nailbat.us

Okok, no changes yet, but since we're looking forward to 3.2, I'm starting a focused discussion on the subject. From the 3.2 patch notes:

Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item.

This has amazing possibilities, which is why we should discuss various scenarios about using this.

One possibility is that we 'collect' loots from the bosses without really rolling on things, and after 1.5 hours we divvy up loots from a larger pool. Or, people could trade items around in whatever way benefits more people (spreading wealth). Also, if there are ways of abusing this new feature that go against fair and equitable sharing, we might as well figure out what those to say it's a no-no. Like, someone using their 'roll' to give loot to someone else, kinda stacks the dice unfairly, so maybe we want to prohibit this. It also means we'd be on a time limit for that trading, which adds a bit of complication about how far we can take it.

Another cool piece from the patch notes:

# Dungeon and Raid ID Extensions
* In order to allow for parties and raids to progress through instances at their own pace, players can now extend an instance ID on an individual basis.
* Existing or recently expired IDs can be extended via the Social tab under Raid by clicking on Raid Info.
* The ID of any instance to which a player is saved can be extended. Doing so will extend the instance lock period by the same amount of time as the original lock (i.e. extending an Ulduar instance ID will add 7 days, a Heroic: Halls of Lightning instance ID will add 24 hours, and a Zul'Gurub instance ID will add 3 days to the instance lock time).
* An ID can be extended more than once.
* An extension can be reversed on an individual basis provided the player does not do anything in the instance during the extended instance lock period that would save that player to the instance.

As I see it, this means more full-clears, more loot, more coveted tier tokens, more end-boss loots. This could mean less 'saving' rolls, and less disappointment when we don't hit boss X that you were saving that roll for that week- because we'll hit them next week! Now, there could be the argument that we'd get more stuff by farming the first half of the instance again, but personally I think the more time we spend on full clears, the sooner we have full clear on one-night farm.

So, before we re-codify the loot rules, let's have some discussion of ways we can positively use these new features to help everyone get more of what they want.

Okay, just throwing this out there, all character names are used just so I can easily keep track of classes, they are not meant to imply anything. I'm also going under the assumption that the main source of soreness in the past is that tier tokens drop from bosses after most normal gear, and people usually would rather have those.

What if we just allowed one for one trading of items between people, and we introduce the concept of "rolling with intent to trade".

So lets say a piece of spellpower cloth drops. Gwaladys (Mage) and Lisseromen (Warlock) are both interested, but Gwaladys passes to Lisseromen because it's a larger upgrade. Later in the run, a Paladin/Priest/Warlock token drops. Lisseromen would like to roll on it, but because she already has something, she has Gwaladys roll for her, with the intention that if he wins the roll, they exchange gear with each other. This roll would count at the same eligibility level as whatever Lisseromen would be rolling at (main vs. alt, main spec vs. offspec). This has a similar effect to "Lisseromen goes back in time and tells herself to not take the first piece because she's going to win a token later." Granted, a very specific set of circumstances has to happen to make this work, I had to stop and think for a while to actually construct the scenario.

Another scenario: Spellpower mail drops. Chayin is the only shaman present, so he gets it by default. Then later, the Hunter/Warrior/Shaman token drops. A few other people want to roll on it, but since no one else wants the spellpower mail, Chayin can't have someone else roll for him.

So... if instead we had collected all the gear and tokens and rolled on them at the end, the first scenario would play out as "roll for the token first, and if either Gwaladys or Lisseromen wins the token, the other gets the spellpower cloth. If neither does, they roll of on it afterwards." This has the exact same outcome as the trading method.

In the second scenario, however, we roll for the token first. If someone other than Chayin wins, he gets the spellpower mail as usual. But if he wins... he'll end up with it anway. This is a different outcome, but can be changed to the same outcome if we apply the "gear that's defaulted doesn't count towards future rolls" rule, which tended to be a point of contention in the past.

I'm not sure what to think of this for the moment, except the question of, and in the example of Gwaladys vs Lisseromen,
whether we should consider opening up trading if the same piece drops (like regular chest and then token chest) or if we're talking about any piece drop (for example, regular chest drop first then token pants). I suppose we can collect all the loot first and then roll on them before the 1st 2-hour mark, but I'm not really sure how necessary this would be.

I think the spirit of the soulbound changes was probably to make it so that if loot master accidentally looted to the wrong player, they can undo the damage without involving a GM.

Just two points to bump here:

• Yes, the trading bound items was probably intended to fix masterloot oopses (wb Tex!), but since there are opportunities here to spread the wealth (trading an item to someone else), I want to make sure we have fair methods for handling that.
• Second, the raid extension might be even more important to us, since it makes more (valuable) loot available to us. So like, how would things change if we knew we could always do full clears? Currently, it's iffy about getting through all the wings of Naxx with alts, or through all keepers in Ulduar- so people consider that when deciding on if they're going to roll on loot 'now' or hold out for getting further- a gamble that doesn't always pay off. Again, what if we knew we'd always have a full clear?

Discuss!

I'm firmly against the idea of one person gathering the loot then distributing it 1.5 hours later, mostly because I foresee people forgetting or not thinking about it in time. Mostly I see this just being used as designed - to fix ML whoopsies.

~c.

Devinoch wrote:I'm firmly against the idea of one person gathering the loot then distributing it 1.5 hours later, mostly because I foresee people forgetting or not thinking about it in time. Mostly I see this just being used as designed - to fix ML whoopsies.

Having one person gather things up is almost certainly a bad idea, since if we forget and the time expires or there are disconnects, the loot goes to waste. So we would at least want to distribute to potential users well before the time expired. This would certainly slow things down.

Maybe we could see how it works out on a sample run or two before we decide. I certainly like the idea of knowing what's available before we make final rolls on stuff, but I see your point - it may be more trouble than it's worth.

Adam