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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news5 ways to improve the Raid Finder
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 15th 2011 at 9:00PM
The Raid Finder does the job of making complex raid content accessible for players who might otherwise never get to see these fights and it does it well. That being said, there have been some issues with loot, player behavior, and even the way the Raid Finder selects players in my runs that I wanted to address, aspects that could be improved or streamlined to give us all a better Raid Finder experience.
1. Need Plus system adjustments First off, while adding class restrictions to loot in the Dragon Soul Raid Finder was a good start, there still need to be some alterations to the way the Need Plus loot system works. Right now, the system works by role and gives its role bonus based purely on if you are tanking, DPSing or healing. So if you're an enhancement shaman and a caster DPS item drops, you can roll need on it and get the role bonus even though you're not a caster. The system needs to be modified so it's aware of spec in a meaningful way. If you signed up to melee or cast spells, then you shouldn't be rolling on gear intended for the opposite and winning it over people who came to do exactly that role.
2. Tweaks to duplicates items and lucky rollers Another way the loot system could improve is in how it handles duplicate items and lucky rollers. Right now, if two of an item (the bracers off of Morchok, say) drop and someone rolls need on both, he or she could win both. In fact, this has happened to me every single time I've killed Morchok. While I'm aware that random rolls are random, a modification of the role bonus may be in order here, so that if you roll on and win a piece of loot and an exact duplicate item has also dropped and you already rolled need on it, you don't get your full role bonus on the second item. For that matter, perhaps remove it entirely for the second roll (and only that roll). While this would penalize people trying to get two of something for offset or dual wielding, it would combat the phenomenon of one person winning all the gear.
3. Bonus decay for lucky rollers Speaking of that, there needs to be a system in place that adjusts things so that if one player has won a significant majority of the gear from a run, he or she starts to lose some role bonus. While the form this role bonus decay would take could vary, the idea of one person walking off with six to seven drops from one Raid Finder run while everyone else gets nothing seems harshly punishing, especially considering how everyone is now locked to being unable to roll on any further gear from the bosses they killed, even if they won nothing, until the next week.
4. Weekly boss lockouts review These are of course all loot-related concerns, as is the idea that the Raid Finder should allow you to roll on loot twice a week rather than only once per half of the Dragon Soul raid. In my opinion, limiting Raid Finder loot to a weekly lockout per boss defeats the purpose of making a more accessible raid. We don't restrict Dungeon Finder heroics to only granting loot once per day, even though normal heroics lock out on a daily basis. Just as random daily heroic instances allow us to roll repeatedly on gear, so should the Raid Finder, at least so long as it is also granting valor points.
5. Player persistence My final issue with the Raid Finder, and the one that annoys me more than all of the former combined (those are all minor in the grand scheme of things, since they involve loot, and loot rules can always be tweaked and changed), is that at present I'm seeing a lot of people immediately drop group after a wipe in the Raid Finder, even when it is clearly due to a momentary hiccough that will most likely be smoothed over in the next attempt. This can often lead to a cycle of dropping and joining that can delay another attempt, sometimes greatly so. Perhaps the penalty for dropping needs to be significant in length (an hour or more), since at present, I have no idea if there even is a penalty for dropping a Raid Finder group.
So now that I've listed my mercenary quibbles (and quibbles they are, for the most part), I ask you what you think would improve the Raid Finder. Backwards compatibility, allowing you to pug out older raids? Allowing larger groups of Real ID friends to queue together? Cross-faction Raid Finder? What would you like to see?
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 8)
winterhawk Dec 15th 2011 10:53PM
I think the best way to improve Raid Finder is to lock serial AFKers out of loot. Like the idiots who die at the beginning of a fight, don't take the offered rez, and then roll on the loot after the boss is dead. Invariably, these parasites win the tier pieces and other good loot. The game should have some way of registering if someone is offered a rez and if they don't take it, they don't get loot.
The Dewd Dec 16th 2011 10:48AM
I'm wondering of some of those are the bots that have been mentioned. I've seen people doing ridiculously low dps and they won't run back and never seem to say anything.
gapid Dec 15th 2011 11:10PM
What really sucks is losing a roll and the winner gloating that he now has two of the item and is going to vendor the newly won item.
Sunhead Dec 16th 2011 5:57AM
You know gapid, that could be an actionable offense. If they are stupid enough to boast about it in chat ticket their sorry asses for griefing the loot system. The have clearly stated they didn't need the item and have taunted and griefed the rest of the raid.
Put the ticket in, then put them on ignore.
Hopefully you wont see them again, and they will get slapped.
ugoticedbro Dec 15th 2011 11:04PM
Another problem: less trash before Morchok. Hell, less trash all around on the first 3 bosses. Not a huge issue, especially if you go on tuesday, but I went back in on Friday to help a friend that had never been in before and we had 5 separate dps from the same server (likely same guild) waiting until the boss was at 20% or so and running off and grabbing trash packs and wiping us.
That kind of griefing can be very discouraging to people who have never raided.
Not saying I hate trash. Remember TotC? Nightmares!
Celeane Dec 15th 2011 11:03PM
I'd like to see some sort of incentive for people to study the fights, perhaps a quest to read the Dungeon Journal.
Barring that, perhaps some sort of shock device for people who can't follow a kill order?
Can I say it's been a rough week in Raid Finder?
Antt Dec 15th 2011 11:10PM
This sort of touches on point 5 - I think It would be good if there was an option, when you queued, to select a 'clean' raid i.e. no bosses down. I know when I join a raid for the last two bosses, I am going to tank/DPS/Heal for those two bosses to complete the raid, queue again for the first two bosses and drop-out after that. Why would I want to kill the last two bosses again, when 1) I just killed them, and 2) when I am not going to be able to roll for loot? While 95% of the people I have raided with in LFR have been great, I'm not going to spend another hour of my time for no reason.
I think this contributes to a lot of drop out after certain bosses. Although I can see it being an issue when people would only queue for 'clean' raids, and as soon as someone left a raid the whole grp would fall apart...
A solution would be to remove the loot lock-out once a week, and implement the lock-out to if you have won loot off that boss. With it being 4.3. and and the new VP rewards, the 378 drops from HoT why would it be so bad for people to have more of a chance at the 384s?
Josh Dec 15th 2011 11:23PM
I for one completely agree with the loot decay, though I'm not surprised so many people are against it. The issue here isn't punishing lucky people, it just further ensures that more of the 25 people will have something to show for their work that week.
If I have 5 dollars and you have 0 and I only give you 3 of them, I haven't punished you by only giving you 3, be happy that you got that much. There are 25 people in a raid, spread the love.
Shrikesnest Dec 15th 2011 11:37PM
There needs to be some kind of consolation for not winning anything in a raid finder run, in my opinion. Hell, even just some extra gold or JP would be nice. As it stands, I've run it once to see the content and I'm not really motivated to try again... waiting for the right gear to drop and then rolling against 24 strangers, at least 2 of which have no problem screwing me out of loot by any means at their disposal for pocket change, isn't really an incentive. I understand that this is the point of VP, but it's so much less headache-inducing to cap my VP by chain-running the new heroics that it's essentially no reward at all.
Edge00 Dec 15th 2011 11:42PM
The first day I ran LFR as a Resto Shammy I lost a piece of healing gear to an enhance shammy... since then I only queue as dps and roll on need on everything it will let me roll on.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
chris Dec 15th 2011 11:48PM
The LFR system needs to have a Max Bosses Dead option, or a raid starting point. I literally have to spend an hour or so (as a dps) queuing and canceling till I can find a fresh raid with all bosses still alive. Also, if I have to leave a raid early, say on the 3rd boss, I want to be able to look for raids that are no further than that boss.
Jack Mynock Dec 16th 2011 12:06AM
Just run it twice. I almost always get a raid with 2 bosses down the first time. Just complete it and queue again. You're pretty much guaranteed to get a fresh run after that.
themightysven Dec 15th 2011 11:54PM
I hope, when they define roles in MoP, that they make a distinction of Melee Dps and Ranged Dps. In addition to ensuring a more reasonable rolling system, in both the dungeon and raid finder representation could be tweaked behind the scenes for smoother PUGs. Imagine if Pugging Jindo you didn't get a group of melee, resolutely standing on their chains, refusing to use any form of ranged attacks on ghost. Instead you got one Melee, and two whole ranged classes.
Jack Mynock Dec 16th 2011 12:06AM
Just run it twice. I almost always get a raid with 2 bosses down the first time. Just complete it and queue again. You're pretty much guaranteed to get a fresh run after that.
Shade Dec 16th 2011 12:10AM
One thing that irks me whenever RNG is discussed:
There is no reasonable expectation that over your entire WoW career, your rolls will average out to 50. The validity of its 'random' nature isn't assessed on an individual character level. It's observed across every character of every player of every server. So yes, based on the sheer number of subscribers, there will be someone whose rolls are always low or always high. Both scenarios are just as likely as someone whose rolls are always middle-of-the-road or someone whose rolls are all over the board. While it would be amazing if WoW used an "intelligent" RNG that tracks roll history, there's nothing to indicate that it uses anything other than a pure system.
Mycroft Dec 16th 2011 12:56AM
So something like, if I roll a 14 on a need roll, it'll lock me out from rolling a 14 again until I roll all the other numbers? Interesting, and assures everyone will win rolls eventually, but something like that could be abused (or simply taken advantage of) by smart players, like the kind who think to count cards at blackjack. An addon could monitor rolls, letting you know when you're statistically likely to get a high roll, so you could pass on things you don't want as badly, to give you a greater chance to win the thing you want.
It's possible to be unlucky your whole life, yeah. But that's a much lower probability than someone gaming a complicated system. I'd rather stick with the randomness of the current system, as it's 'fair' in the sense that it's very simple and everybody understands it.
Hoofio Dec 16th 2011 6:44AM
Plus the fact that's impossible for computers to generate genuine randomness ;)
Matheus314 Dec 16th 2011 9:51AM
"OMG I Only have the 100 roll left for me!"
"I'll wait until the mount drop from Deathwing and i'll be fine."
I know you see it comming too, right??
Bronwyn Dec 16th 2011 12:22AM
Am I the only one who is a bit annoyed with the way they are making things class-bound? I don't mind so much on trinkets, but stuff like weapons, I wish they would not make them class-only. Yes, because of transmog.
I have hopes that when they finally figure out a way for the system to actually detect your spec, they can remove the class specifics on LFR loot, but at the moment it irks me that, say, the enhance shammy/rogue axe that drops off deathwing is off limits as a transmog skin for my tank or frost DK.
I get that they're doing it because of rampant loot hogging. In that respect it is a good thing, I just hope that the "quick" fix means they have something more solid in the works because it limits things more than I'd like.
Bronwyn Dec 16th 2011 12:23AM
PS: I am NOT saying anyone should be able to roll need for transmog purposes, but if, say, my tank wins a 1 handed weapon on a greed roll because no one else needed it, I want to possibly be able to use it for 'mogging.