The new LFR roll system SUCKS

Normal raid (Live and Mists):

1) Boss dies.
2) The game determines what loot he drops.
3) The group works out who gets what item, perhaps by random roll.

Raid Finder on Live:

1) Boss dies.
2) The game determines what loot he drops.
3) Players for whom the loot is appropriate get a chance to Need or Greed.

Raid Finder in Mists:

1) Boss dies.
2) The game decides who is going to get loot. Each player has a small and independent chance to win loot.
3) The game picks loot appropriate for those players.

The key point is that traditional loot systems determine what loot drops first and then who gets it. In the new Raid Finder loot, the system determines who is going to win loot, and then picks something appropriate for them.

The chance of you walking out of Raid Finder with loot will be about the same as it is today. Our goal isn't to distribute loot faster. However, you won't have the frustration of seeing an item that you want appear only to go to someone who doesn't want it, doesn't need it or doesn't care. Likewise, you won't have other players begging you to let them have the item that you won fair and square. In all likelihood the entire Raid Finder raid is composed of strangers who may never see each other again, so social pressure doesn't really work and we just plan on removing it with regards to loot.

I think one of the real questions here is how does the game determine this exactly.

It starts at the first player and rolls a number from 1-100. If it rolls <5, you win loot. Then it goes to the next player. The game doesn't care what any individual player rolled, so once under a blue moon it might be possible for all 25 to get loot. (The actual chance might not be 5%, but you get the idea.)

This is why there is no concept of passing or anything else, because whether you win loot or not has no bearing on whether other players win loot.

This is sort of off-topic but semi-related, but how will World Bosses work?

Will they use the LFR loot system or require that I be in the group that tagged it? I foresee a lot of same-faction griefing if it didn't use the LFR one (ie: pulling the boss early and dropping combat immediately forcing it to respawn several minutes later in a different location, or just plain pulling it early to wipe the group before they're ready) or pulling a lot of extra nearby mobs, etc.

We might have loot work slightly differently on the two world bosses since they appear at different frequencies. In general world bosses work exactly like LFR. If you want to invite everyone in the area into the raid, it won't diminish your chance to get loot. The only reason to not invite people is if you want to be a jerk for some reason. Individuals do have to be in the group that has loot rights (i.e. tagged the boss). We are fine with there being some competition especially on PvP servers; that's part of what world bosses are all about. If you just loiter in the vicinity and do a little damage but aren't part of the raid group, you won't have a shot at loot.

I know you didn't mention here, GC, but someone (Blue) has in the past, and that is the idea that the mechanism for LFR loot distribution may be that the game chooses X random people to win loot, where X is some number either hardcoded into the loot system, or chosen by some other mechanism at the time the loot drops (for example).

We considered that approach, but were concerned that it would pressure groups into killing a boss with the smallest group possible. Theoretically if you killed a boss with 5 characters, then each would win loot and you would be motivated not to invite friends or strangers. We went with a model where the number of characters has no bearing on whether you win loot or not.

All of this is for Raid Finder and world bosses. Dungeon Finder (for now) still uses the Cataclysm system and guild raids use whatever system you want, such as Master Looter or Free for All.

So does that mean if you win something in LFR in mists it is NOT tradeable?

So if two friendly priests queue for LFR and one of them wins a piece that he already has, he cannot trade it to his GF who actually needs it?

Correct. Being able to trade loot works great with groups of friends. It can work okay if you are a nice person, but there isn't much incentive to look out for your fellow players if you aren't likely to ever group with them again. Overall it just seems to cause loot drama. "Trade with me, because I ran this raid a dozen times and didn't get the drop." "Trade with me, because it's a bigger upgrade for me than you." "Give me that item, because I inspected your achievements and I raid more than you." This anonymity is one of the weaknesses of Raid Finder for sure, but we think in the long run that the strengths of being able to join a raid whenever you want outweigh those limitations.

Will it select loot as it deems "appropriate" for just the class in general, or for their specific spec? I would really hate to win loot, just to find out i received an item for holy, when I am playing Ret.

It looks at your spec, not your class. We decided it was a superior design to give you something for a role that we know you use rather than trying to guess whether you ever like to tank or not. There are plenty of other avenues (dungeons, factions, scenarios, crafting, the AH, PvP, guild runs, etc.) to gear up for an alternate spec.

With random rolls you don't really get that feeling because it is all visible and most people don't believe that Blizzard is altering the /roll just for them (although sometimes it feels that way). The new LFR system doesn't look very transparent, and so a person constantly seeing nothing go into their bags might lose hope that they will win anything and stop raiding altogether.

Possibly, but there are plenty of cases today where players don't believe that random roles are random. :)

What if it's entirely guild based group, it will still use LFR loot rules and not master looter? that seems a bit ackward.

I honestly don't remember. Usually if we know the group is pre-made, then we let you use what loot rules you want. The only reason we would not have implemented that way is if it was technically challenging for some reason, and I just can't remember which way it ended up. For world bosses, I suspect it still uses the Raid Finder loot system, because we didn't want there to be any reason to exclude a friend of a friend or whatever.

Does this mean that you might consider switching the Dungeon Finder loot system to use something similar to the new LFR system? I realize that random 5-man groups should be able to distribute loot appropriately through communication, but in practice this seldom happens. Instead, some people will roll need on everything they can which ends up in undesirable loot distribution - particularly with respect to gear that is not armor-type restricted (e.g., Hunter rolling need on dodge trinket).

If the Raid Finder loot system works out, we would consider adding it to dungeons. One of the challenges is that dungeon bosses typically have shallower loot tables than raid bosses. If you are a Holy paladin and the dungeon boss doesn't have a Holy paladin item, we would have to decide how to handle that (maybe you can't win a roll for that boss, or maybe you'd get gold or valor instead). For raid bosses, we can make sure every boss has at least one thing you can use. (Granted, you may already own that item.)

The game keeps track of who is in who's group upon entering LFR. If say 5 friends grouped up to help one person gear, couldn't the game allow trading of items that drop between those people only? That way everyone still gets their roll chance but if a few geared players want to help a friend they still can? It wouldn't affect the overall roll chance in the new LFR system but it would allow people who want to help their friends gear up quickly for whatever reason.

Potentially. If the basic system works out we could consider adding something like this. It would have the risk / side-effect that a group of 25 players could still potentially funnel every item to one player and gear that player up faster. Maybe that's fine.

08/22/2012 02:31 PMPosted by Ichi

It would be useful if we could form a guild group and set our own loot rules, essentially the same process we use in norm/heroic.

Within LFR, boss loot is handled on a per-player basis using the new system, regardless whether you queued as a full group or used the matchmaking features. You should still be able to change the loot method you use to handle any drops from the non-boss creatures in the instance if you are a full premade, but the boss system is hardcoded.

So I have a 4% chance at getting loot every single time I down a boss in LFR...

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to bother with that. Pretty much a complete waste of time.

What gives you that idea? Your chance of receiving an item from a given boss is much, much higher than that. If it were 4%, you'd expect to see on average one player per LFR kill receive an item, and that is far from the reality.

On average, you'll see about as much loot dropping in 5.0 as you do today in the live 4.3 game. The only difference with the new system is that any loot obtained is guaranteed to be designed for use by your spec (whereas on live you may have "wasted" loot, such as a tank shield dropping in a raid where the only tanks are a druid and a DK). In general, your odds of getting the item that you want will be higher in 5.0 -- often significantly higher depending on how contested your item of choice would be -- than they are today.

08/22/2012 07:44 PMPosted by Forgren

whereas on live you may have "wasted" loot, such as a tank shield dropping in a raid where the only tanks are a druid and a DK

Isn't the point of the new system that you still get this wasted loot, but it just takes a different form? Like, if your tanks already have a shield they still get given a shield by the system (and thus said loot is wasted), but it means that you can't even get some marginal benefit from that shield by having someone win it with a greed roll for their offspec.

No, because everyone's chance at loot is independent. If the tank in my group gets a duplicate shield, that has no effect whatsoever on my chance at getting loot. It doesn't matter if 20 people in my group need drops from a given boss, or if only 3 do. Either way, my own personal chance is unaffected.

I know it seems like a bit of a black box that sometimes magically spits out epics. However, objectively, you will obtain the gear want more quickly from LFR under the 5.0 system than you did in 4.3, in every case except the special circumstance where you had an entire guild group funneling you gear.