it away. It really feels terrible.

I thought PL was suppose to give you more control over what gear you keep and give away but every time I want to give away an item that’s a small 5 ilvl upgrade for me but huge for someone else, the game tells me I can’t do that. The game dictates what I can and can’t give away. Why? If this restriction was removed, people can still keep whatever they want but they can at least give away anything they don’t regardless of ilvl.

My guild always trades around gear that would benefit the raid the most. If I have a ring that’s 370 with BiS stats and I get a 390 with worst stats that ends up being a tiny upgrade for me but someone else’s BiS id rather give it to that person.

This goes for pugs too. I’ve been in many where I’ve tried to trade gear that’s an ilvl upgrade and small % upgrade for me but a huge upgrade for someone else yet I’m not allowed. The game tells me I can’t.

Personal loot honestly feels more restrictive than ML. I don’t care if ML comes back or not but why is a system that’s called personal loot so restrictive? It feels horrible getting a super small upgrade that I can’t give away when it’s huge for someone else. It doesn’t feel like this gear is -mine- at all.

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Without trade restrictions in place what stops raid leaders and guilds from demanding you trade your loot away or else…?
It would just be master loot with lots of extra steps if it had no restrictions.

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If they “demand” that you trade the loot then you can just leave. Previously if you joined a guild that abused ML you’d get nothing, however now if you end up in that situation with PL you can just leave with your loot at the very least and search for a guild that won’t demand anything from you if that’s what you want.

It really isn’t fair that a hypothetical “what if this guild does this!!” is what would prevent players from freely trading loot around. If I get a super small upgrade that’s only 5 ilvls for me but it’s a huge upgrade and 15 ilvls for someone else I can’t trade this away.

That feels terrible especially when the system is “personal” loot. It’s not my loot at all if I can’t decide what to do with it.

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Because the term has nothing to do with how the loot can be handled after generation – it refers exclusively to the generation process, in which loot is created on a player-by-player basis (re: personal) rather than being generated for a whole raid group.

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That honestly sounds like arguing semantics and purposefully avoiding the point.

That’s great information but the point is: I can’t decide what to do with -my- loot. The game tells me what I can and can’t do. It’s fine if ML was removed for a better system but PL doesn’t actually allow me to do what I want with my gear.

If I get an item that’s a huge upgrade for someone else but small for me I want to be able to give it to them. This goes for pugs and guilds. If I pug and this random player needs an item from me that’s a massive upgrade but only a tiny one for me I can only give it to said player if the game allows me to (aka meets the restriction requirement). That doesn’t feel good at all.

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You asked why a system called Personal Loot was restrictive. I answered your misconception about the meaning of its name. Seems pretty on-topic to me.

I wouldn’t count on this happening, but if that’s a banner under which you want to crusade, you’re in the right place. Good luck getting the changes you’re after.

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Okay then that’s good information. I’m not quite sure what else to refer to it as though? Blizzard stated the purpose of personal loot which is to give more individual control over loot but this wasn’t achieved at all really. The game tells me what I can and can’t trade, it doesn’t feel like it belongs to me at all.

Sorry, repeated myself but I’ll make it clear going forward then: When I refer to personal loot, I’m talking about the goal of the system which is more individual control as per blizzard.

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It actually was, as most cases where Personal Loot is the item generation method utilize loot specialization to select what drops from a given boss encounter.

Where previously if I wanted a specific weapon, especially if it was for my off-spec, I had to hope it dropped and that nobody needed it for their main spec. Now, I just change my loot specialization, and if the item drops for me, it’s mine.

The control available may not be the control you want, but there definitely is more control over what items are generated.

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Personal loot has killed guild group, and titan essence in 8.1 will kill friendship too :slight_smile:

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That’s right, you have an easier time targeting something specific which is great, that’s what I like about PL and why I’m saying we shouldn’t remove it or bring back ML.

However, maybe I’m going for something specific and end up getting something else that’s a small upgrade for me but a huge upgrade for someone else. Now I can’t trade that item at all and it feels pretty terrible for both me and the other player. This isn’t a rare occurrence either, it’s one of the main reasons people push back against PL.

My main point isn’t PL VS ML, it’s about making a big improvement to personal loot. This improvement mentioned above would actually give me full control of my loot and what I can do with it. However now I’m only able to do what the game tells me I can do and it feels really bad in most situations I’ve been in with this problem.

You can still set your loot to offspec and get that weapon you want if they made this improvement, it’s just that now if you get something else you may not need or want that’s a small ilvl upgrade you can trade it away to someone who’d benefit a lot more. That’s the point.

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PL pushes a set number of drops, plus anyone who gets lucky. You get more loot overall with PL. Top guilds would funnel more gear to mains and it’d get pretty ridiculous with alt raids again.

In addition, PUGs would still be able to hold your loot hostage. You can keep the gear, but you’ll be removed from the group. (Mind you, I don’t buy into that theory. It probably happened more than once, but toxic players are toxic.)

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And without a trade restriction what’s to stop a raid leader or guild from demanding you trade that weapon that dropped for you to someone else?
Sure you can quit/get kicked from the group or guild and keep your shiny new weapon but who wants to deal with all that drama?
I’ve done plenty of pug raids in the past, I remember all the “reserved” loot runs that would pop up, removing trade restrictions just gets us right back to that. Unless you can think of something better you’re just asking for master looter with an extra step to come back.

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They could make it so only guild groups are able to trade with no restrictions, but blizzard goal wasnt to make loot better when they removed master loot, so they have no reason to do that.

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I think their goal was to make loot simpler.

Now there is just loot. It’s the same PL style in all content now.

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So now we design the game around toxic players? Because you’ve got a few bad apples now I can’t decide what to do with my own gear? If someone gets kicked out of a pug for not trading away gear then they can find another, can also make their own. That’s a crappy pug to be in anyway, sounds like one that’d kick you for anything including making a small mistake.

I should absolutely be allowed to trade away gear that’s a big upgrade for someone else but only a small 5 ilvl upgrade for me. The game dictates what I can and can’t do with my own gear.

Ion specifically stated personal loot was aimed at giving players more control over their gear. This really wasn’t achieved. Maybe it was for players who don’t want to trade away anything they get but what about players who don’t mind helping other players by giving them a huge upgrade when it’s a small one for me? This happens in both pugs and guilds.

The goal as per the dev QAs is to make the loot you get -yours-. Cool, I love that but it doesn’t feel like mine at all because the game gets to decide what I trade and what I don’t, not myself.

They also said they want a solution for split raiding like you mentioned but they said they won’t specifically design the game to prevent that. While this does prevent split raiding, it also prevents players from trading anything that’s a 5 ilvl upgrade or more which leads to really annoying and bad feeling situations of not being able to give someone their 30% upgrade when it’s only 5% for me.

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This would immediately fix all the problems with the PL mess they made.

ilvl is a wholly insufficient way to try and determine an “upgrade”.

This is asinine. It was never a problem to begin with in any scope or scale that mattered. But with ML, the items were at the control of the raid lead, and couldn’t even get into your inventory without them directly assigning it to you. With PL, that’s no longer the case. The items are in your inventory. You have all the control. You have the item. No one can take it from you. And if you decide you don’t want to be a part of the team and trade it according to the guild loot rules everyone including you previously consented to before joining, then you are free to leave with the loot and go elsewhere to a different team that suit you better. You have the control.

None of that changes if they simply remove the trade restrictions.

That fixes the forced-PL only disaster and doesn’t do anyone harm.

Then drop the restriction on trading in guild groups and leave it in place for pugs.

Yeah, I think their goal was pretty straightforward to make the game worse simply to slow down progression and drag out content consumption to cut costs and push MAU on the risk not enough of us would quit over the degradation of the game simply to push profit.

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I think blizzards puts a players autonomy with receiving gear as a higher priority that players desire to trade or not trade.

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Doubt.

Even the generation of loot isn’t “Personal” under the current system.

There will never be a group that kills a boss for the first time and no one in the raid gets a piece of loot. Likewise, there will never be a group that kills a boss for the first time and has everyone in the raid receive a piece of loot.

This is no more personal than old Group loot was.
Who gets loot, generation, is still dictated by who “Wins” the behind the scenes roll the game automatically places for you when killing a boss. It’s basically like everyone is always hitting “Need” on every boss. Whether they want to be rolling or not.

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Neither of these is accurate. Both are possible under the personal loot system.

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No, it is not possible for a group to receive 0 items from killing a raid boss for the first time.

It is also not possible for everyone in a group to receive an item from killing a raid boss for the first time.

This is fact.