Sunday, May 01, 2022

The Return of Master Loot?

In an interview, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas said that the Dev Team is interested in bringing back Master Loot. He specifically called out the problems around clarity which items are actually tradable. 

I'll be honest, I have zero idea how trading Tier tokens actually works in this tier. I just look for the blue text on the item if I don't want it.

In any case, I've long held that the current iteration of Personal Loot is a corrupted system. It was created to reduce drama in automatic group content, and then adapted for premade group content. I've posted my ideal loot system suite before, but it might be a little complex.

What I think Blizzard should work towards is the following:

  • Two systems: Personal Loot and Master Loot.
  • Personal Loot cannot be traded at all.
  • Master Loot has the standard "Tradable for 2 hours to people in the group"
  • Automatic Group Content uses Personal Loot and it cannot be changed.
  • Premade Groups can choose between Personal Loot and Master Loot.
  • Switching the Loot System requires everyone in the group to agree to the change. You can do a Ready Check style thing, where everyone has to click Yes for the switch to happen. (Maybe change the look/feel of the popup so people don't mistake it for a Ready Check.)
  • Master Loot is deactivated in new raids/dungeons for the first month. This is mostly to cut down the degeneracy of split runs in the World First race.

I think that would be good enough. Personal Loot is for no-drama Automatic Group Runs. Master Loot is for when you create the group from scratch and want control over how loot is handed out.

7 comments:

  1. Exactly how many guilds compete for World First anyway? Isn't that a very small number? I'd just say to mark whether or not you want to use Master Loot and just go with it.

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    1. Yeah, it is a very small number of guilds. But they get a lot of attention, and they are doing truly degenerate things to prepare. As well, Blizzard is having to make more and more difficult fights for the end of Mythic.

      I think pulling back on that, cutting off split runs, would be better for everyone.

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  2. Is this the right time for a loot rant? I guess it is.

    We raid with a roster of 23 people. We aren't the quickest but we killed Anduin 5 times and Rygelon 4 times. Yesterday I was the last person (out of 23) to finish my 4 piece Tier 4, despite not missing a single raid and I only got it in an M+ (I did 11-12 this season, so as many as some people run in a week). Oh, and I only got my third piece from a guildie via /roll. Yeah I know, this would probably also have worked via ML, but it also doesn't help.

    So while I don't love the Personal Loot, with the itemization being "higher ilvl = 90% chance of it being better" it kinda works, and keeps the drama low. I've never been a fan of Master Loot and despite hating the randomness of it all (why can't there simply be badges? And what's about "oh you took 13 and not 14 people, that's only 2 pieces of loot and not 3", wtf). This way I can at least hate the game and don't have to hate my guildies.

    But the real problem is that you're basically forced to spam M+ if you're in it for the gear. Me personally? I'd be completely happy going into iLvl 265 content with a 260 iLvl, because I'm decked out in 252 from the tier below (+legendaries), but, surprising no one, if I'm 5-10 ilvl behind then I'm also near the bottom of the DPS meters, especially if the Tier 4piece is so strong that's it's kinda mandatory, as we also saw in the RWF... (Not that I'm really comparing myself to them, but if your team's ability to realize 7k out of a 10k spec, then +10% is still huge.)

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    1. Did you use the Creation Catalyst? I find it weird that you are asking for badges in the same tier where Blizzard added a way to purchase Tier gear for specific slots. I raided much less this time around, and I got 1 tier in raid, 1 in the Vault, and 2 from the Creation Catalyst.

      Honestly, I think the Creation Catalyst solves the Tier issue nicely.

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    3. Did you actually run a lot of M+ or somehow got the corresponding gear slots with "Season 3 items" as they put it?

      I now have 57 normal boss kills and this is, I think, week 3 of the Catalyst? and while I am drowning in Flux, the amount of items per slot that I had in order to convert: Head 0, Chest 0, Shoulders 0 (but I won a roll), so I simply couldn't convert anything (in comparison I got a single chest item from the world boss and could instantly convert to 2/4-set because I had 1 LFR drop on my alt, so with a little luck I had the same amount of Tier than on my main that I play extensively). In comparison I ran 9 M+ this week and got a head and chest piece, now I'm just waiting for tonight's Great Vault (EU) and then I can go to upgrading with my fresh 1700 rating (got it last night). I also had a lot of Valor Badges but I couldn't outright buy an item that is eligible to convert (or did I miss that?).

      TLDR: 3 full clears, ~4 half clears = 30h of raiding vs 5h of M+

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    4. I don't do a lot of M+ or PvP. I transformed either Zerith Mortis pieces you get from quests/dailies/rares or those i246 pieces you can buy from the vendor in the Pilgrim area.

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