Mists of Pandaria: Raid Finder loot system changes clarified
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 19th 2012 at 5:50PM
Zarhym -- The new LFR roll system
First, other players will not affect your loot in any way. Another player winning will not cause you to lose. Another player winning a mace will not mean that she took your mace. If there are many rogues in the raid, your chance of winning a rogue item is not diminished. We may decide that each player has an X% chance to get loot, or we may decide that X number of players get loot, and then randomly determine who those lucky players are.
Second, the item you win will be "useful" in the sense that it's potentially usable by your current spec. This does not mean that warriors will get leather because warriors can equip leather (at a huge stat loss). It also does not mean that the game will always give you an item you want or an upgrade for the items you have. It just looks and says "You are a Holy priest, so here is a random item chosen from the Holy priest-appropriate items that this boss can drop."
Second, the item you win will be "useful" in the sense that it's potentially usable by your current spec. This does not mean that warriors will get leather because warriors can equip leather (at a huge stat loss). It also does not mean that the game will always give you an item you want or an upgrade for the items you have. It just looks and says "You are a Holy priest, so here is a random item chosen from the Holy priest-appropriate items that this boss can drop."
You'll still have a chance to not get the item you want and have to come back again, but at least this will curb that hideous sinking sensation of seeing Gurthalak drop and knowing yet again that someone else is going to get it instead of you, leading to hostility. Zarhym then goes on to explain the bonus roll system, which is a roll you can effectively trade in for a guarantee of some kind of reward, be it extra gold or a random drop from the boss. At present, this is all only for the Raid Finder, with a possibility of seeing the systems in dungeons if it works out.
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Boobah Mar 19th 2012 9:03PM
Not best loot; just appropriate loot. Which means, using the handy example of Madness of Deathwing, a fury warrior or frost DK could win Gurthalak or Souldrinker, while a ret paladin, arms warrior, or unholy DK could only win Gurthalak (because a one-handed sword is inappropriate for the latter three specs, while frost and fury both have one and two handed setups.)
icepyro Mar 19th 2012 6:48PM
So Blizz....
You do know we see items looted from nearby right?
When that warrior gets that tier token while wearing tier and I get nothing on my shaman, I will see that he got my item and he will still ask to trade it if he can.
You do know this right? Okay, just checking.
gewalt Mar 19th 2012 7:16PM
wont be tradeable. afaik
Philster043 Mar 19th 2012 6:51PM
Actually, would we even have to roll? Would we beat the boss, and then the game determines whether we're one of the lucky few to get some class/spec appropriate gear, and it appears in our inventory, rest gets gold?
PeeWee Mar 19th 2012 6:54PM
So LFR is out of the question for getting off-spec items then. Or did I misread completely?
-.-
Revynn Mar 19th 2012 7:05PM
Pretty much.
From later on in the thread:
- "so how does someone save up on gear to change spec?
I mean if an arms warrior wanted to respec prot, how can he get a decent shield before respecting? I mean if all shields are tank items and since he's not tank specced, does he have to respect to tank and then get run through an instance and contribute next to nothing as a prot warrior due to not being able to use alot of key abilities and doing less damage than with his arms spec?
Before this I would try and keep an eye out for good items for my off-spec assuming no one else needed the item in the group. When you do the same instance several times you're bound to get a tank that already has that item and so on -
Ideally, you would gear up through dungeons or other sources of loot and enter as main spec. One of the sources of current loot frustration is when a player who isn’t in a role earns gear for that role. We also don’t want to give DPS players a bunch of tanking items that they don’t want. In Mists, the one way you can communicate to the game what gear you want is through the role you're filling in the raid.
We're confident there are enough alternate means to obtain viable loot for your off spec in Mists that you'll be adequately equipped to perform in that role when you want to."
gewalt Mar 19th 2012 7:17PM
by all accounts so far, LFR is going to remain trivial in difficulty. if you meet the item level in that role, you will be able to do the job just fine.
Infinite Duck Mar 19th 2012 8:20PM
Honestly, it doesn't matter how easy it is to meet the item level requirement, it be helpful to have a tiny chance to get offset gear in LFR. It rarely happens with people always taking pieces now in LFR, and yes the bar of entry is low, but it still would be very helpful. It doesn't have to be a good chance, but a low one would be nice.
Evelinda Mar 19th 2012 11:15PM
This is a little disappointing... My main is a druid, with a resto spec, and a feral spec. I'm terrible at being feral dps, and i'm not the best tank, but i'm an awesome healer (if i do say so myself). Right now, I run rf as a healer, and i hope against hope that feral gear will drop, and no other feral druid/rogue/hunter rolls on the loot, so that my bonus-less roll has a chance to earn me off spec gear. To be honest this hasn't worked out that well for me, but at least there's a chance.
It's unfortunate that in the future, the only way I'll be able to gear my off spec on rf is to run as it, and contribute less to the raid. What would be awesome is if there were a toggle you could hit at the start of the raid, to say "sign me up for gear for my off spec as well/instead of my main spec".
Oh well. Shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, because in all other respects, this new loot system sounds great.
Shogan Mar 19th 2012 6:55PM
What about OS gear? I know it is near impossible to get it in the LFR loot system as it stand now. It would be nice if they could adapt the system to take this into account, i.e. giving a 75% chance of your 'winnign roll' will be a MS item and 25% for your OS.
eel5pe Mar 19th 2012 7:02PM
Here's how it works.
You kill a boss. The computer makes an roll for each player, and let's say the top 5 (number can be adjusted) of the 25 players in the raid will get loot.
Lucky player 1 is a disc priest. He will get 1 item from the boss's loot table that is appropriate for him, something that's itemized for a healer, whether it be cloth spirit boots or a healing trinket, etc.
Lucky player 2 is a holy priest. He will also get 1 appropriate item from the boss's loot table- it could be the exact same item as lucky player 1, it could be something different. LP1's loot has no effect on what LP2 gets.
Repeat for the remaining lucky players.
Everyone else gets gold as a consolation prize.
Less whining over loot because loot is personal. What another player wins has no effect on what you win. Still the potential for "omg the mage doing 6k DPS won an item". Also the potential for "I'm lucky enough to keep winning an item of this boss, but not lucky enough that it's the item I need".
As clarified in an earlier blue post, one downside to the system is that it will be harder to gear up your offspec since you will only win loot for the spec you queue for. Their intention is that you gear up your offspec by playing your offspec, and not by picking up other players leavings or worse, ninja-ing gear that a player who queued for that role could use (usual disclaimer that such behavior is not technically ninja-ing according to Blizz).
moppen34 Mar 19th 2012 7:38PM
Did they say when this change is going to happen?
Ailuvan Mar 19th 2012 7:53PM
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that since this was discussed during the MoP event, that it's going to happen...in MoP.
Maybe one of the pre-patches, but during the MoP changeover.
Schadenfreude Mar 19th 2012 7:59PM
I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about this.
cromahr Mar 19th 2012 8:22PM
Same here. I know its all RNG right now, and that its just bad luck when I keep losing rolls, but 6 chars (among them 3 healers) in LFR constantly, and yet no Dragonmaw, while seeing a pally in the most recent run who rolled need on and won two glove tier tokens (while wearing one pair already) plus one chest token (he had the chest too), then constantly offering all three for a shoulder token... maybe Im bitter, but I dont think it should work this way =/
Fierna Mar 19th 2012 8:34PM
Everyone keeps saying "Here is how it works..." followed by lengthy scenarios when in fact we don't really know how it will work.
Pyromelter Mar 19th 2012 8:36PM
That's all I'm trying to say :P
jeffduty Mar 19th 2012 9:22PM
wow, about time. the community has only been asking for this since vanilla.
hairy_fedd Mar 19th 2012 9:29PM
I like that Blizzard is trying to make looting better but I can see exactly what's going to happen for us unfortunate Mages and Warlocks
Spirit on; cloth,rings,backs,necks, and possibly trinkets.
I would hold out more hope of this not happening, except that if you open up dungeon journal and look at Mage loot (dunno bout Locks) there are spirit pieces.
Sally Bowls Mar 19th 2012 10:43PM
Blizzard already has a superior loot system in game - the elementium geode (LK quest bag, holiday boss bag).
Everyone is a winner! always popular idea. When you open your bag it might contain 20g or it might contain an epic. The epic would always be usable by you or BoE. Bliz can choose whether you have a 20% or 10% or 2% of getting something as well as the loot table to pull from. It's your bag; so whether you have zero or 6 paladins or mages in the group does not change what is in your bag.