World of Warcraftis returning to its roots withDragonflight, not just in the way it treats its talent system but also in the way it handles loot. Player loot has evolved and gone through several iterations over the course of the game’s lifetime, often exposing design flaws and limitations of the previous (and current) system.
In 2016, Blizzard retired the old Group Loot system forWorld of Warcraftin favor of a uniform Personal Loot system to allow a fair item distribution process free of ninja looters. Despite Blizzard’s patient attempts to make it work, Personal Loot never quite found its stride, and the developers were forced to go back to the drawing board. The team took feedback from their players on what they enjoyed from both iterations and what their ideal loot system would look like.
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The answer comes withDragonflighton November 28, with the triumphant return of Group Loot, but with all its past issues stripped away. The previous iteration of Group Loot failed to tell if a piece of equipment truly belonged to a class – only if it was an armor or weapon type that characters rolling for it could equip. It made the Need/Greed rolls too lax and relied on the goodwill of players to function. The new Group Loot system only allows players to roll for their main specialization items: Warriors cannot roll on Cloth, and not everything is a Hunter weapon inWorld of Warcraftanymore.
Blizzard’s representative on the official forums, Scariizard, went on to explain that the new loot system also boasted off-spec functionality. Priority would be given to main specialization rolls, then off-spec rolls, and finally Greed rolls. It effectively means thatWorld of Warcraftplayersare no longer penalized for playing their other specializations to meet the immediate needs of the group.
Furthermore, players will no longer be able to win duplicates of the same item. Similar toFinal Fantasy 14’sloot system, winning one item of the same type or name automatically removes the character’s roll on the other. Should players already possess the same item in their inventory of the same item level, they also cannot roll Need. The sole exception remains if the item has Tertiary stats or a Socket, in which case it would be an upgrade.
To allow better flexibility over the course of aWorld of Warcraftraid, players can trade their equipment between one another without any time restriction so long as they are all eligible to loot for it during the raid’s shared lockout. While this means that players can only loot a boss once per week, it also means that players can’t have loot from that boss traded to them before the reset. This new system will also make its way toWorld of Warcraft’sLooking For Raid, but should Group Loot prove too frictional, the development team is considering increasing the number of items dropped in the casual raid mode.
