With Patch 5.2 on the horizons, I ended up upgrading my Paladin’s two handed sword Starshatter using my Valor Points. I had been hesitating up until this point because I had hoped that I would have acquired the Sha Touched axe in LFR. Having run Sha of Fear around 13 times on my Paladin, I got nothing. 12 times, sometimes with just rerolls. Of course, I already received the legendary gem for the socket but it’s just sitting in my inventory taking up space.
Of course, the results have varied tremendously with everyone. Some people have repeatedly received the weapon, on multiple occasions even. Others, like myself, have run LFR since the start and haven’t received an upgrade on that particular item as of yet. Similarly, for my hunter, I’ve focused on Lei Shi, downing her 4 times. Each time I’ve spent my tokens but received nothing. So that’s 16 times of running and using tokens for re-rolls without seeing any effect.
At this point in time, at least with my paladin, it made far more sense upgrading the Starshatter as opposed to being frustrated over a single weapon. I could’ve run Sha of Fear one more time today just before the patch to see if I could get a last minute upgrade. But what if I received nothing again and used up a coin in the process? With patch 5.2’s increase in drop rates, it would seem to make more sense just waiting an extra day and seeing if the item dropped. But by then the vender upgrades would be gone and I might be stuck with a useless gem for a long time.
I’m not saying this will happen for every toon I get for the rest of the expansion. But I don’t think my situation is an isolated instance. What’s equally frustrating is receiving gear that I don’t need from LFR, especially on the re-roll. I didn’t mind at first for Sha of Fear when I received my first two tokens. At least, the second token went towards a tanking set. However, I think by now I’ve received 5 tokens. But outside of selling them, there’s absolutely useless. I would much prefer to give them away to someone who really needs it. Sure, I would lose some gold, but you really don’t feel like you gained anything from a useless item. Also, helping others in an MMORPG is a huge aspect that I feel is lacking in LFR.
The whole situation has made me re-think about how the loot system should work in LFR. I do think that Blizzard turned it into a punishing system for the bad behavior in Dragon Soul. It’s a shame that people were not civilized to work together more. But that doesn’t mean everyone is an immature asshole. The system in place now is still frustrating, has improved on some aspects in LFR but can be far better.
Blizzard’s stance on loot is to force people to grind out every little thing. Over time, I think this strategy only frustrates people and doesn’t really handle the subscription loss problem that they think is caused (i.e. Ghostcrawler’s “We want you to play” and “Gym membership” syndromes). The looting system has so many holes in it that it really does not feel like a reward system at all. It’s more of a punishment system. How can loot be punishment?
Someone on the forums pointed out some of the major flaws in the design of encounters and the codependency towards loot. The biggest issues occur on DPS checks. For instance, Garalon and Elegon. Garalon in particular has become this current expansion’s guild killer. The problem is that the gear necessary for most guilds to handle Garalon is hidden behind Garalon. However, the mechanics in the fight along with the DPS check make it rough for a lot of reasonable guilds to down consistently.
But there’s three elements in this design that remind me of the old saying about college: you can have good grades, a girlfriend, a job, a life, be part of a club and fraternities or sororities. However, you can only pick two of the group. With this design, Blizzard actually has several options: DPS check, complex fight mechanics, higher end loot behind the boss (i.e. forcing people to farm forever until people are up to par) and doable by groups without too much frustration. I feel that Blizzard should look at these four elements and ask themselves which 1-2 they get per encounter.
The other thing I strongly feel is just the ass-backwardness of the way loot is handled overall. Good fantasy novels often will have the hero go on a quest to acquire an item to help them defeat an evil foe. Standard plot. But in World of Warcraft, the items you need are behind the evil foe. So what happens when you get the item you need? You try for harder foes. But what’s the point of doing bosses repeatedly once you get the item you need and have all the loot you require?
Well, Vanilla and other patches demonstrated this through their player base. Players simply would sit around in town showing off their gear. What’s the point of having pieces of gear that have a functional aspect when you really don’t have a need for it anymore?One thing I would correct is making the loot better earlier on then focus on mechanics rather than DPS checks. Most times, people just need that one weapon to boost their damage output. However, the weapons are typically on the last boss. That really makes no sense at all. Why not put the weapons early on, then make the last boss have vanity gear to demonstrate you’ve downed him? Otherwise, it just feels like pointless farming to no end.That’s just one suggestion in fixing a horribly flawed system. Given that my suggestion makes sense, Blizzard won’t really take it seriously since I am a far better game designer than their entire staff (not joking). With that in mind, I want to focus on some more reasonable aspects as it relates to LFR loot.My biggest issue at the moment that I think can be easily corrected is making the loot BoP. I feel that LFR is just turning into a massive mess since there’s little motivation outside of seeing some content and picking up loot to do other things slightly easier. The social/group oriented aspect of LFR is so abysmal in its current format that they might as well re-design it so that they get rid of players altogether and have individuals run it.Making the loot tradeable once again will help the social aspect. I do believe that not everyone is a selfish jackass in the game and are willing to help other players. By doing this perhaps the anonymous aspect that leaves such a horrible taste in everyone’s mouth with regards to LFR wouldn’t be as terrible as it is now. Perhaps, people will treat each other in a much friendlier manner and cooperate. As of now, the current personal loot system in LFR makes people in uncaring loot whores. That’s the message Blizzard is telling people by having this system.And it’s really not about trying to gear up quickly. It’s just creating a slightly more cooperative and friendly environment. I would go as far as saying that this aspect should also be considered for Heroics and other randoms as well. To me, that’s a really easy solution to a larger problem. But I think even this can be improved by a large margin. I think when people trade useless items to others, they should get some sort of bonus karma. It won’t be like a free roll, but some additional points that they can receive for the item they really need/want. I think having a system like this in place would increase the player participation and make LFRs more friendly overall.
And even this can be improved upon. I talked a while back about how the loot system really needs to be more intelligent. If I receive a necklace that is worse than my own, the system should “know” about it. I like the idea of a preferred loot system, especially on the re-rolls. Imagine where you go into a fight and do a need on that fight. But you lose out. The system would recognize that you lost out but your re-roll demonstrates how badly you are willing to sacrifice your work from a coin in getting a piece of gear. Each time you lose out on gear, you continue to accumulate points until you manage to get that one item from a re-roll. In this manner, if you get absolutely nothing from any runs, you will eventually receive the item down the road.The main thing I want to emphasize here is the ecology of items. I feel that the RNG aspects are too loose and that there’s just a lot of waste that ends of going on in LFR and Heroics to a degree. The psychology of consistently losing week after week will ultimately demotivate players to the point where they feel the game isn’t worth playing. You absolutely need to provide some sort of incentive large enough to keep people in the game. It really makes little to no sense to keep an invisible dangling carrot in front of someone and then tell them that they moved the carrot that they can’t even see. For myself, I felt that the work I’ve put into acquiring the gem should’ve let me acquire something by now. But even after getting the gem and re-running Sha of Anger several times, I have received nothing. Why even bother having a legendary gem when you can’t use it? It’s just a waste of time and effort.