Greedy Goblin

Monday, February 6, 2012

Two suggestions

Please read these suggestions and support them if you find them worthy.

One is Valor point bid by Lyxi. I have to say, this is the first idea that is maybe even better than gold bid.

The other is from me to prevent stupid mispulls in dungeons and raids.

20 comments:

Alkarasu said...

Both are very nice indeed. Unfortunately, with near zero chance to be implemented - exactly because they are very nice. Also, Lyxi's suggestion requires too much brain work from an average LFG player, which is quite unlikely to work.

Xaxziminrax II said...

@Alkarasu

Actually, it requires NO brainwork from average player; he just bid with emotion. Is it "worth it" to him or not? He just asks his gut feeling and he either loses it because he makes conscious choice not to bid or because someone bid out of his range.

Andru said...

When I made that proposal, I figured that if an open bid is too complicated for the average, Blizzard can either use a 'sealed first bid' system, or a Dutch auction system.

Either of them are good alternatives, and the Dutch Auction is even simpler.

On another note, I would be grateful if a mirror post is made on the US server forums. No one of interest reads EU forums.

Also, the average LFD player will adapt if they want loot. In the case of Dutch auction system, it's even simpler than the current model.

Alkarasu said...

@Xaxziminrax II

Unfortunately, it is not true. If you bid with emotion, you will end up with no VP to bid further and with some completely useless stuff you bid for (although, it seemed so nice and shiny during the time of the auction). And while average player is fine with bidding on a whim, he's not that fine with the situation it gets him into, and, as he uses no brainwork at all, he can come to only one possible conclusion - the system allows someone to cheat him out of his "hard earned" VP. It is, after all, most common average human reaction to his own mistake - blame the next guy.
I've seen it all when I was attempting to introduce GDKP in my old guild - the main concern of the members was exactly "not fair" distribution and "cheating" of rich people over poor. To understand why that concern is a false one you need to think, exactly what they don't do.

@Andru

Dutch Auction is nice and simple, but it have it downside as well - it relies on people reaction time and very sensitive to lag. Therefore, more drama.

Squishalot said...

Dutch Auction doesn't need to be that sensitive to lag. The game should be able to determine at what point you hit it (make it a client-based instruction, so there isn't lag - after all, there are no abuses that can occur from playing a higher / earlier bid than someone else).

I agree, it's a very good loot system.

The main valid objection I can see is that for it to work effectively, the VP cap would need to increase, opening up the issue of carrying over excessive amounts of currencies into the next patch / expansion / season. Lyxi touches on this when he/she makes the comment that VP gear is typically higher ilvl than LFR gear.

Blizzard won't allow someone to hoard VP and then immediately jump to a fully geared T(N-0.1) set in the next tier, as evidenced by the current point cap system. It's not a deal-breaker for the system, but it's one that significantly hampers the effectiveness - it essentially forces you to bid for drops.

Alkarasu said...

@Squishalot
"there are no abuses that can occur from playing a higher / earlier bid than someone else"
True, there are none, but there are an issue with the same bids. There is no way you can explain to an average player, why someone else got the loot after he pressed the button in time (due to lag his bid button will not disappear immidiately after becoming useless and he will feel himself the winner). Therefore, the drama.

"opening up the issue of carrying over excessive amounts of currencies into the next patch / expansion / season."
No, that's not an issue at all - right now you can hoard as much VP as you can get, yet have none at the start of the next content influx. That's something that simply needs to stay in place as it is now, and everything will be fine.

Anonymous said...

@Squishalot: If you can still trade the item after winning it would create a new business.
Instead of bidding on items you don't need, you could sell your bids to others when you don't need the Points anymore.

Coralina said...

Great idea but no chance in hell.

The mugs won't give up their random roll gambling fix and Blizzard won't be daft enough to remove one of the most addictive elements of the game.

I have suggested similar solutions in the past and everytime I have been shouted down by other players who for some reason support the current unjust, heavily abused system that screws them over so often.

You can lead a horse to water...

Anonymous said...

Copied to the US forums

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4015203851

and

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4015353661

Frostys said...

The bidding system will NEVER get implemented because it allow transfer of currency across servers.

The pull one won't really work unless you have a patchwerk fight. Too many zone AoE. I will tell you the usual reaction to LFR problems thread on US forums.

"If you don't want to deal with idiots, form your own raid."

Cenira said...

The Valor point bid seems perfect. Since it has a cap every week, which is easy to get even by casuals, it seems quite fair.

Much better than a random roll, or GDKP.

The other idea is not so good. A healer could use it to troll the group in 5 mans. They start the fight, he doesn't do anything and they die. So we avoid idiot damage dealers, and we get idiot healers. While idiocy is far more common among damage dealers, someone could join as a healer just to troll.

Andru said...

An alternative to an open bid system or a Dutch auction would be a sealed first price system.

If two people are winners, the one that placed the bid earlier is the winner. If, for some reason, both are registered as placing the bid at the same time, then the split would be done by roll.

Gevlon said...

@Cenira: if the tank pulls, the boss will wipe the whole group

Anonymous said...

With the VP bid system, the only change I would make would be to simply not split the VP pot amongst the raiders. Everyone gets their 70 VP per boss kill anyway, there is no need for more.

You could just get a window come up with two options:

- Pass/Disenchant
- Bid 100 VPs for this item

The first person to hit the button for Bid 100 VPs has the top bid, and the button then changes to 'Bid 200 VPs for this item'. Person with the highest bid at the end gets it.

This would be way easier to implement than splitting the VP total at the end of the raid, and would get around all the cross-realm VP transferring etc.

Just replacing Need with Bid would make the LFR system way better.

Andru said...

@ Last Anonymous.

Technically, that is the same system, only with a 100% tax.

Practically, I am loathe to support that for a simple reason.

It does not support people queuing in LFR repeatedly. Not only that, but it would encourage VP farming by maxing the points every week in *other* places, such as LFD, counter-intuitive.

Furthermore, it has one drawback that is also present in Need rolling. There is no partial reward for taking part in a kill if you don't get any loot.

One of the strong arguing points for the VPDKP system is fair compensation for work. Take that away and one major selling point crumbles.

Bristal said...

Starting a raid encounter with a click on a chat bubbled NPC is just dumb and confusing.

After an achievement in the Molten Front that teaches players to click on (talk to) every NPC possible, it just punishes the players that Blizzard designed LFR for. A confirmation by the RL would be helpful. At least that gives a second check.

Pulling by attacking, however, must be punishable by death. Everyone's death. Short answer? If you accept the invite to LFR, be ready to engage.

And complex bid mechanisms don't require "brain work", just repetition. Theres enough bewildering crap in this game. Casual players shouldn't be punished for playing sparingly. LFR is designed so casual and solo players can see the content, not to allow players a more efficient use of their VP so they can gear faster.

Angry Writer said...

>the only change I would make would
>be to simply not split the VP pot
>amongst the raiders.

But that is very important aspect. If you get some "VP rich" players in your raid, you will have almost zero chance of winning any loot. But if the VP they bid is split and returned to all the losers, the loss doesn't sting as much. After losing a few bids because some super tryhards bid 1900VP for an item you will have enough VP to compete with those sort of players.

A minor tax of 5-20% makes some sense, but the bid going into nowhere doesn't make sense at all.

Anonymous said...

Its an interesting proposal, but many flaws.

First of all a misconception. There is nothing unfair about /roll; the delusion and greed causes the uproar. If you /roll 100 times and you add them all up and take the median you will end up around 50. Same with crit. The only disadvantage is the deviations, but they can be in your advantage too. Ie. sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are unlucky. This randomness isn't only reflected by /roll it also reflected by the random loot drops (there is no guaranteed loot drop like a 100% drop chance of a mount). Crybabies and spoiled kids whine about the /roll system though; they only remember the times they did not get "their" candy. They will come up with reason: "its a minor upgrade for you", "its not your primary stat", "it is my main", "you performed too bad", "your DPS and damage are inconsistant because you were AFK the first 10 seconds of the fight (read: you're rolling.. I mean bidding on my gear and I want you out). In my 10m raiding guild we use /roll + brains + equal devotion to achieve hardmode boss kills with great success.

Which leads to me to say the following: raid composition. Can be very unfair. Even buff-wise in a normal or heroic raid, or tier wise. Back to LFR: raid composition isn't solved here. The sytem also does not address the same people rolling for the same item. You still want to be the only enhancement shaman if you want the axe (rogues won't need under this system to vendor/DE I give you that), but if there are 12 plate users and you are the only enhancement shaman they may start a bid war on souldrinker or the 2H which yields you more VP in return. Raid composition can be easily fixed though. And you don't convince me that one time 5 out of 6 healers are priest, when next time there is no priest at all. They can simply give a shaman or druid priority because 1) not a priest 2) not rolling for same tier. Every time there are more than 8 people rolling for same tier piece they are in disadvantage, so this should be maxed to 9 (3*8+1=25). Especially during prime time hours this'd work (at 4 AM during the night this'd be harder). On my realm there are some BH20 runs with 2 of every class. Problem here is that its voluntary group. Since for example warlock is not a popular class you'd be pretty stupid to join with 2 warlocks since you'll be able to join as only warlock later in the week. So that system while also unfair would actually work in LFR because it is involuntary (if you leave you get debuff and you know in advantage group composition).

With your system "Bob" from "Nogarap" queues with 24 alts. The bid war starts. Will "Bob" win the item? No, of course he won't win. Every time everyone spends the max amount of VP points they can, redistributing it all to everyone including "Bob" who bids nothing. Within the 2 hr time frame "Bob" will receive all the items he needs, and have a higher VP amount due to evading the cap. Then "Bob" logs his alt, and someone else from "Nogarap" logs his main. Repeat this another 23 times and you got the VP redistributed. Congratulations, you've now made a system which can be exploited worse than the current LFR /roll system for hardcore raiding guilds (not even the intended audience).

Anonymous said...

Furthermore the loser who does low DPS is unlikely to be rich in VP (or gold, or brains). There is still no reason you'd want to play with such a person if you're filled with gear and VP. He still slows down the performance, wasting time. He cannot get you more VP either since he has none to spend. Which makes me wonder what usage is VP without needing gear? I simply don't play a char in LFR/LFD if I don't need gear or VP unless I can need for a friend (who can then need for me on their alt). That whole system is abolished, while the person who is needing for the other is often overgeared for the instance. So the value of non-hybrids is diminished into nothingness. And yes, I know what BoE are. BoE boots go for 4k on my realm, wrist for 3k. Boots are 1250 VP, wrist are 1650 VP. LFR gives 250 VP per wing. Which means I'd have to do 5 LFR to get myself the wrist. Assuming 30 min each wing (7,5 min per boss) that is only 1,5k gold/hour. Not efficient. For the wrist it'd be ~6,5 LFR runs which is 3,25 hr which would lead to 1230 gold/hour. No thanks.

Challenge mode will be the place where PvE min-maxers will play; not LFR like this. In other words the unique rewards from that mechanism will be the loot (which doesn't have any performance function). There your gear won't matter much (it still will in some ways; I have seen on PTR procs being unaffected by the 353 ilvl downgrade in HoT).

The system is also too complicated. They removed ArP, they removed SP, they removed Mastery breakpoints, they removed def cap. The maths for min maxing are for heroic raiding (and soon challenge mode); not LFR. People already don't understand basics like haste breakpoints, or grasp the AH meta game. I don't have faith they will be able to understand this system.

"Short answer? If you accept the invite to LFR, be ready to engage."

Doesn't work like that. If you join 3/4 2nd wing you enter at Ultraxion platform. Some moron could've already pulled. You can't enter portal (but the regenerative will reach you). If you are DPS or tank you don't want to leave due to long queue time plus the debuff. You can also join the raid group while encounter is already in progress. You won't be able to enter though. As a DPS you might have to wait up to 15 min until the attempt is over. If you leave, you get debuff. Bonus points if someone complains you are idling in Org.

Twinstar said...

I think that has about as much chance to be implemented as my hope of Blizzard getting rid of all dungeon tokens/points/whatever entirely.