Sunday, October 7, 2007

Loot System

I am convinced that the way loot drops from bosses in WoW is not random. There has to be some sort of complex formula than takes into account the group makeup and gear of each member and then selects from the boss's loot table the least useful piece of gear.

Example A:
Viljo ran Shadow Labyrinth many times to get Lower City rep, but not once did he see the Greatsword of horrid dreams. Not until he already had the Staff of Infinite Mysteries anyway. Then Viljo sees the Greatsword of Horrid Dreams from Murmur as well as Mana Wrath from Pathaleon in Mechanar.

Example B:
Again in Shadow Labyrinth, the Hallowed Robes drop, but the healer for our group is a resto shaman. So a hunter ends up taking the robes for "around town wear".

Example C:
Sethekk last night, the Incanter's trousers drop. But last week Viljo got the mana etched pantaloons.

So my conclusion from all of this is that Blizzard wants there to be a steady supply of shards on the market and that they want you to work for your gear. I have more exapmles of this sort of thing happening. Does anyone else?
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3 comments:

draNgNon said...

I think it's more complex than that. It's got to be a weighting system, or else nobody would get any gear. And, I think it applies to the rare quality items in the instances you grind for rep, becuase if it was not, then one you got the gear, there would be less willingness to hit those instances just for rep.

But definitely, I have seen the Sonic Spear and Beast Lord gear drop all the time, in groups without a hunter. I was starting to consider trying to build a Beast Lord set for Kuan just as his "riding" gear.

I don't think the heroic-specific loot tables are affected, or the Kara ones. I see useful gear drop there... pretty much randomly. My guess is they do not need to weight it as incentive to get people to work the rep grinds; the Badges and the Kara progression are their own incentive.

October 7, 2007 at 4:12 PM
tanthalas said...

Yeah I'm pretty sure the wowhead percentages are pretty accurate and that drops are group agnostic. :)

But of course, I also think that the stars aligned such that I was at top DKP both nights when the 2 T5 tokens I wanted dropped. :)

October 8, 2007 at 1:24 AM
draNgNon said...

The accuracy of the percentages really doesn't mean squat.

Here's another exmaple of where the percentages don't tell all. Say you are on a collection quest, you need 20 [Thing Of The Enemy]. Thott or Wowhead says it's a 5% drop. OK, so you need to kill 400 mobs.

Here's what will happen if you go at it in one session. The first [Thing Of The Enemy] will drop within 5 kills. Then you are not going to see another one in forever. Mayyyyyybe one. It's like there's an algorithm in there only to reward people who are dedicated to their collection quest. Then, once you've killed enough mobs, you will get a whole bunch bam bam bam bam bam! Once you have 19, it will take a lot longer to get the 20th.

In the end, you will have killed about 400 mobs... maybe. Becuase the percentage is affected by the Other scenario, which of course is you go at it over multiple sessions. e.g. your Mom pulled a surprise visit and you had to stop playing immediately, so you start again the next day. Since you already have [Thing Of The Enemy], you will again go a long time without any drops. Once you finally wonder how Thott and Wowhead could be so wrong, bam bam bam bam, until you have 19...

October 8, 2007 at 5:54 PM

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