12-30-2004, 09:51 PM
This will be posted on the official Blizzard general and suggestion forums -- as soon as I can figure out how to login to the forums to post. I keep getting an error message of "Login Server Down."
A NEW NEED-BEFORE-GREED LOOT SETTING PROPOSAL
Background
During the early days of the closed beta, there were three settings that one could choose to govern the distribution of loot dropped by mobs -- Round Robin, Free-for-All, and Master Loot. Under round robin, the choice of who got to loot the next mob corpse rotated among the partymembers. Under free-for-all, anyone could loot any mob body at anytime, meaning that some partymembers would get more loot than others, and at the furthest extreme, Master Loot allowed only the designated master looter to loot any mob corpses. Except for a few special situations, most groups chose to use Round Robin as the fairest way to distribute loot.
But then came the problem of boss loot. Under Round Robin, a person could know whose turn it would be to next loot a mob corpse, and if the mob coming up was a boss, then people might be upset that they wouldn't get a chance to loot the potential uber treasure. Worse, the boss drop might be best for a completely different class of character than the person whose turn it was to loot. Spellcasters in the party would get upset if a warrior looted some valuable caster robes just to sell them to the vendor, for example.
So the principle of "Need Before Greed" (NBG) came about. That is, the loot setting remained on Round Robin. However, if a green, blue, or purple item dropped from any mob, then it was separately and manually distributed. First, people could declare if they "needed" an item -- that is, that the item would be used by the person's current character. If only one person needed an item, then that person got to loot the item. (Note: Under Round Robin, if the person whose turn it is to loot stands up without looting the corpse, the corpse becomes lootable by everyone in the party). If more than one person needed the item, then those people would roll for it, using the in-game random number generator ("/rand 100"). If no one in the party needed the item, then it became a "greed" roll. That is, anyone could roll on the item to sell to a vendor, to disenchant, or to give it to a friend or alternative character. The principle of "Need Before Greed" became the default way to distribute green, blue, and purple items in the beta, and players who broke the rule became pariahs, labeled as "ninja-looters" (A WoW server is a smaller community than many players realize).
There were some flaws with this system, however. First, it really slowed down an instance run to do this manual distribution of loot every time something of value dropped. Second, while ninja-looting was a fairly rare occurrence, it did still happen, and players wanted a way to at least give themselves a chance to stop a ninja-looter from stealing their precious items. So Blizzard answered with a new loot setting called "Group Loot," which works like Round Robin except that whenever a green, blue, or purple item drops, everyone in the party is given a chance to roll for the item.
In principle, "Group Loot" is a fair way to distribute items, but it presents a problem in that one can't be sure if someone is rolling for an item because the person "needs" the item or just because the person just wants to sell the item for cash. Thus, one still has to talk things over in the party chat to figure out what people are doing -- slowing down an instance run. Because of this, two contrary systems for distributing loot under Group Loot have emerged:
A NEW NEED-BEFORE-GREED LOOT SETTING PROPOSAL
Background
During the early days of the closed beta, there were three settings that one could choose to govern the distribution of loot dropped by mobs -- Round Robin, Free-for-All, and Master Loot. Under round robin, the choice of who got to loot the next mob corpse rotated among the partymembers. Under free-for-all, anyone could loot any mob body at anytime, meaning that some partymembers would get more loot than others, and at the furthest extreme, Master Loot allowed only the designated master looter to loot any mob corpses. Except for a few special situations, most groups chose to use Round Robin as the fairest way to distribute loot.
But then came the problem of boss loot. Under Round Robin, a person could know whose turn it would be to next loot a mob corpse, and if the mob coming up was a boss, then people might be upset that they wouldn't get a chance to loot the potential uber treasure. Worse, the boss drop might be best for a completely different class of character than the person whose turn it was to loot. Spellcasters in the party would get upset if a warrior looted some valuable caster robes just to sell them to the vendor, for example.
So the principle of "Need Before Greed" (NBG) came about. That is, the loot setting remained on Round Robin. However, if a green, blue, or purple item dropped from any mob, then it was separately and manually distributed. First, people could declare if they "needed" an item -- that is, that the item would be used by the person's current character. If only one person needed an item, then that person got to loot the item. (Note: Under Round Robin, if the person whose turn it is to loot stands up without looting the corpse, the corpse becomes lootable by everyone in the party). If more than one person needed the item, then those people would roll for it, using the in-game random number generator ("/rand 100"). If no one in the party needed the item, then it became a "greed" roll. That is, anyone could roll on the item to sell to a vendor, to disenchant, or to give it to a friend or alternative character. The principle of "Need Before Greed" became the default way to distribute green, blue, and purple items in the beta, and players who broke the rule became pariahs, labeled as "ninja-looters" (A WoW server is a smaller community than many players realize).
There were some flaws with this system, however. First, it really slowed down an instance run to do this manual distribution of loot every time something of value dropped. Second, while ninja-looting was a fairly rare occurrence, it did still happen, and players wanted a way to at least give themselves a chance to stop a ninja-looter from stealing their precious items. So Blizzard answered with a new loot setting called "Group Loot," which works like Round Robin except that whenever a green, blue, or purple item drops, everyone in the party is given a chance to roll for the item.
In principle, "Group Loot" is a fair way to distribute items, but it presents a problem in that one can't be sure if someone is rolling for an item because the person "needs" the item or just because the person just wants to sell the item for cash. Thus, one still has to talk things over in the party chat to figure out what people are doing -- slowing down an instance run. Because of this, two contrary systems for distributing loot under Group Loot have emerged:
- Players are asked only to roll on items that they "need." If everyone passes on an item, then the item is distributed manually, usually via the use of the in-game random number generator ("/rand 100"). This is a fair and consistent system, but it still has the flaw of slowing down a party.<>
- Players are told to roll on everything that isn't bind-on-pickup. If a person "needs" an item, then it's incumbent on that person to tell the group that they do. If more than one person needs the item, whichever had the highest roll on the automatic roller wins the item (if the person who won the roll didn't "need" the item, then they must give the item to the highest roller who needs the item). With bind-on-pickup items, people are asked to wait to make certain that someone doesn't need an item before rolling on the item for "greed." This system has the benefit of being fast -- everyone rolls on everything, little or no discussion needed -- but it has the downside of more mistakes being made. Many minibosses look like normal mobs, and it's easy for someone who's tired to unthinkingly roll on a bind-on-pickup item that they don't need. Group Loot doesn't warn a person that he or she is rolling on a bind-on-pickup item, and there's no way to retract one's roll once one has already chosen to roll. I've seen this situation happen more than once, and it can be a bad situation that causes a lot of bad blood.<>
[st]
Group Loot was a good start along the way to making a fair and fast way of distributing loot, but it's still not perfect. It seems to me that if the majority of players want to distribute loot via the principle of "need before greed," then there should be a loot setting to reflect that, and my proposal here is to create a such a loot setting.
For completeness sake, I'll mention that there is a loot setting called "Need Before Greed," but in reality, it is just Group Loot with the restriction that players who can't equip an item can't roll on the item. That is, a mage couldn't roll on a plate chestpiece, but a warrior can still roll on a cloth robe (since the warrior technically can wear it). I have never seen any pickup groups use this setting, and I suggest that it be replaced with the new loot setting I propose below.
The New Proposed "Need Before Greed" Loot Setting
Since most players want to distribute loot via the principle of "Need Before Greed," (NBG), I propose that a new loot system be created to reflect that. Whenever a green, blue, or purple item drops, all partymembers should receive a popup dialog box that gives them three choices:- Need<>
- Greed<>
- Pass<>
[st]
When players make their choices, the party chat channel should show messages like "So-n-so declares NEED," "So-n-so2 declares GREED," and "So-n-so3 declares PASS."
Once all players have declared Need, Greed, or Pass, then the server should roll and distribute the loot accordingly. That is, players who declare Need get priority over players who declare Greed. If no one declares a Need for the item, then the server should roll for those who declared they wanted the item for Greed reasons. Finally, if everyone passes, then the item stays on the corpse. (Note: The server should also automatically roll again to break any tie rolls. For some reason, that doesn't happen with Group Loot now).
This system would be fast, less prone to mistakes, and best of all, reflect the loot distribution wishes of most WoW players. I urge the developers at Blizzard to implement this system as soon as it can reasonably be done.
- Need<>