it still feels so right, it still feel so wrong aka here we go again
Okay, let’s see if I can get this sorted. Honestly, who’d have thought you could have third party loot drama. You can find all the interesting comments to my first attempt to write this post here.
Since there’d been a lot of discussion lately on the subject, I’d got to thinking about loot distribution and how being able to trade the stuff has changed our attitudes and blurred a lot of lines. I mean, although it’s fairly comprehensively Not Okay to form what is essentially a loot-cartel in order to skew Lady RNG’s capricious eye in the direction of your mates, to what extent are you doing that anyway when you roll on something you could use but would be more likely to trade to someone for whom it would be a significant upgrade. I mean, is it the same but in prettier wrapping paper? Or is it just on the same behavioural trajectory? Or is it something else entirely. Ultimately I think there are more shades of grey than there were previously and I think trying to identify where the shadows lie is an interesting, perhaps even necessary, exercise.
So I did what I always do and I wrote about a post about it. However, it pretty soon become apparent that what I had written came across as (further?) self-justification regarding the event that inspired all these musings in the first place. This bewildered me, as I rather thought I’d pinned my colours to the mast regarding that. I don’t want to get into it all again because it would be tedious. It feels a little bit onanistic to quote oneself but here I go, look out below:
The unfairness of things is what makes them fair. Or rather, Lady RNG retains her power because she is not subject to the vagaries and biases of human justice.
You either have to embrace a random system in totality or establish something completely different: but you can’t have a bit of a random system. Because then all you’re left with is something pernicious and subtle and, basically, corrupt.
However unfair it may have felt to us that the annoying mage should get a new pair of boots, I think we ultimately have to accept the fact that to redress one unfairness we may have inadvertently committed a far greater one.
In short: I THINK I DID BAD.
BUT, equally, I understand how and why it happened. Although I’m perfectly comfortable in thinking to myself “well, that wasn’t something I was precisely proud to be a part of”, I’m certainly not comfortable condemning other people. Because that would make me a moralistic prick and a borderline hypocrite. I’m not actually a priest, you know, I don’t get to judge. I wrote the post originally, not as apologia, but as exploration. I am new to raiding and, in a way, a little naïve. Things happen very fast in the field. It took me a few days to actually realise that something I personally identified as BAD had happened. And it had genuinely never previously occurred to me that the loot trading system could be used in that way so it was a sudden world of new thoughts. Had I been more on the ball, I might/would have said something but I wasn’t anywhere near the ball. I was so far from the ball I was playing a different game. Without a ball. Maybe chess. Okay I’ve lost my train of thought…
The thing is, when I wrote the post, I really thought I was writing about myself and general principles. What I didn’t realise, foolishly perhaps, was that I would open others to criticism through me. Nobody in my guild has said to me “Tam, you fucking wanker” but they’d be entirely justified.
I felt mildly bad for a brief time about what happened, emphasis on the brief and the mildly. Things are transient in WoW, that’s kind of the way it works. I’ve established, for myself, my own personal take on the matter, and I’ll be careful not to be party to that kind of thing in the future but that’s about as far as it goes. There certainly won’t be any more running roughshod over others, and I’m afraid you have to pay extra for self-flagellation. I’m not a discipline priest.
ANYWAY, can we put this to bed and talk about the other stuff now?
I originally began this post with what I thought was a mildly amusing story about accidentally stealing from Marks and Spencer because the infuriating self-checkout machine decided some chocolates were actually garlic (yes garlic) and charged me accordingly. I didn’t correct the mistake because I was frustrated with the machine and in a hurry but also because it felt satisfying. I had beaten an oppressive system. I deserved those damn chocolates. And it was my birthday precioussss … etc. etc. The thing is I’ve never stolen anything in my adult life before – and, yes, let’s face it, this was stealing (and thus, I again, emphasise BAD) – but this didn’t feel like it was negatively impacting another human being, so it didn’t feel like a “proper” crime.
And I think there’s an extent to which this sort of thinking is relevant to the current loot-trading system. Previously, when you rolled on an item, you were very aware that the decisions you made were permanent and irreversible. By rolling on an item, you were very conscious of the fact that you were potentially taking that item from another person. It made you a lot more careful about minor upgrades. You tended to be more communicative about your rolls “Needing on this [link current item], is that okay?” And, obviously, I’m extrapolating here, but grudge-rolling was a pretty goddamn serious business. By grudge-rolling you were literally saying: “I would rather waste this community resource than give it to you. And should you happen to catch fire in the immediate future, I wouldn’t recommend relying on my piss to put it out.” It was an absolutely blatant expression of pure and extreme contempt.
I kind of think this probably applies to master looter as well. Although you’d think that it’s a system easily open to foul play, I reckon it takes a certain kind of stone cold wanker to turn round and say “Yeah, you won this fairly, but I’m just not going to give it to you, ha ha.” And even if you are that much of a stone cold wanker, you might as well wear a big penis on your head from that day forth because nobody is ever going to doubt the depth of wankerdom ever ever again. And even though some people don’t have any qualms about behaving like a wanker, I suspect most of us are rather reluctant to for everybody to know about it.
What strikes me is this. Now you can trade loot, there’s been a very slight and subtle shift in perception toward both loot itself and the distribution of loot. You’re not rolling against individuals bidding for something they want, you’re participating in a resource allocation system. In short, you’re at the self-service checkout. And the reason I think it was easy (easy, not okay) for us to deprive of a mage of a pair of boots she fairly won was not because we’re a group of malicious, immoral bastards but because it didn’t feel like we were cheating the mage, it felt like we were cheating the system.
And that’s okay, right, cheating the system? Cos systems are bad, m’kay.
I think most of us have been raised to treat systems as though they were personally out to get us. It’s like when you buy a can of coke from a vending machine and it delivers to you the previous person’s change. You’re not stealing 50p from another person, you’re using your base human cunning to acquire gratis a can of coke from a faceless corporation.
I am not trying to say that this IS okay. I’m trying to say that FEELS okay. And then there’s a peculiar interaction, I think, between the vagaries of chance and the small degree of control provided to the player through loot-trading. I mean, master looter was on. We could just have turned round and said “sorry mage, no boots for you, we don’t like you” but we didn’t. And why? Because that is most assuredly not okay, and it doesn’t even remotely feel like it might be. It is, and it feels like, an entirely shitty thing to do.
Again, not to invoke zombie worms (from the can that got opened), but a few people observed that there wouldn’t have been nearly so much angst, soul-searching or debate, if the warlock hadn’t happened to win the roll over the mage. And that’s because, by leaving an element of chance in the equation, even if it’s now a weighted element of chance, you feel as though somehow it’s “outside your control.” You’re putting it back in the hands of Lady RNG. After all, the warlock might not have won. Never mind that the mage’s likelihood of winning the roll has, overall, has been reduced from 1 in 2 to 1 in 3. Because receiving loot is no longer permanent, there’s a “roll and sort it out when the dust settles” air, an assumption that you’ll somehow redress any trifling injustices on the off-chance you win the roll – since one of the psychological consequences of a random-number generator is that you’re always convinced you won’t win, and somebody else will. So it feels like it doesn’t matter if you roll – and, even, I think, to an extent that you’re putting responsibility for the whole business squarely on the shoulders of some arbitrary power at work in the universe. After all, if the mage was meant to have the boots, she’d have rolled 100, right? Or at least in the high 90s. Not a 53.
Let me just re-iterate my chorus of: I am not trying to argue that this okay. Nor, for the record, am I saying that we sit down and rationally think this out to ourselves. But I think with all random systems, it’s human nature of seek patterns, find them and read things in to them. If you roll a 13, it’s a bad sign for your next roll. If you roll an 87 it was destined that you would win! If you rolled a 5 on your last roll, then you deserve your next roll to be a 95. And so on and so forth. (To see this in action, watch Deal or No Deal – a stupid, rather tedious programme I saw once at Xmas but fascinating to witness the extent to which perfectly intelligent human beings will invest in, and take actual responsibility for, random numbers)
I do wonder, however, to what extent these days we are bidding on the loot itself and to what extent we are bidding on making ourselves de-facto master looter. Should players actually be rolling only on the right to have the loot, not the right to distribute it? Because actually a fair quantity of ad-hoc redistribution does tend to take place. Maybe you win something that’s only a minor upgrade for you, realise it’s a major upgrade to someone else and trade it. Is that generosity or is it unwittingly unfair? Is it borderline immoral, because it introduces “hidden” criteria into loot distribution – in that you’re far more likely to do that for someone you like than somebody you don’t? Or is that perfectly okay?
I concluded my original post with some thought experiments, which, in retrospect, I suspect probably made me look smug. I wasn’t trying to achieve anything with them beyond “this shit is really complicated” and I certainly wasn’t trying to get anyone to play join the dots between them in order to prove anything or justify any particular behaviours. So I’ll try to present them in a non-smug, non-annoying way.
Proposition 1: You roll on a piece of loot you don’t need, in order to give it to someone else.
I think: this is Not Okay. As a systematic way to take advantage of PUGs, it slides ever-so-quickly into Totally Not Okay. HOWEVER, I can also see why in every single case you could find a reason why it was okay just this once. I do not necessarily believe that this makes it right, but I do believe it makes it understandable. In short, getting loot feels good. Watching some random dickhead who spent the fight taking a dirt nap walk away with a reward does not feel even remotely good. Helping someone else ensure some random dickhead who spent the fight taking a dirt nap walk away with a reward feels good again. Further proof that Disney lies to us. Doing the right thing rarely feels as good as doing the wrong one.
Proposition 2: You roll on a piece of loot you do need and somebody buys it from you.
I think: I reckon this is okay. You’re an adult human being capable of making informed decisions. It’s not like money is in finite supply in WoW, so it’s not even as though the rich are in much of a position to exploit the poor.
Proposition 3: Someone else wins the roll on a piece of loot you need and you buy it off them.
I think: See above, same applies. As long as you don’t harass them or whine, obviously, and as long as they were rolling because they genuinely needed it.
Proposition 4: You win some loot but because it’s a significant but not dramatic upgrade for you, you decide to give it to someone for whom it is a major upgrade.
I think: I know where I’m going with these but … yes … I believe so. I suppose the key here is that you had every intention of using it yourself but then realised it would have a greater benefit to someone else, and that’s surely kind of nice of you, if you want to pass up a personal benefit in favour of someone else.
Proposition 5: You and two other people roll on a piece of loot which is a significant upgrade for you and a major upgrade to them, and you win but decide to give it to one of the others. You give it to your guild-mate, rather than the other person.
Proposition 6: You and three other people roll on a piece of loot which is a significant upgrade for you and a major upgrade to them, and you win but decide to give it to one of the others. And you give it to the guild-mate with whom you have the best relationship.
I think: This, for me, is where it starts to get sticky. Again, it’s partially dependent on intent (as in, as long as we would be genuinely using the time) but why, I wonder, do we generally not check these before we roll (perhaps others, I tend not to but I don’t)? The truth is, I think that rolling gives us choices, whereas passing gives us nothing. So by rolling here, you’re rolling both for the possibility to have and wear and generally lick and cuddle the shiny loot but also for control over where it goes and how it used. If you win something and decide you’d rather give it to someone else, then the completely fair thing to do is give it to the next highest roller or have them both roll again. But then is that fair on the winner? After all, if you decide to sacrifice a small personal benefit for a larger group one, then surely it’s counter-productive and actually borderline self-harmful to pass that benefit to a random PUG you may never see again.
If you’re going to be generous, you should at least be able to choose the beneficiary, right? If you’re going to give money to charity, you get to choose the charity. Of course, this naturally is going to prioritise guilds over individuals but, again, is this necessarily a problem? People hang out in groups because they get benefits from it (as well as all the fluffy, happy things you get from relating to people). Besides, although it FAVOURS guildies, it doesn’t DISADVANTAGE PUGs. I mean, regardless of who ends up with the item, you or your guildie, the chance the PUG had of winning it was always going to be 1/3.
And the thing is, I think you can always find reasons to give a piece of loot to X rather than Y – whether you want to tell yourself it’s better itemised for X, or that Y will get more use out of it – even if unconsciously you’re doing it because you think X is nice and you don’t really get on with Y. But how much is this a problem really? I mean, Y would do better if he was less of a dickhead anyway, right? But, again, what you’ve done is introduce your own personal agenda into loot distribution. The system isn’t “random roll, highest wins, as long as you’ve been nice to Tam on previous occasions.”
Of course you could just keep the damn thing for yourself and avoid the angst.
Proposition 7: Let’s say a piece of loot drops which is a small upgrade for you, a major upgrade for your guildie and a noticeable upgrade for a random who will also be rolling on it. Do you roll as well? If you win do you give it to your guildie?
I think: I guess we come back to your intent in rolling. Otherwise we’re back to proposition 1 and I think my head is going to fall off about now.
The keyword here seems to be INTENT, which I can’t take the credit for because Hinenuitepo hit on it when replying to this post originally. Hmmm….
It’s confusing and a bit of a gray area, but it’s not going away; in fact, I do this all the time. On my alts I’ve never kept a Trophy for ToC 25; though my characters can obviously use them, almost every trophy has gone to my boyfriend. Why? Because it directly affected me; he needed trophies for tank gear and to get an Arms PvP bonus for our arena team. I had no qualms about it, and I don’t feel bad about it. It’s perhaps times for a change in our perspective on loot rather than feeling this is “bad.”
Though rolling for control may seem a bit underhanded, in a way it could “upgrade” your situation more. Our guild’s makeup ToC 25 had a rule for a little while that alts needed to give any trophies they won to main raiders so the guild could continue progressing through content. We had PUGs in those groups. They were never denied loot they rolled on and won, and if they decided to trade it to someone else, we never complained or fought it, if we knew about it. It was how the game worked now. Of course, our runs also had a “one mainspec piece” rule, so if they traded it then the person they traded it to would just have to be marked down as getting their piece, or the person who traded it wouldn’t receive their roll back.
It’s akin to vigilante justice; the methods may not be “clean” (though they’re entirely lawful with Blizzard), but the goal is generally pure. I’ve watched so many times people lose trinkets better designed for their class to poor players in a class that can’t take advantage of it. I’ve watched players who d/c at the beginning of every fight, stand in the fire, or blow up the raid get BiS over people contributing from start to finish. Eventually…you just want to cheat the terrible system that rewards anyone, no matter how well they did.
I’ve traded to PUGs before, to guild members, to friends. I’ve been in raids where I don’t need anything; I’m just there to help try to gear someone else. It’s not always nice, but neither is watching your guild member lose out on a piece he’s tried to get for months to someone who spent the fight AFK in the hallway. I don’t always feel good about it, even if I have only ever once benefited from it and only do it to benefit other people.
It’s a difficult situation, a moral choice, and I suppose in the end, you have to decide what is worse: letting Lady RNG dictate “fairness” or tipping her scales in your favor.
Loot is such an insanely emotive issue. Currently it seems divided down people who think that it’s grey, in which case this has relevant, and people who think it is entirely black and white, in which case it’s nonesense.
Reading your comment and others, the more I think it’s a different in perception between loot as something entirely individual and loot as a community resource. If you view it as the former (which it seems you and I don’t) then all you roll on anything that may be an upgrade, no matter how slight, but if you consider the latter then you roll, or don’t roll, within the context of the group, the guild etc. etc.
You’re the second person to mention vigilante justice, which is fascinating actually because it does make perfect sense as a way of looking at it. The thing is, both seem, on some level, ‘wrong’ to me – it seems wrong to unfairly to unbalance the scales, and it seems that people who don’t ‘deserve’ loot to get it, and it seems wrong for someone to judge what counts as someone else ‘deserving’ loot. But equally, I suppose, it’s fair to conclude that, by signing up to run something, you are implicitely committing to a certain level of contribution i.e. not dying in the first 5 seconds and not spending the fight afk in the hall.
I could just talk myself in circles …
“I’m afraid you have to pay extra for self-flagellation. I’m not a discipline priest.”
I do believe we have another classic Tam-arism.
In other news, I find the amount of thought and effort you’ve given this subject very enlightening. In regards to the drama in your comments section, well, loot is a controversial issue in WoW, with strongly divesting opinions no matter which way you roll. You talk about loot, and you are going to get people getting quite upset about it.
As this particular loot issue is near and dear to my heart since it ripped apart my raiding alliance, I must say that even though I don’t agree with every one of your conclusions, I do agree with the overall theme – that it is NOT always black and white, and that, as Hinen said, a lot of it has to do with intent. And the tricky part is figuring out the intent!
Truthfully I’ve always secretly wanted to be a disc priest … flagellation aside. How can you not love an ability called matyrdom.
Ahaha, enlightening? Some people clearly think I’m crazy for evening thinking about it.
I am starting to come to the conclusion that it’s all about perspective – whether you see loot as something entirely acquired in a vaccuum, i.e. entirely about your individual progress, or as something that is, to an extent, a community resource – something to be used in a way that will best benefit your guild as a whole.
I think I’m going to stop talking about loot for, well, a long time. It’s a bit too fraught
I’ve been using this joyous feature to increase gold.
Once you have all your items, as have others, the roll is more pointless, because after we give it (said item usually bound to you) to the disenchanter and he gives us the mats which in turn works out as more gold than a pure sell.
Ah, yes, there’s always something satisfying in being at the stage when you can just squish epics into their mats for fun and profit
Personally the most interesting thing -to me- here is the meta-plot of this post. The: I had to retract and rewrite it with über emphasis on “these are my thoughts, this is not a ‘was it right or wrong’ post”.
Its a shame that it was needed tbh. I dunno what to add to the post other than its time to reinforce the rules of BoE drops: “LEMME SEE YOU WEAR THAT ITEM MAGGOT”, “but but but” 2NO BUTS, SLIMEBALL WEAR IT, OR I REPORT YOU”.
Imo this is a question of: can the transaction handle being exposed to sunlight? Can you proudly stand up amongst your fellow raiders and say: “I will buy that item you won the roll on, off you” or “I didn’t really need that belt, trading it to locktastic instead”. If your choices cannot, then maybe they werent the right choice?
Ah yes, meta plots are always much more interesting than, err, actual plots. Usually I just feel guilty if I’ve rolled need on something for myself and then discover it was a pretty major deal for someone else. I did that accidentally on a caster mace from Anub in TotC-10 and I still remember it with shame. I just saw oooh shiny purple joy and was all like “yay” and everybody was very nice about it, but a bit “never mind, dude, next time, eh’” to the paladin. And it turned out he’d been trying to get it for weeks and weeks and weeks and it had finally dropped and a random PUG (me) had just walked off with it. So I traded it to him with no problem at all but it was all a bit English:
“Oh no, I couldn’t!”
“After you”
“No, after you.”
“JUST HAVE THE FUCKING MACE.”
Etc.
Loot – the source of so much joy, so much tragedy and so much drama.
As much as the 2 hour trading window has made master-looting much less fraught, many of the issues remain. What makes you eligible for loot?
I must admit that the idea of trading loot for charity or gold incenses me. If you have a system, then that system should be followed for everyone – equally fair / unfair to everyone. When we first started TotC we just rolled for trophies. Someone sold theirs to a guildie after realising that it would be weeks before they had emblems enough to use it. I was outraged. If you decide that they actually didn’t need it/have enough emblems to use it yet/whatever – do the right thing and give it to the person that rolled the next highest. The rest of us did not put effort into this raid to see you make gold from it.
On the other hand for a time we had a guildie that signed up to most raids, but performed poorly. We tried coaching him on skills, talents, rotations, gemming. To no avail. He had won some awesome gear, but consistently put out thousands of DPS less than people of the same class with not as good gear. It got to the point where we did not want to give him gear – because it was a waste. The gear would benefit the group better being used by someone that actually performed better with it.
Loot is tricky as we all see it as a reward, when actually it is just a tool.
PS. I completely agree with you on the M&S self-service machines – they are absolute rubbish!
Although I was aware that loot can be a pretty fraught issue I had no idea even *writing* about it would throw up some much contention. To be honest, I think it gets more and more complicated when you go for mixed groups, since the interaction between guilds and pugs is a little tense anyway. But within guilds, yes, definitely you want everything to be absolutely fair and above board. You can’t comfortably have a situation where guildies are buying things from other guildies unless it’s, arguably, a vanity item like a mount or a comedy hat or something. I think it’s a bit more blurred with pugs though – I mean then I think it comes down to individual choices, I suspect? If one stranger buys something off another stranger, even though they rolled on the item becuase they could have used it – that doesn’t strike me as too problematic? Because we can all buy and not buy things from each other.
Our current rule is that you don’t roll for trophies unless you have enough emblems but it’s basically an honour system. Pugs can get pretty snippy about it, too, even though we always announce it at the beginning of the run. Somebody flounced off in the middle of TotC-25 because of it. Sigh!
I think you’re right about the reward/tool distinction. I like getting loot but I’m a complete soft-touch when it comes to getting it. All it takes is for somebody to exclaim really enthusiastically over something and there I am passing. After all, it’s got to the stage where it’s *improving* performance, rather than *enabling* it. So even NEED is a relative term.
And, yeah, self-service check outs are generally rubbish. The temptation to yell at them is overwhelming. The item in the bagging area is completely expected!!!
Every time loot is unfairly distributed a Littlest Death Charger dies!!!
Ermm.. yes. Off topic – how is Chastity’s word count coming?
Is that a hint for me to stop blogging catastrophically in her absence?
Word count is currently, at this very second, 39539. Go, Chas, go!
A hint? Not at all, this is a quite fascinating series of posts (and responses)! I really can see some behavioural economist doing an entire paper on this in the not too distant future.
Really, its called NEED for a reason, if you NEED to upgrade your gear with the item now, you NEED.
If you require the item but you are not gonna use it now (I.E. give it to your friend who also needs it) then you don’t NEED it and therefore should not press NEED.
In the circumstance you NEED but wish to give it to someone else it should go to whoever rolled below your roll.
Two rights to not make a wrong however. Stop being tactfully sneaky as its a slippery slope.
That wasn’t directed at anyone in particular by the way – the “stop being tactfully sneaky…” it was me voicing my views on anyone doing this, and not one person in particular.
Again, I think you’re being over black and white about it. I mean, I often roll on things, realise it was a small upgrade for me but a big one for someone else and then feel guilty enough to trade it – hopefully without sneaky tactics involved. Or else I’ve won something and the other person has been hugely invested in that particular piece of gear so I’ve forked it over, since I’m rarely as interested in stuff as other people seem to be. I don’t find giving loot to people difficult but I find *passing* on it really difficult. Perhaps I’m just being strange
In that situation you should give it to the next person with the highest roll, below you, thus not sneakily giving yourself power to whom the item goes to and still following “Lady RNG”.
I found my self in a situation similar to this one yesterday. And I can’t decide if I did wrong or not.
I was doing CC10 on my mage alt. About half the PUG were pick ups and the rest were guildies on mains. As with the mage in your PUG, we had a healing priest that did as much, if not more, bad as good. We basically had to babysit him/her, even though he/she claimed that he/she had done the raid before and the priest was an alt (clad in a lot of item level 200 stuff and quite undergeared for the place). The other two healers also had to make up for what the priest failed to do. In short, we might have been better off without the priest, but since healers are quite rare we decided to let him/her stay.
Then Illumination (funky caster staff) drops. It’s a major upgrade for me, the priest and a warlock who is in my guild. I decided that I would not roll if the guildy warlock beat the priest’s roll, but roll and equip and use it if the priest rolled higher. NOT trade it to my guildy.
In the end I rolled 7, the warlock 6 and the priest 50-something. I didn’t feel bad for rolling when I saw that the priest outrolled a guildy, but that might be because I didn’t win it?
This is probably even more in a gray zone than your example and I would love to hear peoples thoughts on the subject.
The issue is, and it always be that INTENT MEANS SHIT. No way around it. That’s why loot systems need to always be set clear and carved in stone for a run. Whatever rules you have doesn’t matter, you need to be clear and consistent abut it because intent doesn’t change reality except in your mind.
If you don’t want bads rolling for loot, use Recount, Armory people and if they suck, kick them before the first boss. And tell people that you will do that. Otherwise? Just like in any other raid, is the time of other people and they deserve a chance of loot.
All the “Grey Area” in the world isn’t going to change that.
I think you’re perhaps being overly black and white about it. I mean surely you have to look at the loot in the context, not only of yourself, but of the group you’re with – at least you do if you’re running with a guild. Essentially I’d rather the loot went to the person for whom it would be the most benefit, i.e. the person for whom it would be the most significant upgrade. On the other hand, I find it rather difficult just to pass so I have occasionally rolled on things because I couldn’t bring themselves to pass – and then been in a better position to evaluate my own capacity not to be a filthy loot whore =P
The reason people seem to be being Black and White about it is because it IS Black and White.
It has to be Black and White in order to make it as unbiased as possible.
You Need the gear for an upgrade NOW, then NEED.
You want the gear to sell for money, GREED.
You don’t really care about the gear, PASS.
Guildie needs the gear for an upgrade and you don’t, you PASS or GREED using above 2 rules as guidance and you let the Guildie NEED.
In reality NEEDing and then giving to guildie is similar to Ninja’ing and selling on AH, but what you’re gaining instead of gold is “favour”. The guildie “owes you” or at the very least praises you for taking the item for him.
I just can’t seem to make it that black and white. I’d never take loot to sell, or to withhold it from others, but I have really trouble convincing myself I should have it over someone else, even if it is upgrade. However, I shall try to be more ruthless about it in future.
There is no “fair” way to distribute random loot besides tokens. If you had a system which wasnt random at all and only rewarded need, groups would not include “under geared” players. The system which is completely random ignores need completely making it even harder for those “needy” players to get gear.
Random drops are good when they happen, but shouldn’t be a reason for running content. I’m all for generic random drops with “niche” pieces being purchasable. More homogenization of random loot!
I’m becoming more and more convinced of the virtues of gold dkp. maybe I’m turning more and more cynical (or lazy. or both) :/ But at least if people know they will be paying for loot form the very beginning, if you don’t win a piece of loot, at least you walk away with the gold that will let you buy it the next time around.
if someone underperforms, the only way for them to get the loot is to be the highest bidder, which means people are still compensated in some fashion for carrying the underperformer. you are not reliant on lady luck anymore and if you win the item and then decided to give it to someone else, people still got your gold so what you do with the item afterwards is really none of their concern. they got their gold, doesn’t really matter which person they got it from.
I removes the need for moral decision and dilemmas and its probably the absolute fairest system you can devise :/
P1: I wouldn’t do this on purpose. It’s kinda lying.
P2: I’m ok with this.
P3: And this
P4: I’d tend to keep it.
P5: Bad.
P6: Bad.
P7: No. I roll only if no one else wants it for their main spec.
Gobble gobble.
Hehe, you do have a way of cutting things down to their essentials.
Surely if you don’t intend to keep and use the item… don’t roll on it? That way only those who definitely and genuinely want the item to use as an upgrade have a chance of getting it.
I think at any point where items start getting given away it can turn into a sticky situation. Otherwise what is fairer – reroll? Go to second highest? Give to whoever asks for it rather than accepting the roll? None of those feel comfortable to me personally.
Well, hmmm, I guess I don’t find ‘needing’ as cut and dried as some people seem to think it is. I mean ultimately I don’t *need* any gear. I can heal anything I want to heal comfortably enough in what I’m wearing now, which is Ulduar equivalent… I try not to over-invest in gear as I think it’s slightly unhealthy but I find passing on stuff that could be an upgrade a little bit more difficult than rolling on it and then trading it to somebody who seems to need/want it more than I do.
It’s possible I over-think things.
I mean, surely guilds have an investment in group improvement?
Perhaps, but everybody is giving their timeand their effort and the flaw with your argument is the guys that cannot bother in getting BoE or Emblems getting more loot that they deserve. Of course that’s eliminated in advanced raiding but still, if you are giving your time for a chance of loot and is given at the guy with a greenthat can be filled with a cheap BoP or missing enchants/gems wouldn’t you be pissed?
There’s also the fact that saying that you will follow a loot system and then just do what you want is a quick way to show up at GuildWatch. The loot system used isn’t that important as long as everybody is ok with it and you don’t change it after the boss is dead.
I think we’ve pretty much comprehensively established that fairness and consistency and transparency are the most important principles of any loot system.
I guess I was thinking about guild runs more than pugs.
I just can’t place much confidence in the bizarre hybrid of randomness and intent.
I just want a system that’s fair, and randomness has an element of fairness, and intentional distribution (like Loot Councils) has an element of fairness, though I suppose both can be corrupted. Mixing the two seems to me to remove the fairness that each is supposed to proved. Randomness should provide an equal unbiased chance to everyone, while intentional distribution should award loot according to some need/performance ration that I don’t want to get into right now. Mixing randomness and intent just serves to cripple both systems by making it impossible for everyone to have an equal unbiased chance, yet making it equally impossible to judge based on need/performance.
Yeah, my guild is going Suicide Kings, I think.
That was supposed to be a reply to your reply.
Why you retracted the first (second) post to replace it with this second (third) post is beyond my feeble understanding because you’re definitely hitting the same points — maybe there’s some veneer of civility slapped on or something.
Anywho — gray area IS gray. How you feel about said gray area depends entirely on you as a person and a player — the fact that you are willing to look at your actions and maybe, stumble on some introspection is a positive thing whatever the outcome of said personal debate.
I don’t think stacking the Need/greed system is fair without the consent of all parties — then it’s not a need/greed system, it’s a pure greed system, and shouldn’t we have all agreed on that when we did the “Need before greed” chat?
That being said, I’ve definitely silently fumed in more than one raid that some feeble dps/heals/tank managed to eek out of piece of gear from MY group (because we just pulled in one schmuck) and they were being carried throughout — I understand the almost overwhelming need to justify denying them a piece of gear, because you didn’t really NEED them, you were just nice enough to have them along… right?
Anyway, rambling comment is rambling. I really haven’t forgotten where the comment button is — promises!
In a pug or mixed guild/pug, I think it’s impossible to police intent, unless you’re prepared to put some minor enchant on every item that gets distributed. It would be nice if everyone really needed the items they rolled for, and if loot went to those who played well, but ultimately, it’s just the highest roll that wins. So I usually try to shrug it off when loot goes to people I suspect don’t need it (hard, I admit): it’s theirs to do with as they like after they had the luck of the dice. I’m in a guild without DKP or loot council, which can be quite hard when all the gear goes to the one person who’s already geared to the gills and you don’t get an upgrade in weeks… I need a loaded dice add-on
I apologize if the tone of this post is too aggressive or trollish. I appreciate the discussion of this topic, as it seems quite timely given the impending implementation of daily raids and the associated PUGs.
The gray area you’re proclaiming and the uneasy feeling that you’re communicating are easily explained – you are violating the fairness, consistency, and transparency of the loot system.
The NEED/GREED loot system, at its foundation, relies on the dictum that you NEED an item that you will wear as an upgrade, you GREED an item that you won’t wear or don’t particularly care about, and PASS on items you don’t want cluttering up your inventory.
By rolling NEED on an item that you will not wear, to be clear, you are ninja-ing that item. It does not matter what your intent is.
The key indicator that your argument is justification is the frequent invocation of the ’super-bad’ player as recipient of the loot loss. The NEED/GREED loot system in a PUG is not the place to pass judgment on a players performance. If a player is AFK in the hallway, boot them from the group. At the very least, inform them that they will not be getting loot from a boss due to insufficient performance prior to the kill or the rolls. This is the RL’s job, not yours.
To address your Propositions:
1 – Clear ninja. In the statement of the proposition you assert that you don’t NEED the item.
2,3 – This isn’t different then selling a BoE blue item on the auction house or in trade. This is and always has been a GREED option, and the added ability to trade within the group doesn’t change that.
4, 5, 6 – These scenarios, it seems, are where the confusion is originating. Just because you accidentally or intentionally rolled NEED on an item that you do not intend to wear, and won the roll, does not make you a de-facto loot master for that item. There are no ‘My Friend Points’ to be spent obtaining that item from you.
The system is configured to allow group members who participated in the boss kill an opportunity to win a drop from that boss, competing against other group members who NEED that item, as commonly defined. If you are removing yourself from the set of people in the group who qualify to NEED the item, magnanimously or indifferently, the item must go to the next highest roller. It is up to them to agree to emulate your charity or indifference. It isn’t your decision to make.
It doesn’t sound trollish at all and I see your points, although I will take issue with this: “you are violating the fairness, consistency, and transparency of the loot system.” Does you mean ‘you’ in the specific sense of me personally or you in the general sense of ‘one’. Given that this was specifically framed as a batting ideas around post rather than a “this is what I do with my loot when I get it post”, then if it’s the former you’re being slightly unfair to me, since I am not yet so rolling purples as to be more interested in making myself master looter than actually, y’know, having and wearing and licking the loot
As for my personal position on loot, I roll when I want to wear it, hug it and lick it, but, having done so, I have on occasion traded it to the other person if they’ve made a good case for why they should have it and not me. Or, y’know, whined about it because quite frankly I can’t be arsed with the hassle.
However, what I was trying to highlight in this post was that now that now loot can be traded it has introduced grey areas into what was previously quite a clear cut system. And you may conclude that trading loot under any circumstnaces is never okay but ultimately I think it still has to be recognised that people are in fact shifting loot around and will continue to do so. And will do so NOT because they are ninjas or control freaks but for the BEST reasons not the WORST.
I regret my frequent and pointed use of the pronoun ‘you’. I certainly didn’t intend my statements as a personal attack.
The addition of the loot trading has certainly opened this for discussion, and people are interpreting the morality of rolling on loot differently. The correct solution, as usual, is to clearly communicate loot rules prior to a run.
While trying to rebut the discussion of Propositions 4-6, it occurs to me that the conflict can be focused on when and how ownership of the pretty pixels attaches. If one wins a roll and later decides that they do not wish to wear the item, are they obligated to turn the item back over to the group for redistribution or are they free to do with the item as they wish? I argue that they are obligated to return the item.
Implicit in the ‘NEED’ roll is the assertion that one will personally use the item, usually for their main spec. Once this is no longer true, it would become easy to treat the item as if it were a ‘GREED’ category item – available to be freely traded or sold. However, it is improper to do so, as it is unfair to the other group members who legitimately need the item.
I sympathize with the usually generous desire to withdraw a claim on an item due to another group member’s superseding need, and fully recognize that often the decision to roll need is made quickly and without full contemplation of the implications. The new rules provide the opportunity to correct the situation, and they should certainly be utilized. Should there happen to be more than one NEED roller remaining once one has withdrawn their winning claim, the item should be distributed between them following the loot system in place for the raid. That system is typically implemented to avoid the favoritism described in the original post.
At the risk of sounding pretentious, it has been my experience that intent doesn’t determine whether an action is right or wrong, but instead indicates just how right or wrong that action is.
Meh, been out of town.
So, anyway, I have to resurrect a thread or two.
I’m leaving my current guild (95% probability).
We get heroic10 Twins down for the first time. Reckoning drops. It’s a decent upgrade for me, if only because it allows me to wear a better belt now that I won’t be massively over expertise cap. My tank DK buddy wants it too.
Technically, it’s a dps weapon. He offers it to me. I offer it back. He wants me to take it. I’d feel guilty looting anything at this point since I’m probably leaving. RL gives it to him. He offers in /w several times to give it to me.
I’m steadfast. Not gonna loot and run. Meh.