Greedy Goblin

Monday, October 4, 2010

The end of /roll

As I wrote several times, /roll is a booster loot system, since only those can roll who need upgrade. If you go to the raid with already BiS gear, you have zero chance to get anything from the raid, despite you do the biggest part of the effort to get the value (assuming skill is equal). On the other hand if you are in greens, everything is an upgrade for you, so you can roll on everything, increasing your chances for upgrades. So the chance of upgrades is directly proportional to the lack of gear, and assuming equal skill it's inversely proportional to work done.

I wrote that gold bid is not perfect, but at least it rewards people equally. While equal is still not fair (as some did more effort than others), at least equal does not punish effort and boost M&S openly. DKP systems belong to here, as they are bid systems too, they just use a local and less liquid currency (if the whole server would be one guild then DKP would be practically equal to gold bid).

Now the problem is that the M&S is dominating the servers so gold bid/DKP systems can only exist in good guilds. The "freindly social" guilds and /trade pugs stick to the booster loot system. The "go and find a good guild" is an empty advice. Hardcore guilds have certain spots open and require gear from applicants that you can only get in lesser guilds/pug. While you can definitely join The PuG, but mathematics apply here too: if 12 people want to go HM, 2 will be left out. Such people from good guilds are "forced" to pug if they want to raid.

Whining that "bad bad socials force me too boost them by /roll" is not the goblin way. The solution is breaking the bad system. Since you can trade loot in the raid, you can trade loot in the raid. If you have to go to a /roll pug, or stuck in such guild, make agreements with players that you /roll for each other. While most /roll pugs check for ninjas, you can always roll for your own spec. So warriors can roll for DKs and ret palas, hunters roll for rogues and so on. Don't forget to have lower items in your bag to put it on when you /roll for your partner, so no one notices that you have better. You can even equip it and trade only after the next boss. Even by having one guy working for you, you can double you chances.

Simply rolling for each other do not fix /roll being booster, just tricks the other players. If a full-BiS warrior and a low-geared warrior make an agreement, the full-BiS gets nothing as the low-geared can't roll anything for him (as he needs nothing). Here comes gold. The low-geared warrior can pay the high-geared to go with him to raid and roll for him.

If everyone make such trades, soon the raid turns into a gold bid raid with a strange lottery element: the item sells for it's market price, and the gold goes to the lucky one who /rolled the highest. Soon buying will become the norm and people will prefer to do it openly and get rid of the annoying lottery.

PS: if the raid leader start getting nasty and demands you to instantly enchant the drop (making it untradeable), you can still roll on everything in your spec. 20G from the vendor is exactly 20G more than you'd get if you'd pass. Break the /roll!
---------------------

Have you read the rules? I don't really know what's the point asking that question to applicants to the guild. They always say "yes". Or "yeah m8":

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gevlon, you forget 2 important parts:

1) You (that refers to everyone) were boosted too at some point

2) You have the choice not to pug if you need no gear OR simply make a gdkp raid.

3) If you actually have bis gear and half a brain, you can join a good guild and never have to pug again.

Destroying pugs for revenge is not a goblinistic concept. And you suggest exactly that gevlon.

Anonymous said...

What if the world just doesn't tend to an free market utopia?

Anonymous said...

Blizzard already fixed part of the problem by only letting people roll on stuff they can actually equip, the core of the problem is BOP gear. If all gear was BOE, there would be more in it for those boosting, as all gear can be sold for more then it's vendor value on the Auction House.

And last but not least: Megan Fox is 'soo Hawt' >:-)

Anonymous said...

I completely agree to this anti-roll system. Roll is just so unreliable and with a 1 week lockout system in WoW it`s just silly to give up your gear in hands of Lady Fortune.
I`ll try implementing this idea on my server.

Aljabra said...

That's what you get when you advertise on the public channels. When people need to know something to find you (like "what rank of the guild can invite"), they tend to be more informed.
When I was in my previous guild, I had my share of the same kind of people, though. Day record was over 30 applications, of which only one had actually read the rules (and he didn't actually applied, he just wanted to talk about the rules).

Riptor said...

How goblinesk is it to sell icc 10 mans Mounts and Titles for 45-68k Gold a pop?

Anonymous said...

I think roll is a bad system too. However if you are in a pug, and the loot rules are layed out in advance (and these days I've seen people reform a raid without the leader just because they wouldn't say the loot rules out loud), as far as I'm concerned you should follow those rules. If you don't want to follow the raid's loot rules, how is that different from somebody not wanting to follow the guild's rules? Both are groups formed by people who generally agree to follow the rules in exchange for being in the group. I could just say sure I read the guild rules, and then go spamming about Megan Fox all day. I just honestly don't get it, so perhaps you could enlighten me.

At least on my server people will inspect people other people who might be rolling against them to see what items they are still missing. So if you roll on something you already have or something that isn't really for your spec, you will get called out, usually branded a ninja and kicked out of the raid. No different really than if I did my Megan Fox thing and got kicked out of the guild. I guess you could downgrade your gear before entering the raid, but there is a delicate balance there too between not having good enough gear and certain items being an upgrade.

Either way, if you have something against a roll raid, the correct method is to make your own raid using another system and not abusing somebody else's raid.

Anonymous said...

For me it looks like the M&S just is not fluent enough in English to understand what you are talking about, look at the way he asked for an invite to the guild.

Squishalot said...

I agree with the first anonymous. The way to break the booster system is to set up your own GDKP runs. The undergeared people can guarantee themselves upgrades by bringing along cash, and the overgeared people can ensure their time is made the most of.

Running a GDKP with no minimum cash pot is better for the geared person than running on /roll. But no, the people you're preaching to today are greedy. They want their 500/1000g minimum bids, with minimum balance of 5000g before starting the run. That's why they don't get takers. If they lowered their minimum cash / bid requirements, they would get more takers and end up with some gold, which is better than no gold.

Griddlebone said...

@anonymous about fluent English: if you can't understand that it's colloquial English then you're the ones who needs to evaluate your Engrish skills.

Example: "anyone want to go see bla?"
"Sure, I'm in."

Strutt said...

"So the chance of upgrades is directly proportional to the lack of gear, and assuming equal skill it's inversely proportional to work done."

Since when is gear guaranteed to drop for your class/spec?

The undergeared guy can have absolutly nothing drop for him, then what.

Glyph, the Architect said...

"Blizzard already fixed part of the problem by only letting people roll on stuff they can actually equip, the core of the problem is BOP gear."

This only applies to heroics. Raids, people can roll on anything they want.

Wilson said...

From what I've seen written here, ICC drops in The Pug runs typically auction off at a few hundred gold - far less than comparable BoE items go for on the AH. If that is in fact the case, then your less-geared raiders are still getting boosted, and the token amount of gold changing hands is merely a fig leaf. You might as well be using /roll, since no one cares that much for the loot.

Nielas said...

I strongly disagree with Gevlon's views on this and frankly think such M&S tactics would be beneath him.

The Need Before Greed system has flaws but if you so not like it, do not use it. It is not an excuse to become a ninja looter. If you agree to Need Before Greed rules then you should not be making rolls when you personally do not need the item. If you want gold then you should be rolling greed.

If you enter into an agreement with the intention of breaking it, then that is fraud. You do not intent to uphold your part of the contract and simply want the benefits without having to pay any of the costs.

If you want gold for your efforts in the raid then join a GDKP raid. DO not join a NbG PuG with the intention of taking things you do not have a right to.

Anonymous said...

I believe /random is the most equitable system AND IT`S THE FASTER:
- for BoE`s and items useable/sellable by all, /random 1-25 (1-10).
- for class specific, /random (between eligible players)
- for BoP`s, /random between 4 groups (tank, heals, physical and caster dps).
Allow the auctioning to take place in raid chat or in /w afterwards if players won`t use what they won.

For maximum efficiency, wait until end of raid to /random all items. Kick M&S mid raid, forfeiting loot. State end time clearly and respect it.

Very fast system, only RL rolls a few times, allows chain pulling and negates random afk. All auctioning is taking place only between interested parties in /w or in /raid when raid is over. All players not interested in auctionning can leave raid and use their time efficiently.

Anonymous said...

Anybody who joins a raid without needing the gear that drops is effectively signing up to boost. The booster who does not leave a raid where he is demonstrably carrying others without compensation is agreeing to do it.

Anybody who asks for a spot in a raid without being able to pull his weight is effectively asking to be boosted. The raid leader who invites this person and refuses to kick under-performers is leading a boosting raid.

Boosting is entirely a question of raid composition. The loot distribution rules have nothing to do with it.

Anonymous said...

A /random system could also be extended into a meritocracy by creating a formula ( based on damage done to boss, to adds, healing done, avoidable deaths, avoidable damage taken, etc.), formula that would yield a coefficient proportionnal to your chancing of winning the rolls for that boss. Better players would have more chances winning the /random roll. Formulas would have to be adapted for each boss. In cases where the formula is too complicated, just give equal chances to all participants.

/random also negates your exploitation of the /roll system by higher geared players, for lower geared players.

Loozerr said...

This is sort of besides the point, but the first Anonymous claimed that everyone has been boosted at some point.

Now that statement is simply incorrect. Many players have actually progressed through tiers in the intended order with their guilds, where people have roughly the same level of equipment. This is especially true in the beginning of an expansion.

Hopefully people get to play WoW how it was originally intended to be played in Cataclysm. At least until the patch which allows skipping content with ease gets released. (Think 2.4, 3.2 and especially 3.3)

Also the bit of top tier guilds requiring top tier gear is currently false. Almost all of them are gathering players for Cataclysm raids, where level 80 gear will of course be irrelevant. However, they might require quite a raiding history for low-geared applicants.

Oh, and /2 pugs will always use the loot system which requires least effort to maintain. I am surprised they haven't adapted to Need Before Greed system yet, however. Maybe it is because of the fact that then ninjalooting that precious DBW will be significantly more difficult.