Some of you people are weird masochists: Why do you support random loot drops?

[Rezz]

Originally Posted by Suineg

Who's to say you are using those hard earned tokens for good PvE loot and not PvP crap that does mediocre in PvE? The guild as a whole doesn't necessarily win all the time.

That's easy. In whatever fictional game we're talking about here, simply 100% separate pvp and pve gear. Stamina is pvp and Endurance is pve. Mana and Energy. Strength and Brutality. Intelligence and Cunning. On and on and on. Then make different vendors for both sets. Instead of weapons doing damage, they do Depletion. Damage hurts pve, depletion hurts pvp. Simple as that. Raid tokens buy pve gear, pvp tokens buy pvp gear.

Granted, nobody likes that kind of system, but it's my personal preference~ Being a badass pve'er shouldn't give you any form of edge in pvp if you've never done it before hand, just as your l33t bunny-hopping skills shouldn't translate into any form of improved pve performance if you haven't done it before. Steal a page from vanguard and have both sets equippable at once and changes out depending on what you do.

Hi2uderail.

Iconic items is one thing, such as Baron Rivendare's sword. Him dropping priest pants makes no sense whatsoever. But putting his corrupted essence into a shield might increase your shield block, or putting it into your mage neck might improve mana regen. Whatever, it's a great concept imo.

[Believe]

On one hand, I think tokens would hlep the situation, on another I think it would make it very bland.

What they need to do is make bosses drop items that can be turned in with other easier acquired items to make epic items.

IE:
Dragon boss drops tooth.

Tooth can be used to make a Dragon Tooth Dagger (Rogue), Dragontooth Necklace (Tanking), or Dragontooth trinket (DPS Caster).

Perhaps for a Rogue with the Dragontooth, a blacksmith in some city will (for a small fee) take the tooth, some ores, and some some leather to make him the dagger. Etc.

Perhaps for 'legendary' items it could require multiple boss drops. Dragontooth, Warlord's hilt, etc.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by daishinzo

Trying to bring any sort of realism be it your version of how fantasy should go or actual real life attributes is fail on an epic scale because that just opens up thousands upon thousands of things that would need to be altered to fit whatever pseudo realism x person wants.

Random loot keeps people playing. No MMO wants people to quit cause they beat content and geared up in a few months.

$$$$$$ is all that matters.

Granted, but I like to think sometimes I live in a land filled with unicorns and gumdrops. Where gaming corporations are out to help me expand my horizons and not just by thinning my wallet.

[RiskyChris]

I used to support random drops (gave a little spice to encounters), but then I tried guaranteed loot systems (WoW honor system, arena system, badges, etc...), and they're so much more fulfilling.

[Gecko]

When I played DAOC I thought the setup in Darkness Falls was brilliant and really the way to do PVE.

I'd like to see a more advanced and better system a la that. Blizz has somewhat incorporated this idea into PVP. It'd be better if something similar was in PVE eventually.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

My guild was totally excited about going 3+ months without a single DST drop (or Perdition's Blade, or some other examples I could bring up...) while other guilds got like five in their first six kills. Thread gets F-.

[Menion]

We went 9 months without a Rogue BP in MC. But every dr00id and warlock app we ever took to MC sure did get their BPs!

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by FoghornDeadhorn

My guild was totally excited about going 3+ months without a single DST drop (or Perdition's Blade, or some other examples I could bring up...) while other guilds got like five in their first six kills. Thread gets F-.

Mage Tier 2 helm never, ever dropped for us in a year.

[Blumpster]

Originally Posted by RiskyChris

Mage Tier 2 helm never, ever dropped for us in a year.

That's whack. My guild was always pretty lucky. We got a wide variety of loot, with Hunters getting more than any other class I think. Seems like in MC and BWL it was always Hunter shit.

[Sanadebe]

We got our first Warglaive tonight on our second illidan kill. That was a major rush for us as a guild and for the guy that the officers decided to give it to (we use dkp normally).

Tokens would ruin that feeling, tbh. Also, in the last 12 tokens (4 x chests, 2 x gloves, 2 x head, 2 x shoulders, 2 x legs) we've had 10 vanquisher drops. 10. Wheres the rush in getting that amazingly rare item if its fucking tokenized?

Tokens ain't that much better. Unless you're a mage/rogue/druid (in our guild). Thankfully i'm a mage ;p

[Wodin]

I'll be honest. I'm still using a Bloodlust Brooch because my luck with trinkets is so terrible, and I still favor random loot. The set tokens being non-random is, I think, a decent compromise, but if you just make bosses big loot vendors it'll be boring as shit - nobody is ever actually going to buy that offspec item that's going to be really good when Death Knight Hybrid build #23b gets buffed to the gills - they'll get what's optimal loot at the time and just stop. It's a time savings, but people will miss out on a lot of interesting, fun things in the long run that might otherwise have never happened.

We got our first Warglaive tonight on our second illidan kill. That was a major rush for us as a guild and for the guy that the officers decided to give it to (we use dkp normally).

We finally got an offhand last Tuesday after farming him for literally months with no luck, while every other guild on the server seemed to get them. It was a great feeling and there was actually cheering in Vent when it happened.

[Plorkyeran]

Why do people who aren't bad at math enjoy gambling?

Going months (or years in the case of TF) without getting that one incredible awesome upgrade sucks, but the alternative is boring as hell. I found gearing up via badges to be tedious as hell, as the only thing I'd wonder about the outcome of a run was if the group was going to be retarded and refuse to do Nethermancer Sepethrea. Other than that, it was about as much fun as grinding wintersaber rep.

The current system is a decent compromise ― purely random loot does suck, and the token system should probably be expanded past only set items. I would hate to see a boss that dropped nothing but tokens, though.

[Malakriss]

Random Loot is all right if done properly. Having every other boss drop it's single good item at a 5% rate is not the right way to do it. Basing the ratio on a serverwide RNG also doesn't help, as no one cares if the statistics are accurate across 200 guilds, when the loot dropping matters for only 1.

Didn't EQ change it's loot algorithm after one expansion so it was less streaky? I don't recall EQ drops being anywhere near as streaky or as numerous as WoW

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by Malakriss

Random Loot is all right if done properly. Having every other boss drop it's single good item at a 5% rate is not the right way to do it. Basing the ratio on a serverwide RNG also doesn't help, as no one cares if the statistics are accurate across 200 guilds, when the loot dropping matters for only 1.

Didn't EQ change it's loot algorithm after one expansion so it was less streaky? I don't recall EQ drops being anywhere near as streaky or as numerous as WoW

I don't know if it's been changed, but there was a legitimate statistical survey done sometime in WoW's first year that showed that Blizzard's RNG was flawed, big time. Basically, it said that statistically there was no way for the strange drop rates to occur for so many guilds.

[Xequecal]

As a Paladin, I support nonrandom loot. There are exactly two healing mainhand upgrades between Gavel of Pure Light (Sha'tar rep) and killing Vashj. These would be Shockwave Truncheon (heroic SL) and Shard of the Virtuous. (Maiden of Virtue) Nobody ever does fucking heroic SL and I've killed MoV 16 times with no mace drop.

Paladins also pretty much have exactly one tanking mainhand upgrade between the Lower City rep reward and fucking Hyjal, and pre-2.3 it didn't even exist. This would be Amani Punisher. Oh, Fang of the Leviathan and and Bloodmaw Magus-Blade are technically upgrades, but if you ever actually loot one of these, the resultant cacophony of Mage/Warlock whining will probably leave you senile.

That badge loot they put in is a Paladin's wet dream, BTW. Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian is better than Tier 6. No useless INT and block value on this baby.