Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Funny, I absolutely abhor badges and think it removes a huge aspect of value that loot used to have from drops.

The value of loot is proportional to how difficult it is to acquire.

A loot council can work if the people are fair but thats like 1%. I"ve seen quite a few instances of officers gaming the DKP system by setting it up in such a way that they get more DKP for being officers.

Back in old school EQ we used a loot council in Prophets and I made out like a bandit. I probably got more loot then I deserved but oh well

In AL we actually carried our DKP from Everquest to WoW they just cut it in half. The system works extremely well and I"m sure it works the exact same way now. It consistently puts the loot into the hands of the players that play the most so the highest percentage of loot is actually being used on raids to get more. Waste is low.

What people don"t like is the fact that some people can get full sets before others get any loot but if they"ve been in the guild for 5 years and you"ve been there 2 months I think that is fair. As for Thott "twinking" out a character it was probably done when he changed his main character from a Druid (Thott) to a bard (Aftathott). I did the same thing when I changed from a Priest to a Warrior out of guild necessity in WoW. If the change is needed for guild necessity I don"t see a problem with doing it as long as the change for the character is permanent and not used for "twinking".

When I first joined Afterlife it was near the end of an expansion so I just saved my dkp and only bought the best bang for your buck items and tried to avoid buying the middle of the pack items on the next expansion which is one of the flaws in the DKP system. Afterlife ended up implementing the "mippo" rule which penalized people who did not spend a certain percentage of their earned dkp. From a guild perspective you want all of the loot being used, from a personal perspective I wanted to get to the top of the dkp ladder as quickly as possible so I could buy the best items first.

Ninajrr said:

Funny, I absolutely abhor badges and think it removes a huge aspect of value that loot used to have from drops.

The value of loot is proportional to how difficult it is to acquire.

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The difficulty of loot acquisition can still be scaled up. Maybe you have to get 5 different badges from the main dungeon bosses or something for an item. There"s plenty of ways around it.

The "Difficulty to acquire" aspect of EverQuest (and WoW) was that the "difficulty" was mostly attributed to which officer you are blowing, if you"re the guild leaders friend, of if there isn"t some backdoor deal going on already.

Face it: The rarity and difficulty of most nice items in EQ and WoW was due to the cliques, infighting, and arbitrary unfairness of guild leaderships and loot councils.

It"s a fact, guild officers and leaders are some of the most overblow, self important ego monsters in gaming. If they want to lead a raid, organize events, fine. But when it comes to distributing permanently soulbound and hard to acquire items, is leaving it up to a "loot council" of egotrip dipshits really how you want the future of gaming to go?

If you hate it that much then form your own guild with people you like and do it your way. We"re long past EQ. Raid content isn"t limited to a select few in WoW, and even a small group can see all of it due to parallel 10/25 progression.

Councils are corrupt and currencies are gamed. Fairness, or the lack thereof, is entirely about the people involved in any system.

Ninajrr said:

Funny, I absolutely abhor badges and think it removes a huge aspect of value that loot used to have from drops.

The value of loot is proportional to how difficult it is to acquire.

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The difficulty from acquiring loot should be based on the difficulty of the encounter, not on RNG.

That"s why badges work. Because the last thing you need after spending your time defeating a hard encounter is to find out the item you really want didn"t drop, or the item that did drop no one can use or already has. Badges (emblems), even in the compromised fashion used in WoW, ensures that 1) everyone walks away with a little something, and 2) everyone can control which item they choose to obtain.

People go on to say that, and then they say how items levels are retarded and they want the "FBSS on Frenzy" type of loot too. You cant have both unless you have the group able mobs drop the notable items and the badges only for raids.

Izuldan said:

The difficulty from acquiring loot should be based on the difficulty of the encounter, not on RNG.

That"s why badges work. Because the last thing you need after spending your time defeating a hard encounter is to find out the item you really want didn"t drop, or the item that did drop no one can use or already has. Badges (emblems), even in the compromised fashion used in WoW, ensures that 1) everyone walks away with a little something, and 2) everyone can control which item they choose to obtain.

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Badges are fail. Their worst offense? They"re a mediocre solution to one of the key aspects of an MMO: the quest for loot.

Yeah it sucks, you raid and raid and raid and that one item you want doesn"t drop.

But when that one item you really want does drop and you get it... it makes up for alllll those other times. It"s like Chef"s take on scoring with hot girls (paraphrased) - it may take a long while to finally get with that hot girl, but when you do, it makes up for all those times you tried and failed (and then some).

tad10 said:

Badges are fail. Their worst offense? They"re a mediocre solution to one of the key aspects of an MMO: the quest for loot.

Yeah it sucks, you raid and raid and raid and that one item you want doesn"t drop.

But when that one item you really want does drop and you get it... it makes up for alllll those other times. It"s like Chef"s take on scoring with hot girls (paraphrased) - it may take a long while to finally get with that hot girl, but when you do, it makes up for all those times you tried and failed (and then some).

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Actually, it"d be like finally getting to the hot girl and getting her naked, and a group of your guildmates come in and let someone else fuck her because "It"s better for guild progression."

And I did form a small guild with friends and we cleaned naxx out. I lost to the RNG for 10 weeks, and then half our raid decided they were "bored with the game" and going to quit... after they got geared up and I was still losing rolls to the other mage who now has 300 something more Spellpower than me.

It would be easy as having each boss drop a unique token for each person, and their regular loot. after a certain number of the bosses tokens are acquired, you can buy something off his loot table. That way, if you lose to the RNG 10 times in a row on Kel"thuzad, at least now you can buy that 1 thing you wanted that everyone else in your guild already has.

Ninajrr said:

Funny, I absolutely abhor badges and think it removes a huge aspect of value that loot used to have from drops.

The value of loot is proportional to how difficult it is to acquire.

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So you are really good at rolling a specific number on a die?

I wasn"t saying anything about using /random to determine if I win an item, merely that I prefer to see a boss drop an item than drop some currency for an item. As someone brought up, I don"t see a reason why a medium couldn"t exist.

The latter alone is just more boring. I see some of the advantages, but a lot of the mystique behind item collection is lost.

There is no mystique. You simply do not perceive the poor chance that could befall you. You are effectively rolling for your loot based on the current system, but against the server rather than players. Tokens aren"t even 5% of current 25 man loot income, considering the prices of emblem equipment. Naxx is some 62 purple drops not counting trash, and only 16 emblems. Ulduar will be a similar story. They simply help mitigate bad chance and keep people hooked to an IV of consistent character improvements.

I like the hard modes as a way of accessing better tiers of loot, but it"s still not specific enough. I want more control over not only the quality and quantity, but the particular item. They could easily make all the hard modes drop quest/t-skill items to decide best in slot equipment. It"s an assumption that every decent raider has two maxed professions, so it"s really not an additional burden. Alternatively they could drop an extra special token that you hand-in at a vendor for a particular item with no quest/t-skill involved.

As someone often in the negative dkp (team neg!), I"d still say thumbs up to the whole process. Thott put alot of thought (har har) into the system and how items were priced.

Generally clerics were treated like kings, with their items being cheap, thus giving them more leftover points to buy stuff with.

Eventually the whole incentive thing was added and that"s when I really started to take a nose dive in the points. I love breaking in new stuff, during the eat your own guts till 4am stage. After it was just farm farm farm I generally wouldn"t show up anymore.

Agraza said:

There is nomystique.You simply do not perceive the poor chance that could befall you. You are effectively rolling for your loot based on the current system, but against the server rather than players.

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You fail at human psychology: take some time to check out CCGs, your local horse-racing establishment, a scratch ticket and Las Vegas.

People aren"t driven by the fear of "poor" chances, but by the hope that despite the long odds we"ll get what we want.

Random drop (from static loot tables) is the best MMO mechanism for creating that adrenline rush of finally getting "it" (whatever it happened to be), almost as good is rare spawn (with rare loot).

Now like any mechanism these can be screwed up by insanely low and random drop rates (thunderfuy) or by terrible itemization both of which are preventable and/or fixable.

I agree that there needs to be some randomness to the loot.

It"s easy to whine about it when you"ve been screwed by RNG a couple of times, but you should consider the effect it would have if everything was badges or easily obtained in some other way. You could literally plot out how many raids it would take to get everything you needed, and raiding would become even more routine than it already is. I like getting loot as much as the next guy, but that doesn"t sound very fun to me. I like that moment of excitement as the boss falls and you have that instant of hope that it"s going to drop for you this time. Sure, 9 times out of 10 you don"t get it, but that"s just part of the game. As long as your friends/guildmates got something, you should be happy for them.

What irks me about random loot is when you continuously get drops that literally no one wants after the first time. Stuff like spellpower plate and certain class ranged slots like relics/idols/totems. That stuff should ALL be badge loot and taken off the random drop list. Hopefully, 38"s game wont have something so problematic as an item type only one spec wants anyway though (hint: get rid of cloth/leather/mail/plate and just tag classes on it EQ1 style).

That being said, I"m all for rewarding every player who was present with stuff like badges. I just wouldn"t be a fan of seeing all loot go that way. WoW pretty much hands you everything on a platter as it is, that would be taking it even further.

Zeste said:

Actually, it"d be like finally getting to the hot girl and getting her naked, and a group of your guildmates come in and let someone else fuck her because "It"s better for guild progression."

And I did form a small guild with friends and we cleaned naxx out. I lost to the RNG for 10 weeks, and then half our raid decided they were "bored with the game" and going to quit... after they got geared up and I was still losing rolls to the other mage who now has 300 something more Spellpower than me.

It would be easy as having each boss drop a unique token for each person, and their regular loot. after a certain number of the bosses tokens are acquired, you can buy something off his loot table. That way, if you lose to the RNG 10 times in a row on Kel"thuzad, at least now you can buy that 1 thing you wanted that everyone else in your guild already has.

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I like badges.

But yes, this is one of the good concepts behind rep, coins etc. that Wow tried on various occasions.
The RNG can be a pain and really kill the desire to keep playing, especially in a game with limited drop rates. I think raid instances giving 2 items per boss, with up to 10 bosses per week a poor choice as well.
But those rep, coin items give gear based on attendance, and above that killing trash. Killing trash should not be tedious. it should be rewarding, and fun in and of itself.
These rep/coin based gear can also be used to set the base line for any gear checks.

Back in the day, we were one of the first 5 guilds in the world to kill Nef in wow. I wanted that caster mace. I can"t even remember how many kills on him we had. Never got it. I got the mace from Naxx first. And in fact, I ended up using the mace from Cenanrian rep in AQ20, prior.

Killing these bosses is supposed to be rewarding. And theres nothing more annoying then killing a boss then dusting everything he has.

Thats also one of the main advantages of the end boss special badges, cthun eyestalk, nef/onyxia heads, etc.

Grave said:

What irks me about random loot is when you continuously get drops that literally no one wants after the first time. Stuff like spellpower plate and certain class ranged slots like relics/idols/totems. That stuff should ALL be badge loot and taken off the random drop list. Hopefully, 38"s game wont have something so problematic as an item type only one spec wants anyway though (hint: get rid of cloth/leather/mail/plate and just tag classes on it EQ1 style).

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I think adding a little smarts to the RNG is fine. Doesn"t have to be a purely random drop from a static list - should taken into account classes. A no drop/bop item that can"t be used by the classes present (whether in a raid or just in a group) should never drop.

In general I also think (and I"m hardly the only one who"s posted this idea before) there should be some weighting for random loot drops - a la your average Vegas slot machine. Take the thunderfury problem in vanilla WoW - it shouldn"t take one guild one month and another guild nine months to complete after a certain point the second guild will get the necessary drops. But beyond thunderfury, over time a properly designed weighted system should result in roughly equal drops from the loot table so you won"t get the annoying scenario of getting 3 of the same drops in a "row".

Fuck these "systems".

Games should have a scripted Loot Director that follows each player"s progression and assign loot directly to individuals according to their class needs/current equipment/# of times they"ve done a specific encounter/performance during said encounter/whatever else you can think of.

Grave said:

What irks me about random loot is when you continuously get drops that literally no one wants after the first time. Stuff like spellpower plate and certain class ranged slots like relics/idols/totems. That stuff should ALL be badge loot and taken off the random drop list.

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Caliane said:

Back in the day, we were one of the first 5 guilds in the world to kill Nef in wow. I wanted that caster mace. I can"t even remember how many kills on him we had. Never got it. I got the mace from Naxx first. And in fact, I ended up using the mace from Cenanrian rep in AQ20, prior.

Killing these bosses is supposed to be rewarding. And theres nothing more annoying then killing a boss then dusting everything he has.

Click to expand...

tad10 said:

I think adding a little smarts to the RNG is fine. Doesn"t have to be a purely random drop from a static list - should taken into account classes. A no drop/bop item that can"t be used by the classes present (whether in a raid or just in a group) should never drop.
In general I also think (and I"m hardly the only one who"s posted this idea before) there should be some weighting for random loot drops - a la your average Vegas slot machine. But beyond thunderfury, over time a properly designed weighted system should result in roughly equal drops from the loot table so you won"t get the annoying scenario of getting 3 of the same drops in a "row".

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I agree with all that is being said here, so I"m not saying any of this is wrong - I"m just raising a point for consideration.


Does the game not need some loot that is far less desired than other loot, just to make the "good stuff" be as valued as it is ? Once we start eliminating the loot we wouldn"t like to see and weighting the RNG so that, over time, its not random are we not moving towards a system that is akin to a fair side show - complete the objective and pick the prize you want ?

Badges as well as the RNG seems a pretty decent compromise, without destroying how valued and rare some loot is.

Flight said:

I agree with all that is being said here, so I"m not saying any of this is wrong - I"m just raising a point for consideration.


Does the game not need some loot that is far less desired than other loot, just to make the "good stuff" be as valued as it is ? Once we start eliminating the loot we wouldn"t like to see and weighting the RNG so that, over time, its not random are we not moving towards a system that is akin to a fair side show - complete the objective and pick the prize you want ?

Badges as well as the RNG seems a pretty decent compromise, without destroying how valued and rare some loot is.

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The issue I have with the RNG system is that it can become an enormous timesink in a generation of games that are trying to get rid of them, wow being the first.
We could probably fill the bandwidth of these boards with stories about wanted pieces never dropping after so many kills. My want-never got list dates back to EQ1 and never stopped growing through the years.

At this point, if effectively MMOs are games you sub to complete raids then unsub for a while etc. it may as well be good to take in consideration Zehn"s idea of having bosses dropping the entire loot table and pick 3 items from there or just drop barter tokens like the armor ones (except that class specific bullshit) so you have a token for chest pieces, one for blunt weapons and so on.

I"m not against any system really, for me even total random RNG is fine, because frankly I don"t give a flying eff about loot. But leaving this as the biggest potential timesink in games it"s kinda ironic, since all devs tried to do in the last 4-5 years is removing everything that required more than 1 hour to accomplish and there is this gem of RNG fucking people over and over for what are literally months.

Miele said:

The issue I have with the RNG system is that it can become an enormous timesink in a generation of games that are trying to get rid of them, wow being the first.
We could probably fill the bandwidth of these boards with stories about wanted pieces never dropping after so many kills. My want-never got list dates back to EQ1 and never stopped growing through the years.

At this point, if effectively MMOs are games you sub to complete raids then unsub for a while etc. it may as well be good to take in consideration Zehn"s idea of having bosses dropping the entire loot table and pick 3 items from there or just drop barter tokens like the armor ones (except that class specific bullshit) so you have a token for chest pieces, one for blunt weapons and so on.

I"m not against any system really, for me even total random RNG is fine, because frankly I don"t give a flying eff about loot. But leaving this as the biggest potential timesink in games it"s kinda ironic, since all devs tried to do in the last 4-5 years is removing everything that required more than 1 hour to accomplish and there is this gem of RNG fucking people over and over for what are literally months.

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Good post. I agree something radical needs doing, I just don"t know what it is.


Couldn"t agree more with the folk who don"t like loot being assigned by guild leaders. I"ve spent years in guilds doing server and world first and I"ve been involved in assigning loot. The inherent problems have been made obvious in this thread :


i) the leaders won"t ever get it right every time, no matter how "fair" they try to be, in fact they are going to get it wrong more times than right - there are just too many things to consider;

ii) having people who assign loot leads to constant interpersonal problems and lack of trust and respect between guild members;

iii) it destroys the feeling of accomplishment for many folk time and time again.


On the flip side, it is, without any shadow of a doubt, the best system to use for a guild that wants to be ahead of the pack. You have to pimp out your tanks and your main healers.


If a high end game, catering to the top percentile of players, is part of Copernicus then I would HATE to see any kind of loot system be included where the leaders can assign items.