Tobold's Blog
Friday, September 21, 2012
 
Scenario loot

Can anyone confirm or disprove my impression that in the loot bags the 3 players get at the end of the Fall of Theramore scenario there is always only exactly 1 containing an epic? Not a 33% chance, leading to results from nobody getting something to everybody getting something, but always exactly 1 epic, just hidden via the loot bag mechanism. Secondly, although I haven't found an epic myself yet, I was told that they aren't necessarily class-specific, a mage told me a polearm dropped for him.

Now on the macroscopic scale I do understand Blizzard not wanting to hand out 3 useful epics for the relatively little effort of a scenario, because then we'd quickly be swamped with them. But on the microscopic scale my retribution paladin doesn't need all that many items from the loot table, and mainly the 2H-weapon. So if his chance to find one of them is just something like 2%, so on average he'd need to run the scenario 50 times to get one, that isn't terribly attractive to me.

On the positive side one does get justice points for scenarios. Somehow I find justice points for everybody a more appropriate reward for a 3-man pickup group than one random epic for one of the players which might or might not be actually usable for his class. What do you think?

Comments:
Got in there with 2 friends, everyone got fireworks.

So, disproved I guess?
 
Once, I got nothing at all – the loot bag was empty. Might have been a bug.

Another time, two people got gear rewards.

But yeah, the pattern of two fireworks, one epic seems to hold up pretty well.

As to the relevance of the rewards, everything I have seen was relevant in some way. My hunter received an agility polearm once. That would have been great before 5.0.4, before the hunter had to choose between ranged or melee weapon...
 
I really hope that it's not class-specific as I would like to get one of the strength swords on my rogue.
My warrior finished it about 15 times and I got 5 epics although only strength based.
The reward/effort ration is incredible. The horde version takes about 10 minutes if you skip what you can. In addition to instant queues capping the 4k justice points for MoP was a cakewalk.
 
"before the hunter had to choose between ranged or melee weapon..."

If you choose a melee weapon as hunter you magically morph into a huntard!
No, really. There is no choice. Equipping anything but a ranged weapon screams "doing it wrong".

While I don't know your gear level, there isn't anything that is more than a sidegrade compared to LFR gear.
The head items lack sockets and head enchants, the weapons are slightly worse than madness weapons.
Of course if you have a somewhat bad equipped char it is a quick way to gear with an abundace of points for vendor gear and getting one of the weapons along with that isn't bad.
 
The pattern of 2 fireworks one epic does not hold up at all.
I've run it 3 times. 2 of the runs everyone got an epic, 1 of the runs only 1 person got an epic. All the drops were usable by that class. (but a 1h sword is a usable weapon for a paladin, so that might drop)
 
Got 2 epics last run. On my prot-paladin I got a dps headpiece. Still useable for me though, but not spec-specific

 
*I* didn't get two, two dropped. Engish guud
 
Camo,

I've been away from the game for more than a year and a half, and I never raided before that. I went into the scenario just barely scraping over the 353 (I think it is) ilvl limit.

And I'm not sure you remember, but there was a time when a surv spec hunter was almost good for melee. Of course, survival sucked back then anyway. :)

Regardless, I will so miss running around with two swords hanging by my hips. I look empty!
 
I have only ever seen one item in a bag. I have seen all three players each get an item though. It seems each person has a chance to get an item.

Keep in mind that scenario loot this week means nothing. Everything will be adjusted for level 90. You will get justice points and a chance at a level 90 item. The present 85 version will be removed on Tuesday I believe.
 
I thought the idea was that scenarios were supposed to be fun, and the loot was a bonus.
 
@Gerry

No, the game is loot-driven. That's why old content is empty because you can get better gear elsewhere. People will always do boring content if it has good rewards.
 
To put scenarios into perspective, last I read on Beta forums, @ 90:

LFR - 90 Valor Points
Heroic - 30 VP
Daily Quest - 5 VP
Scenario - 0 VP

---

The brilliant marketing in MoP is Challenge Modes. Complain about catering to casuals? CM. Want cool gear so mere mortals can see you are 1337? CM. Want your epeen displayed in a leader board? CM.

Then there is the rest of the features designed to consume the time of even non-raiders: pet battles, scenarios, Tiller's farms, fishing and some very old school massive grinding.
 
"Now on the macroscopic scale I do understand Blizzard not wanting to hand out 3 useful epics for the relatively little effort of a scenario"

Levelled gear

Or rather standard gear and named gear with named gear coming from named mobs and named gear being levellable within a certain range like in Anarchy Online.

Levelling an item requires some item, call it a runestone, which only drop in the named mob loot bags. So everyone gets the same loot bag and the loot bag gives a choice of the (story specific) item or a runestone you can use to level up one of your other items.

This system would solve a lot of loot problems.

 
@Shawno

Old content is also easy, as well as... old. Lots of content is popular despite having no rewards. A raider may enjoy battlegrounds, for example. Maybe if scenarios were fun, PvP players may enjoy them.

It's true that many people will grind boring content for loot. But that's not a reason for content to be boring, or a reason why it's okay for content to be boring so long as the loot is set correctly.
 
I had multiple attempts where 2+ epics were dropped. I never saw a non-class item drop though. I imagine that is probably a bug from not testing the content prior to release.
 
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