elorianBLAH wrote:
When you get an upgrade in a group you should offer to roll on your old item that you upgrated from.
So say that sword drops and the rogue doesn't need it but it's an upgrade to the watrrior, the warrior should get the sword and then offer his old item for /ran rolling to the group.
Honestly, that method never really works. And it's related to what Joph was talking about earlier.
Let's say that I've spent a lot of time/money outfitting my character. Maybe I worked on tradeskills. Maybe I just spent time camping the areas where I could get good drops. Maybe I spent much time working up faction and completing quests. Maybe I spent hours and hours farming for cash and buying gear in the bazaar. In any case, my gear represents an investment of time.
So, if I'm in a group and I'm using a nice bazaar purchased weapon lets say, and the other melee in the group is using a crappy weapon he got off an orc pawn, why on earth should it cost me the time/money I spent getting my weapon just to get an upgrade? The other members of the group didn't help me get the gear I'm currently wearing. They have no claim to it. It's ridiculous to expect me to have to give up an earlier item. Heck. Part of the process I use when building up gear in a slot is to try to get droppable mid-level pieces so when I get a nice upgrade, I can either pass on or sell the old gear. Should I be penalized for that?
I'll give you an example I experienced recently. I've been wearing a relatively nice shoulder piece for a very long time (horn spiked shoulder plates to be specific). Very good AC, decent stats, arguably the best sellable plate shoulder in the game. I recieved it as awarded loot on a guild raid of VTS many many moons ago (back when PoP was new). I was in a DoN recently (creator), and a shoulder bit dropped. Without going into specifics, while it was a loss of AC, it allowed me to swap around another piece of gear (my old haste belt) and resulted in a very nice increase in HP/stats/resists. My old shoulder piece sells easily in the bazaar for 70-80k. Is anyone suggesting that someone with a 1k shoulder piece only gives up 1k to get an upgrade, but I have to give away 70k+? Sorry. That's ridiculous. What if I'd spent that money buying it instead of winning it as a drop? I'd have been out the money for it. One would expect I should be allowed to recoup that loss if/when I upgrade the item. The rule penalizes people who've spent the time/effort to get the best gear possible prior to joining your group. Given that you want people like that in your group, it seems counterproductive to drive them away with silly loot rules.
NBG and CAWU are two slightly different concepts, but neither really applies in a pickup group IMO. Everone "needs" any given item, for sale at the very least, so that's just silly. CAWU works sometimes in a guild group, but it's not so hot in a pickup group either. As others have stated, the basic flaws are that they both require people to be honest, and they rely on often flawed perceptions of what exactly they mean.
CAWU is different to different people. I may not use that weapon often, or wear that piece of jewelry often, but it may be a nice addition to my gearset that helps me on a specific raid event. By some CAWU rules, I shouldn't get it because I'm not going to directly replace an item I'm already wearing. What if something drops that is "new" for me. Let's say it's a mask that grant see invis and I'm a class that doesn't get the spell? Should I not be allowed to roll on it because it's not a piece of armor I'd normally wear? Trying to come up with any kind of consistent rules for loot is usually counterprodcutive, and most often end up being designed to give the rulemaker the best shot at getting gear upgrades (like the guy with crappy gear insisting on NBG rules, or the caster insisting that any +mana/FT items go to pure casters and not hybrids). The shoulders I mentioned above were not a huge upgrade. But it allowed me to upgrade another slot that was in serious need, resulting in a huge overall increase. You can't just judge on a slot by slot basis.
My "rule" is that if an item is droppable/sellable, anyone can roll on it that wants it. Any group member may choose to pass on an item if they want (and many people do), but that should never be required. Most higher end camps will also have some loose rules in terms of how many of any given item you can get in a group. OoW camps for instance commonly have a "one rune, one major" rule. So you can roll on any rune that drops until you get one, and you can *also* roll on any major/rare item that drops until you get one. Junk drops can be FFA or randomed or whatever (most people don't care much about that, but if someone has a tissy, you can count off minor drops separately as well). Quest bits are usually counted as your "major" drop for the group.
Obviously, that can vary from camp to camp and zone to zone. But the general rule is that people get to roll on something, and everyone should have a shot at getting something. That upgrade item for you could just as easily be something I can sell in the bazaar and make enough cash to buy an equally nice upgrade for myself. Back in the days before the bazaar, when it could be very difficult and time consuming to buy/sell items from other players, NBG methods kinda worked (but were still the source of many arguments). Today, there's simply no argument for NBG in a pickup group. If it's droppable then everyone can use it. Period. Getting pissed off because someone else rolled on an item is silly.
