When I Become WoW Emperor
Well, BRK is angry again. Yes, we know, what’s new. But even after a stellar performance by our guild in Crypts, we’re none the richer except for memories. You guessed it, the drops both sucked and blew. So how do we handle our seething hatred for the loot-mechanics of WoW? What do we do to expel the festering, gnawing, hostility that burns within us with the intensity of one-thousand suns?
We post a blog. That’s why it’s here, right?
It’s quiz time again, readers. Let’s see how much you know about this silly game.
Question 1: You’re in a 5-man party, Hunter, Mage, Warrior, Priest, Shaman. You take down a boss in an instance. What gear do you instinctively know is going to drop, even before you loot the corpse?
A. Mail
B. Plate
C. Cloth
D. Leather
Question 2: You’re in a 5-man party, Hunter, Warlock, Druid, Priest, Mage. You take down a boss in an instance. What gear do you instinctively know is going to drop, even before you loot the corpse?
A. Mail
B. Cloth
C. Leather
D. Plate
So you see where BRK is going with this subject. Loot stinks.
Our guild had a lovely time in Crypts last night. Our newly-respec’d Resto Druid brought out tree-from and promptly dropped a 6095 healing-crit. Warlock was sacrificing minions left and right, slamming down a Seed of Coruption on the skellies before the final boss. Frost Mage sheeping and doing his best to keep the invisibles from beating the tar outta the practically immoble tree-from druid. Protection Warrior holding those elites in place while we dealt with invisibles. Beastmaster Hunter dropping the DPS-Hammer, topping the Damagemeters and at the bottom of the Healing Taken Meters. No sheeps broken, nice Focused Fire techniques, great healing, basically no mistakes…
Except for the Hunter right-clicking the final boss by accident instead of marking it, starting the event before confirming everybody was ready. But we still took him down quickly, so if nobody in the party says anything, nobody else will know about it…
um… wait a minute…
Anyway.
First boss goes splat, and of course, he dropped Rogue gear.
Second boss goes poof, and of course, he dropped Priest gear.
What really toasts BRK’s biscuits is that nobody was suprised. Even you reading this are just shaking your head because it happens all the time, doesn’t it? Not drops that you cannot use because you have something better, but a drop that nobody can use because nobody can freaking use it!
Pfft. Loot stinks.
BRK is not the first, nor will he be the last, to advocate that the game should scan your party and adjust the loot-tables accordingly. If we’re gonna blow two-four hours slogging our way through an instance, we should be rewarded with something better than vendor trash.
We are not saying that the quality of the loot tables should be modified, just eliminate the possibility that items that nobody in the party can use will drop. If a 70 wants to run Mana Tombs, he shouldn’t get gear better than what can drop in Labs. But if we run Crypts without a priest, then f-ing cloth with pluses to healing should not be a boss drop, period.
Blizzard, this insulting. Isn’t it time to stop telling us that our efforts are worth nothing but spit to you?
Anonymous on 28 Mar 2007 at 3:22 pm #
hear hear
Anonymous on 28 Mar 2007 at 3:39 pm #
I feel your pain Damh and have waited for Blizzard to do something about this for a long time, but I have an interesting story about a Botanica run I went on the other night.
I went into Botanica with a fellow Hunter (she was marks, I was BM) and before we even got to the first boss we had already started whispering each other, discussing who would get the Beast Lord chest peice if it dropped of the final guy. Right after we made the decision that she would get it, we downed the first boss…boom! Two loot boxes come up and they are both Towering Mantle of the Hunt (nice set of shoulders). Everyone was shocked and wondered how frustrated everyone would have been if just one Hunter was in the group or NONE.
Anyway, just thought I would share that with you.
btw - We downed Warp and he didnt drop the Beast Lord chest…eh, another day.
- Misfit
Dreyruugr on 28 Mar 2007 at 5:37 pm #
This won’t change without a major shift in Blizzard design philosophy. The fact is that the design of the game, specifically dungeon loot, is random chance. The minute you give players ANY way to influence the outcome of drops, you throw that out the window.
I’m not arguing that it’s good or bad design mind you… just that it is what it is. I suspect Blizzard is quite happy with it as it stands. If you want guaranteed loot they offer quests and rep rewards.
Damh on 28 Mar 2007 at 6:10 pm #
Yes, you are correct on all counts. But that doesn’t make BRK happy.
I don’t want guaranteed loot. I want a guarantee that if four of my friends and I spend three hours in an instance and beat it, we won’t walk away with a shard.
Dreyruugr on 29 Mar 2007 at 3:25 pm #
Ahh, but how you can have such a guarantee without opening the door to exploitation?
To a great extent, Blizzard has already done this with more raid sized instances such as Karazhan, Gruul’s, etc… by dropping tier loot tokens usable by multiple classes.
Do the 5 mans really take you 3 hours, or are you throwing a bit of hyperbole out there? They’ve been designed to take 1 hour or less. Currently the only instance that takes the groups I run with any appreciable amount of time is Shadow Labyrinth, at about 1:15. Everything else is an hour or less for us.
Daggah on 29 Mar 2007 at 4:26 pm #
The answer isn’t that simple. Under your system would rogue gear drop if a druid were in the group? What if that druid is resto specced while trying to run instances to build up a feral set? What if there’s a paladin in the group and no shaman? Should mail +int/+dmg or +healing gear drop then? Paladins can still use such gear. What about a resto shaman in the group? Should +healing cloth drop? Again, the drop is still useable. About the only couple of examples that I could think of where your system would actually work and not potentially screw people over is: plate gear dropping in a party with no warrior or paladin (presumably a feral druid might be tanking the instance) or stuff like bows/guns dropping with no hunter, warrior, or rogue in the group.
And of course, what if you WANT shards?
Your idea sounds good at first, but if you look more deeply at it, you start to see problems. Do you REALLY trust Blizzard to implement such a system without jacking it up? I’m a level 70 shaman in-game…so I know better than that.
Anonymous on 29 Mar 2007 at 5:03 pm #
I just want to drop you a line and tell you that I enjoy reading your blog. It’s fun and you are doing a good job.
I completely agree with you. Sometimes the drops doesn’t make any sense. But I guess this is just a way for Blizzard to get you to play and come back to do the instance again.
Brigin
- Hi to everyone in Legendary
Damh on 29 Mar 2007 at 7:08 pm #
Dreyruugr, color me jealous. Yes, we do take more time than the average bear.
We can run Mana Tombs and Crypts under two hours. Halls also, if we don’t wipe several times on the final boss. Labs, we’ve never beaten the 3rd boss.
Gotta understand, we have one tank and one healer. I estimate we are a month behind where we would’ve been had we not lost four core players. Yes, it was that huge a hit on us; we are still recovering.
You can see my profile on Armory. I am the best geared player my guild has, and my stuff is almost all quest-rewards, nothing incredible at all. We are trying, but are progressing very slowly, running our 60s through the lower 5-man instances and trying to get them geared.
Friends of mine, like Brigin - WooT Brig!! - who were in the old guild on Khaz Modan, have been able to run the good instances and gear up. Those of us who moved got decimated when the two founding members of this guild decided to retire, one taking his priest wife with him, and the DCoE (our only 70 priest) went in the basement to rest and recuperate.
Yes, this is a sore subject with BRK. He is jealous that he hasn’t been in Shattered Halls on Heroic Mode or Kazaran, but he has a family in Legendary. But even more so than for myself, I want us all to get there together.
And we might just do it.
Dreyruugr on 30 Mar 2007 at 4:42 am #
Damh, I feel your pain. There was a time not so long ago where, when trying to get keyed for Karazhan, I asked in guild chat:
“Anyone want to do Shadow Labyrinth?”
… the reply:
“Them’s fightin’ words.”
Fortunately, the gear does make a huge difference. The best advice I can offer is get as many of the blue Shadowmoon Valley quest rewards as possible. There’s a lot of really good ones.
Anonymous on 16 Apr 2007 at 2:47 pm #
Ahh, but how you can have such a guarantee without opening the door to exploitation?
To a great extent, Blizzard has already done this with more raid sized instances such as Karazhan, Gruul’s, etc… by dropping tier loot tokens usable by multiple classes.
Quote:
Do the 5 mans really take you 3 hours, or are you throwing a bit of hyperbole out there? They’ve been designed to take 1 hour or less. Currently the only instance that takes the groups I run with any appreciable amount of time is Shadow Labyrinth, at about 1:15. Everything else is an hour or less for us.
The 5 mans should not take 3 hours but 1:15 might not be realistic either. Especially if you consider real world issues such as lag, d/c and time to summon peeps.
I think about 1.5-2 hours is more realistic.
If Blizzard is gonna stick with the bop loot rule (and i imagine they are) then yes loot that drops should be put to use by at least one person in the party.
Or, let us sell it for enough gold that will pay for repair costs.
At least that way your not finishing the instance with no loot and more repair costs which pretty much means you was better off not doing the instance in the first place.
BigD