Official Raid Loot Feedback Thread - USE THIS THREAD for feedback.

[cforce]

If you have twelve in a raid on normal.
At least 2 pieces drop. This will promote the use of full raids.
On elite especially.

Bingo to this and other suggestions like it. The new system has improved my (read: all semi-casual players) ability to join a raid group, since people are no longer motivated to short-man for better raid loot/person ratios. But getting zero items after hours of game time and days of calendar time is a real negative play experience. Keep the incentive to make a large team (I'd say 10-12 man, just in case someone unexpectedly drops), but put a floor in place for mostly-full raid teams.

[Vinos]

There was an small uproar back then from those of us doing the math.

The uproar now is from the people who are feeling the sting of running a full 12 person raid and walking away with nothing. People did not realize how much that hurts until it really happened to them.

Well I guess all any of us classy folk can say is.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
WE TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!

[Caliban]

I think the new system is a definite improvement over the old one. Other than the period where it was easy to 2 man the Queen Raid, I've gotten more raid loot under the new system rather than the old one.

And I've got 5 cappped characters and have been playing since the game came out.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Personally I think the biggest problem is doing a 12 man run and have not a single raid item dropping.
I suggest the following change to the loot drops, so it works that way:
- first, everyone gets a x% chance (e.g. 1/6) to get a raid item
- second, if NOONE in the party got lucky and got a raid item, then with probability n / 12 * (1 - x)^(12 - n) (where n is the number of members in the party) ONE random member is picked and is awarded a piece of raid loot (the rest of the time, too bad, no raid loot is awarded at all)

If I'm not mistaken, this should lead to a probability of raid loot that is still independent on the number of party members, and yet guarantee at least 1 item for a full group.

...math snippped

That's a nice idea.

No loot = no fun.

Eh, I got no raid loot all the time in the old system.

[ebt-dnd]

2) you are very unlucky but your day is coming where you pull end-loot three times in a row.

That's the kind of thinking that keeps Vegas in business... The truth is, your lucky day's never coming...

[Jaywade]

I think the new system is a definite improvement over the old one. Other than the period where it was easy to 2 man the Queen Raid, I've gotten more raid loot under the new system rather than the old one.

And I've got 5 cappped characters and have been playing since the game came out.

I can understand how that would make it seem better for you....but if you were use to doing the dragon in under hour with 5-6 people the dq by your self, the reaver w/ 2-6 people and never failing, even the titain with as few as 6 or so in a short man of time and win everytime......and now your forced to do 12 man runs that take twice the time the chance for someone to screw it up and nothing drops....and add to the fact that more people are speaking out against this then standing up for it...let's you know what is going on

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The new system is FAR better than the old. Thank you for getting away from the old dispicable system.

What I think would make this system wonderful is if when we rolled our 1/6 we got a bound token that could be traded in for a raid loot item off of a chart similar to what you are now doing for the 20th completion. It would mean that the lucky winner would actually be lucky. They would doubtless get an item that would help them. This would also get around all the fighting over people taking items that others think they shouldn't or people winning something they can't use and being disappointed that no one even wants to offer them something in return. That raid loot item drop would then be a real moment of excitement.

What would also be very helpful would be if the raid chest were a special chest for those not getting raid loot. Make it a raid level+1 chest so that it really becomes the best chest in the game for your level. That wouldn't be game breaking since you already do that from time to time on all chests...

[Caliban]

I can understand how that would make it seem better for you....but if you were use to doing the dragon in under hour with 5-6 people the dq by your self, the reaver w/ 2-6 people and never failing, even the titain with as few as 6 or so in a short man of time and win everytime......and now your forced to do 12 man runs that take twice the time the chance for someone to screw it up and nothing drops....and add to the fact that more people are speaking out against this then standing up for it...let's you know what is going on

*shrug* Meh. The game is not about catering to the people who like to short man raids.

For most people the new the system is better. It could be better still, but I'm not going to get all butt hurt over it.

[ebt-dnd]

There was an small uproar back then from those of us doing the math.

I think it was more than "small". It's why we had the "20 run" bone tossed to us. It's just now we can see what a small bone it really is. Now we can see that there's probably a pretty good chance that we can go a large chunk of those 20 runs without any raid loot dropping at all...

[wiglin]

Their needs to be a poll for do you like the new system or old system better. So far I have spent some time asking around and for the most part everyone I have talked with would be fine with the new system as long as if you did not pull a raid item you pull some item of value.

Most people do not like to pull vendor trash from the warded chests.

Lowering the amount of raid loot is not want the majority want. I spent the last week in pugs asking people their thoughts on the new system, and so far only one group had any real success with the raid loot.

20 times for a 50% chance at the item you want does not bode well either. Thats 2 months of raiding for a 50% chance. 10 times per raid is more acceptable.

I kind like the tokens idea, but instead of different tokens for each raid and taking up inventory slots, make all raid tokens the same. You can get them in any raid, but are able to cash them in at the raid quest giver for a generated list of half of the raid loot. The amount of tokens should increase with the difficulty.

In the end I like the new system -------> IF <------- the loot tables are adjusted to actually drop an item of value if you do not pull a raid item.

[wiglin]

*shrug* Meh. The game is not about catering to the people who like to short man raids.

For most people the new the system is better. It could be better still, but I'm not going to get all butt hurt over it.

The new system has been better to some, but that does not make it better. For me it has been worse. I enjoyed shortmaning raids, but I am fine with doing it with a full party.

As far as it being better for most....lol That is a big assumption. I have talked with numerous people and I can count on one hand the people who are happy with the new system. And those few have a right to be it has been good to them. That is the nature of random..(or psuedorandomness), and that is why it a horrible idea.

I vote for consistency over randomness. I want to know that my efforts will be rewarded, for those of you that like random give me your employers number so I can call him and let him know that you are ok with them rolling the old d100 to see whether you are paid. If he rolls low you get a bag of jelly beans.

[Caliban]

As far as it being better for most....lol That is a big assumption. I have talked with numerous people and I can count on one hand the people who are happy with the new system. And those few have a right to be it has been good to them. That is the nature of random..(or psuedorandomness), and that is why it a horrible idea.

And you are making just as big an assumption, biased by what you want.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I've met who are unhappy with the new system. Mainly people who were used to abusing the old system...

[Jaywade]

*shrug* Meh. The game is not about catering to the people who like to short man raids.

For most people the new the system is better. It could be better still, but I'm not going to get all butt hurt over it.

you should read back a couple of pages...... also I don't think they should cater to those that want full raids or short man raids .... the point is no matter how many are there 1 person or 30 at least 1 piece of raid loot should drop every raid.....and again the reason they did this was to lowwer raid drops ....prove it to me otherwise they threw us a "bone" with the 20 completions ...... bottom line they took the ability to get raid root away from us ....here's the funny thing.....

if you click on my name you'll see this said a cbunch of times.....

they didn;t hurt me (I'm a grinder I play a lot too much if you ask my wife) who did they hurt the casual player (AGAIN)

I can flag the von's in 40 mins same w/ Dq , so I can grind for that dragon's eye or the Sos on a new toon I can run the dragon at least 2 times a week so in 10 weeks I can get to the brass ring (I hope) I'll run w/ people I know so I might get a chance doing the 20....your a couple hrs a week gamer no chance....to much to do to long to flag and then he still needs to find a grp that can do the raid and will take him.....

turbine did';t hurt the urber or power gamer we have already got our loot I've deleted toons with 10 pieces of raid loot ...they hurt the casual player and the new player .....which is smart turbuine why should they stay.... I' was already grinding to lvl to farm for loot and phat ..... not all gamers want to grind, some want to RP some want to play every quest , so for those folks you just turned the power curve in my favor casue now they can't catch up you saw to it....

funny thing the folk thay cry about the loot everyone else has have been happy with this change, again all it did was make sure you can't match what I already have .....so tell me how that is better for you???? (speaking to the casusal player or the folks that have no raid loot and have been here for a while)

[Caliban]

...... bottom line they took the ability to get raid root away from us

Funny, I've gotten raid loot more often under the new system (once again, not counting when we could solo or 2-man the queen raid easily). My ability to get raid loot has been enhanced, not removed.

So, bottom line, you're wrong there.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

My understanding of how loot was assigned to players was that the server assigned the loot at each player's chest opening time. Thus, any suggestions from previous posters about having a 'minimum of one' raid loot item, while being a really good idea I would support, are probably technically quite hard to implement.

I can see why the devs chose to go with the 1 in N option for each player since this is easily implementable into the existing codebase (and I personally have no doubts that the implementaion is correct, despite certain skewed surveys to the contrary). How would you determine that the final player is looting the chest, and then examine all the loot already dropped to see if there wasn't any raid loot - and then drop raid loot? This would result in the last N players opening the chest always getting raid loot!

The devs wanted to reward larger groups, and they also wanted to reward running quests on elite. The new system on average does indeed reward both, but at the cost of potentially dropping zero loot (which understandably upsets players)

Given x is the number of raid loot dropped, n is the number of players with q the 'difficulty quotient' (DQ, not to be confused with the Demon Queen) for the raid (q = 4 for Elite, q = 3 for Hard and 2 for Normal), one option would be to return to the warded chest, but change the equation of drop from what it used to be:

x = 2

to something looking a bit like:

x = 1 + ( n / ( 12 - 2q ) )

This would result in a minimum of 1 raid loot dropping, up to a maximum of 4 for 12 people on elite. You could throw in some random variance in there if you like by fluctuating q ± 20% generated at warded chest open time.

However, it appears the devs made the decision to move away from the warded chest, so it's unlikely it would come back... We shall see.

Garth

[Jaywade]

Funny, I've gotten raid loot more often under the new system (once again, not counting when we could solo or 2-man the queen raid easily). My ability to get raid loot has been enhanced, not removed.

So, bottom line, you're wrong there.

you need to be big enough to see the whole picture.... luthren has a post that a week ago he got the results of 50 raids (use to net 100 pieces of raid loot) well post mod 5 50 raids neted 64 pieces of loot......so 36 pieces were missing ..... so that's less not more .....the game is bigger than just you or me.... got to keep that in mind

[Knightrose]

Yeah I really feel the ones complaining are those who used to solo or 2man a raid and always got something (obviously) from completing a raid. Which I myself used to do. I love the new system.

[Luthen]

Eh, I got no raid loot all the time in the old system.

This is a VERY short sighted POV guys. I have heard this comment allot since the loot system change by people in favor of the new changes. Lets look at a bigger picture shall we? It isn't about the individual. It isn't about the size of the raid... 1 person or 12 people.

When one person never gets raid loot on a single raid it's unlucky and there is a flaw of some kind often to do with guild DKP systems or a PUG raid leaders choice of how to award loot or whatever. When an 12 person raid gets no raid loot it is not unlucky. It's unacceptable. What turbine tells us when they implement a system which does not reward anyone on THAT raid then they are just creating yet another flawed system.

To many people for AND against this system change are narrow minded. they think only of how this change benefits or hurts them. the bigger picture here is that, while the old system was flawed, it relied heavily on the good will of one person (ie. the raid leader). That brings out the flaws in the individual. This new system is still flawed. Except it has taken the flaw out of the hands of the individual and made it a flaw which cannot be corrected by the players themselves.

A truely fair system would always have a reward for at least one person in a raid with everyone else having some statistical chance of getting something themselves. At least then when the raid is completed we know that someone will walk away with something. Even if it isn't me, or you, or whomever. At least someone got something for the effort we all put forward.

[Drith]

The devil's easy fix: Random Number Generator.

The Random Number Generator is the worse thing that can be done to award those who put their hard time and work into any game.

The random number generator works based off of statistics. The statistics have been shown time and time again so I won't go into that.

What has NOT been discussed here (But was discussed before MOD 5 and the Developers IGNORED) is how the random number generator will follow a normal distribution curve which is posted for you below:

http://www.gfmer.ch/Books/Reproducti...h/Image211.gif

What this means is that everyone who says "Oh that's too bad that you got bad luck. Better luck next time" is 100 % wrong. Everyone who says "Would you be complaining if you got loot 3 times in a row" is 100 % wrong.

This whole discussion is about equality and fairness and currently the random number generator follows a normal distribution curve which is 100 % unfair.

It means that the majority of people will get a bit less raid loot... certain people will get more other will get less and that some people will get way way way more loot and others will get ZERO!

This is why this thread is full of "I LOVE IT" "I HATE IT" posts.

Obviously those who are getting more loot love it and those who are getting less loot hate it.

The absolute unquestionable FACT is that with this current system there will be lots of people who will get completely utterly scrwed out of raid loot. They will put in their hard time, work and effort just like everyone else does but they will get absolutely nothing to show for it.

Same goes for the far right side of the distribution curve.... some people who put in the exact same effort as those mentioned above who got no loot will get massive ammounts of loot. The closer you are to the center of the distribution curve the closer you are to the mean.

The solution to this is you have to put in place a system that does not use the random number generator as it's starting point for determining loot.

There are many many other systems out there some of which have already been suggested. 1 of which is already in the game. The "20 Completions" method.

Here is a small list of NON Random number generator systems that could be applied:

TOKEN SYSTEM:

Each and every successful raid completion generates 1 or more tokens for that given raid.

Normal = 1 token
Hard = 2 tokens
Elite = 3 tokens

These tokens can then be brought to the quest given and redeamed for loot. Please note that this system has been used in such games as World of Warcraft and was very successful.

Rewarding Repetition system:

Just like the current system where you get to chose which item you want from a list every 20 successful completions. HOWEVER for this to work you must make the item list the ENTIRE item list and not just a "selection" of the entire item list. Because if you do not do this then again you are using a random number generator and you will find that some people will run the quest 100 times wihtout getting the actual item they wanted.

I do not support the rewarding repetition system unless the FULL list of items is listed at the completion of the 20th raid.

Also I believe that if you remove the random raid loot completely from the warded chests then you should reduce the number of raid completions required from 20 to say 10.

Increasing Favor Faction "unlocking" System

With this system the quest giver basically becomes a merchant. The merchant has all of the raid items in his inventory for sale however you must first unlock them by repeating the raid a certain number of times.

So the lower end raid loot would be available to whoever has completed the raid say 5 times. After the 5th completion then the person in question may buy the lesser raid items from the quest giver with Platinum.

After 10 or 15 completions, you then unlock the next level of items and after running the raid 30 times or more then you have unlocked everything and you may purchase from the quest giver any item from the raid.

Note that 30 times is a heck of a lot of time with a 3 day raid timer and really no one can repeat EVERY raid in the game every 3 days unless you're super uber hardcore so realistically you do two a week of the same raid on the same toon. So that's still 15 weeks of raiding the boss twice a week before you can have access to the most uber stuff. Just posting that comment for all of those who are worried that the streets will be flooded with raid loot under such a system....

Another thing you can do is combine the Increasing Favor Faction System with the Token System. Just replace buying the items with cash to buying the items with Tokens however you still have to have done the raid xx number of times to unlock the best items.

So under this combined system. In order to get say a Chattering ring I have to 1) Have say 30 Titan raid tokens (lets call them titan gears for fun) AND I have to have completed the Titan raid at least 30 times. This solves the problem of too much raid loot getting out on the streets. It's also very easy to implement from here on forward.

The single turn in system:

This system is currently in place for the Black Abbott and works very well. It involves many quests (which promote grouping) to upgrade an item over and over again and then the item can finally be upgraded one last time after completing a raid! This system works extremely well and is working well in the game right now.

Another spin off on this system is you could implement quests which require you to bring the "head of the black abbott" to the quest giver for a turn in reward. Each raid boss could drop a different piece to be turned in... the titan could drop a special set of mechanics that a certain quest giver wants. The key to this system is that each raid boss must drop at least 1 or 2 of the special items each and every raid and then the lucky one at the raid to have gotten the item can then turn it in.

Notice this system has a lot of flexibility! You could say that there are 4 special items per raid boss and that each kill will generate at least 2 of the 4 items. (examples only) 1 item STR based melee, 1 for devine casters, 1 for pure casters and 1 for DEX based melee.

Please note that this system has also been used for over 10 years successfully in other MMO's (Everquest, FF Online, World of Warcraft, etc.)

[wiglin]

Funny, I've gotten raid loot more often under the new system (once again, not counting when we could solo or 2-man the queen raid easily). My ability to get raid loot has been enhanced, not removed.

So, bottom line, you're wrong there.

This is subjective. You have rolled lucky on your pulls so you have gotten better loot. I have not rolled lucky so my loot has been worse.

I never abused the old system. I just did the raid every 3 days with 3 different characters. Our raids consisted of between 5-10 players, but it was the same players everytime, so I was able to get raid items. I also ran numerous raids where I did not get anything, I was ok with that because I had friends who did. Now though it is the roll of the dice to even see if anything appears, and then we have to hope it is an item we want. At least before we new that there would be 2 items, so we only had to hope for the latter.

As far as assumptions go, it is what everyone is doing. That is why I proposed a poll. To see the real showing of what the community wants. I would then tell everyone I know who does not come to the forums often (Everyone I party with) to participate in the poll. Regardless of what they like or dislike. If at the end of the day the majority of the player base likes the way it is, then keep it. I will adjust my playstyle or change games.

My assumptions are not based on my bias, it is based on when I join a party I ask "Hey guys just curious what do you think of the new raid system" So far there have been few who have like it. That is not an assumption but a collection of facts that I have found. I never said it was conclusive. Just what I have found.