I was musing about Personal Loot a bit more, and began to wonder if Personal Loot would fall out of favor with guilds when Nighthold is released.
A somewhat unique element of the raids released so far is that there have been no tier sets released. The first Legion tier set is coming in Nighthold.
At that point, though, guilds may feel that guaranteeing X set tokens for the raid each week through Master Loot is better than leaving set bonuses up to random chance. Sure, on an individual level you may have to wait, but eventually it will be your turn.
I'm also watching The Old Republic's new loot system, where all loot, including set pieces, comes in a random lootbox. It does feels like the the largest complaint against the system is the possibility of getting very unlucky and never getting your set bonuses.
Well, the SWTOR community doesn't like the system as a whole, but I think that the set pieces are the single biggest complaint. I wonder if Bioware could mitigate a lot of the complaints simply by having set tokens drop from a few raid bosses, even with leaving set pieces dropping from the lootbox as well.
It will be interesting to see if Nighthold does change the dynamic, and push organized raids back towards Master Loot.
My guild starts off with personal loot for the first few weeks and then moves onto loot council to direct the loot where it's most benefical.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting because the other way around would be more effective. Giving the earliest upgrades to your strongest players results in the fastest progression.
DeleteAfter a few weeks, LC is basically, "who still doesn't have this item?"
Yes but on personal loot there is potential for more drops hence more people get gear.
DeleteWhatever happens you can guarantee some group of people will get salty. I'm not entirely sure there's a solution that keeps EVERYONE happy.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, damn fine to see you back to blogging again. Your dulcet tones have indeed been missed.
Heh, thanks for the kind words.
DeleteYeah, you can't make everyone happy. Personally I still don't get the attraction of Personal Loot (unless for some reason you get more loot that way, which I would think is a mistake).
Personal loot does give more loot. Originally it was the same then because nobody used it was boosted slightly then because people still preferred ML because you could direct the loot it was boosted again. In the end if you want to get everyone to have their tier sets you need some form of directed loot but still it can come down to I lose my chance of a titan forged just so that guy who has only 30% attendance can have a chance of finishing his tier.
ReplyDeleteBlizzard probably should have reverted the "more loot" once they allowed trading.
DeleteThe trouble with a loot council is that it penalizes people who buy and use seals. Because if I use a seal and get useful loot from it, then I may not get a piece of loot for the same slot next time, because it's now only a slight upgrade for me, but a better upgrade for Jane. While that benefits the raid in general, I have lost out. I spent a seal to get worse loot than the loot council gave Jane for free.
ReplyDeleteIn general, if I always use seals and Jane always doesn't, the raid team levels faster, but at my expense. I always get less loot from the loot council than Jane, because I'm partially financing my own loot drops. I'm going to wonder if its worth buying those seals.
Alternatively, the loot council might feel it's my turn for loot, and give me the piece that would be a better upgrade for Jane. Now she feels aggrieved.
DKP would also be a satisfactory loot distribution system, but it just seems like it is extra work, with no definite benefit over personal loot.
The thing is that, used correctly, Loot Council is a deliberately unfair system. You shovel loot to your strongest players in order to progress as fast as possible.
DeleteThe bargain, though, is that by progressing faster, the raid as a whole gets more loot, and soon there is more than enough for everyone.
Guilds who use LC because it is "fair" are making a mistake.
Very good point! I hadn't thought of it like that.
DeleteI think all of the various MMORPGs are dealing with the same issue: putting stats /abilities on weapons and loot is a mistake.
ReplyDeleteAlternative system:
- loot is 100% cosmetic
- your character stats are adjusted after clearing content. eg. when your raid beats a boss for the first time, all toons in the raid receive a perm upgrade to their stats.
So think of progression as purely a measure of how far you've made it. Beating earlier content matters because otherwise you'll be missing the stat upgrades. You could choose to do content only once, but you wont because people will want to go after cosmetic gear.
That would remove A LOT of the drama associated with loot. You could go loot boxes (think CXP + overwatch style boxes) or just do drops off bosses. I'd suggest the latter so that there's incentive to do the content again. Maybe a combination of both where the list of things that can be in one of your loot boxes are determined by how far you've progressed?