The New LFR Loot System

I've written a fair amount about the problems with loot in World of Warcraft, and potential solutions to said problems. I think that all issues with gear drops boil down ultimately to two categories: the game system issues and the other players issues.

The new LFR loot system almost entirely eliminates the "other players" problem.

For those of you who either have not read about it, or still don't know how it is proposed to work, here's my explanation of the new loot system - to be implemented in LFR only, at least for now:

The raid kills the Boss. On the loot table for the Boss is, let's say, a Caster Dagger (with hit,) a Caster Mail chestpiece, a set of Agility Leather Shoulders, a Healing Plate Helmet, and a Tanking Sword.

For the sake of simplicity, let's make this a 5-man group, with an Enhancement Shaman, a Rogue, a Warlock, a Holy Priest and Protection Paladin.

When the boss dies, each player gets a hidden, automatic "roll." You don't see this happen, you only see if you won the roll or if you didn't. I don't think they've decided how you determine who wins the roll - either the game will pick one or two of your five at random and say they won, or each individual will roll entirely separately, allowing for the possibility that everyone wins or everyone loses.

My understanding is that if you "win" on this boss, the game will then give you an appropriate reward based on your spec. So if the Paladin wins, they will get the tanking sword. If the Rogue wins, they will get the shoulders. However, if the Enhancement shaman wins, they will get gold instead of that Mail chestpiece, because it is designed for Elemental and Restoration.

I could be wrong about this, but I also believe that even if there is a piece you want off that boss, you still have a chance to only win gold off them.

Overall, this accomplishes quite a bit to eliminate ninja looting and really just preventing competition over gear. Sure, if they go with the "top one or two rolls" method, you might be pissed off that someone else won instead of you, but they're never going to take your gear. If you had, for instance, a Brewmaster Monk instead of a Protection Paladin, you might wind up with both the Monk and the Rogue getting their own pair of those shoulders.

There are some flaws, though. In the current Dungeon Finder, I often accumulate a fair amount of gear for my Retribution off-spec, needing after I've either confirmed that whatever plate dps class is in there with me doesn't want it, or that there isn't anyone who needs it for main spec. With the current Need+ system, I can need without fear (except on Gurthalak) that I am taking it away from someone who needs it for their main spec.

This system is going to make it much harder to build up a set of off-spec gear. On one hand, it's good that it prefers pieces for your main spec - I don't want to have a better Ret set than my Prot set - but it would be nice if it had a tiered system that detected your other spec, if you had dual-spec enabled (which has got to be most people at this point.)

I can't speak for everyone, but I know that if I were that Enhancement Shaman I would much rather get that Caster chest piece than an equivalent amount of gold. I have an Elemental off-spec on Tarbhad, and hey, I might want to transmogrify my current chest piece so that I look like a Shaman instead of a hunter.

I don't know how smart they're making the system, but I would say there should be a kind of preferential lean toward mainspec gear, but still allow off-spec gear to get mixed in there on occasion.

Complaints aside, I am very excited to see this system in place. The truth is that people do just blindly roll need on everything in Raid Finder. I never roll on a piece I already have (except tier tokens for off-spec sets, or of course No'kaleds on my Enhancement shaman, though I will never roll on those again, having both of them) but I know that most people would rather get the gold from selling the piece than let someone who they've never met before get it. Is that a sad commentary on the playerbase? Well, somewhat, but I think it's more just a demonstration of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

Interestingly, the "just roll need" mentality currently prevents anyone from ever getting off-spec gear, so I guess we're not losing much.