It's already been partially implemented in the form of Badges & Reward gear, and this topic has sort of been done to death anyway, but could Loot distribution as described below work? Would it be feasible?
Forget backpacks to carry around gear. Give us a "wardrobe" with multiple outfit slots. Diablo II did this to a small degree in allowing you to "equip" two sets of weapons, i.e., two 1-handed weapons and one 2-handed weapon, that you could switch between with a single key press. Now change this up and allow a character to equip multiple sets of armor, i.e, a Healer could carry DPS gear AND Healing gear (although +Spell Power is negating this to some degree), a Warrior could carry Tank Gear and DPS gear, a Pally could carry Healing gear, Tank gear, AND DPS gear, etc. All kept in their multiple Wardrobe Tabs, all ready to be switched in & out at the press of a button. We can switch weapons mid-fight, so why not allow us to change armor as well?
Tank goes down, the DPS Pally switches gear and takes his place, while if the Healer gets taken out, the DPS Druid can switch gear and take over. If a fight requires both a Tank and an Off-Tank, when the Off-Tank's target goes down he can switch gear and help out with DPS, or vice versa.
"OMG!" You say. "Are you crazy? We spend enough time Raiding for our gear as it is, and sometimes we never get our full set before the Guild advances. And you're advocating something like this? Forget you!"
Hold on a second. Hear me out. That's where the change to Loot Distribution kicks in. If you've got a 20-man Raid then defeating a Raid Boss takes a coordinated effort by all 20 of you. Sure, maybe one or two of you are tapping 1-2-1-2-1-2 while watching NCIS or House or Simpsons' reruns, but in most cases you will not bring the Boss down unless everyone is pitching in and helping out. So, why not reward everyone who's there when the Boss goes down?
If you help defeat the Boss you get rewarded, it's that simple.
If you're part of a raid that defeats a Boss you get presented with your own personal Loot screen with a choice of 3-4 randomly chosen, class-specific items. They might be weapons or armor or accessories (rings, necklaces, etc) but they'll be specific to your class and you don't have to spend DKP for them, or /roll, or watch the Night Elf ninja your rifle because "Agi & AP? Rogue-weapon! LOL!"
Being random loot it's possible that if you run the Instance multiple times, or there's multiple Bosses, that you may be presented with items you already have, but that's just the luck of the roll (or the unluck as the case may be). But at least you wouldn't spend hours during the week preparing for the Raid, farming Mats, making Pots, etc, then spend a couple of hours on Raid night downing the Bosses only to see all the Loot go to everyone else. Of course you're happy for your Guildmates, but man it sucks to put in all that time during the week only to turn up on Raid night and not a single Drop goes your way. This would change that.
Welfare Epics? Hardly. You were there, you contributed, you get rewarded. How is that Welfare? Are they Welfare Epics when your new Guildmates run low level Raids on off-nights to gear you up? You may not be contributing as much DPS as everyone else, and just maybe they could do this without you, but you're still contributing, you're still present when the Boss goes down, so you still get rewarded.
Of course being Raids and to avoid the system being exploited Raid Lockouts would need to be implemented with the Instances being reset & unlocked every Sunday night/Monday morning (or following routine maintenance if it's a regular, weekly occurrence), so there would be no constant rerunning of an Instance to Gear everyone up. If your Guild beats the Instance and defeats all the Bosses then SOP means you wait a week before you can go back for more Gear. And if your Guild is still getting their act together and you spend 3 hours downing just one Boss? At least everyone will have something to show for it, so next time the run might go a little smoother because now everyone is a little more powerful, instead of just a couple of players getting upgrades.
Would this work? Would this make Raiding a little more enjoyable? Or would it still foster a forum war between the hardcore Raiders and the perceived Welfare-Epic recipients? Some people just need something to complain about or someone to pick on or they're not happy. There's no pleasing everyone, so why not try to please as many people as possible?
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8 comments:
I like the idea but I see two problems both of which severely negate the repeatability of the content.
1. People will get geared up very quickly. Unfortunately, it's not in the publisher's best interest for players to get items in a timely non-grindy fashion. In your scenario you will definitely get nice gear much quicker.
2. Less epic-ness and oh lord some raiders what the epeen part of the loot preserved. Perhaps the ubergoober items are still random slight of hand seldom drops that people can still roll on. So your class specific rewards are the purples and the random drop roll for items are orange - legendary?
I meant to write something like this in because rapid consumption of content did occur to me as a negative side effect of this method.
Remember the old UBRS key? You needed all three fragments of the key AND the quest in order to forge the key, although all you needed was one person with the key to unlock the door. I know, I know. People hate getting keyed for Instances, but that would be one way of preventing rapid consumption of your content.
Anyone can get into Raid Dungeon 1, but to enter Raid Dungeon 2 you need the RD2 Key which is broken into 3 segments, and the segments only drop from the end Boss of RD1, one piece (chosen at random), per player, per kill. So the first three times you down RD1's Boss you might luck out and complete the key, or you might end up with the same piece three times. But each time you down the Boss you could also get a key fragment, where 6 fragments can be forged to make a segment. So if you kill the Boss 6 times and are still missing a segment, you could get that segment forged from the six fragments you've already collected, thus completing your key. Most players would probably receive all three pieces and complete the key within 6 kills anyway, and for those who don't, that's a way to complete the key and move on to RD2 with your Guild.
This way you could force players to repeat RD1 at least 3-4 times which means it would be at least 3-4 weeks before they can enter RD2, and another month or so before they can enter RD3, and so on.
Hardcore Guilds would probably be chomping at the bit and raring to hit RD2 within 4-6 weeks, while more laid back (or less driven) Guilds might take months before enough members have their RD2 keys. But even when the hardcore Guild hits RD2 the same, artificial block is in their way and they'll need to repeat RD2 at least 4-6 times in order to complete their RD3 key, thus it will be at least another 4-6 weeks before they can tackle RD3, and so on.
Alternatively only have one Epic-dropping Boss in each End-game Instance. Take Kara as an example. Each Boss could drop Rare items that would still be upgrades over your Rare Heroic gear, but only the Prince would drop your Epic/Tier set pieces.
Also I really like your idea about everyone getting an Epic item along the small chance of a single Legendary item dropping, to be rolled on (or DKP'd, etc). You could even work it into the code such that the faster you complete the Instance and defeat the final Boss, the better your chances of seeing a Legendary item drop. Or perhaps you only get a shot at a Legendary when you complete the Instance in one shot with no wipes.
Lots of possibilities.
I might not have quit WoW if loot was more like this.
This is sort of how loot distribution is like in DDO (and Wizard101 ;)
When a chest is opened or a boss is killed the items you see are earmarked for you, and you alone. Nobody else can see them so they cannot Ninja them. Likewise you cannot see anyone else's loot.
Wizard101 does a similar thing, but because you don't loot defeated foes (they despawn on "death" anyway) when a fight is over or a boss is downed you automatically receive whatever item/s the game decides you should get. You don't roll or take turns looting bodies, the game makes a loot decision and you get whatever it decides to give you.
Well, I know it is not fun to help other people to get keys.
However it was fun when I used my l80 DK to solo lower level instances and getting keys :-)
Also I like the idea of one key switch armor/weapons. It will be even better if the armor/weapons are bundled together so they only occupy 1 bag spot.
In Diablo II your second set of weapons didn't occupy a bag slot. You pressed W (IIRC) and on your paper doll it switched between the two sets of slots, so you'd equip your preferred Shield/1H Weapon combo then press W and equip your 2H weapon, and you'd basically be carrying two sets of weapons, and the inactive set (or weapon) would, essentially, be hanging at the ready. It didn't take up bag space.
So I see sets of armor being like this as well. You'd equip your Healing set then press the hotkey and get access to the second paper doll slot where you could equip your DPS set of armor & weapons. And when you're wearing one set, the other is tucked away on your Paper doll, not taking up valuable Inventory space.
gear used to be changable in combat, and they changed it early on. the reason gear can't be swapped out is this: people blow trinket cooldowns, then put another trinket on. People run out of mana, and then equip some stupid 'of Spirit' green set while they recharge, then all their spellpower gear comes back on.
The reason for this (which makes sense) is that choosing gear is a conscious decision made before the pull. Once combat is underway, you can switch to sword and board or two hander, but you can't put on a different pair of pants while a dragon is slapping you around.
Well, I just realized that while I responded to you back at my page, I didn't leave a comment here. Hence my bid for political power hampers once again.
Anyhow, thanks much for the comment on the Nucleus show sometime back. Been running the rounds through the posts here and having a good time. Cheers.
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