Guild Wars 2

The worst scenario for a drop is someone receiving something they don’t want when others in the group do want it.

GW2 is the only MMO I’ve experienced where this is an issue.

It results from the unthinking application of a good system in the open world (individual loot) to highly coordinated group content.

Let’s assume a droprate equivalent to most games which is 1 worthwhile drops for every 10 people per boss (10%).

This means that if one drop is an exclusive shield you’ll need to run an average of 10 times to get it. During this time you’ll witness 9 other people receiving the shield, and most of them are likely to have no interest in it.

Compare this to rational raid drop systems where a consistent group is able to pass on items they already have or don’t want. Each week the likelihood of getting that shield goes up as members aim for items later on in the dungeon or that have a higher pool that desires them.

Eventually, under the normal system, you’ll have wasted items but only once each and every member in that raid no longer want that item.

The system already was horrible for fractals so why would raids be any more frustrating? The reason is the number of people in the same group, and the likely higher droprate. This may seem counter-intuitive, but having 5 people receive nothing except junk from a 50 fractal run will be far more acceptable than 10 people receiving nothing from a raid.

Even if droprates are not higher, you’ll have 2 times as many people rolling the dice. And when you’ve done your 5th raid only to have the 5th person say “Ew [Shield that only Engineers want] what a waste, don’t even want this” you’re likely to never want to do raids again.

It’s just so unnecessary. The system works great in the open world, but has no place in challenging content. It’s more punishing RNG than games famous for frustrating RNG because there is a good chance that you’ll never get the item you want despite others have many duplicates.

It could be mitigated by tokens, by a roll/pass system, or by anything. It is literally the worst implementation imaginable for this type of content beyond satire.

the way FFXIV did it was good.

there were two sets of gear from the final raid, one from tokens and one from drops.

if you got lucky you got the gear directly (Gordian Gear), if not you accumulated the tokens and got the other piece (Esoteric Gear)

it rewards both persistence AND luck

I’d personally want the group leader to distribute all loot out to who deserves it, but meh, that goes against the games philosophy of people sitting in downstate for half an hour and getting ascended rewards, while the people who cleared the content get nothing.

HwaRyun.1807:

I’d personally want the group leader to distribute all loot out to who deserves it, but meh, that goes against the games philosophy of people sitting in downstate for half an hour and getting ascended rewards, while the people who cleared the content get nothing.

Two words: Ninja Loot.

Also the only thing that would change in that scenario would be the leader keeping all loot for himself after sitting dead for half an hour.

I have played and raided in a large number of other MMOs and no matter what it is the loot system is always a sore spot for people for a number of reasons. People complain about RNG because they don’t get the loot they feel they deserve, or the loot is ninja looted by the group leader, or the loot is based on some sort of token system and they complain it’s a grind.

At least a personal loot system like GW2 already has eliminates most of the animosity and loot distribution drama that can break guilds, friendships and clog up a GMs time.

There should be a gift system, like a real one, with limited time and limited to your current party… but it’d be too hard to implement, so whateverrrrr.

Sorry you wasted all your time posting this, but bosses drop tokens that you use to buy the skins you want. And the vendors only unlock skins after you beat the corresponding boss, so you can’t just farm the first boss for tokens. This is in addition to direct drops.

So what I’m reading from the OP is, “I really wish I was playing WoW. I really like WoW.”

Basicly, personal loot with the ability to send your loot to others from your raid (if they were there for the kill). Would mean even lower droprates on special skins etc though.