Ninja looting in random LFG -pls blue reply

#0 - Feb. 11, 2010, 2:14 p.m.

Ever since the random looking for group, my wife and I have been in tons of instances on our lower level characters. A pally tank and a priest healer. The only real grief I have about it are other players clicking "need" on every drop. Items that they can't use and not even for their class. Such as a warrior needing on a caster cloth chest piece that was a drop from the boss that was a good upgrade for my shadow priest. It was a bound when picked up item as well.

Due to the timer, they usually can't get kicked and continue to do so until many minutes later, lost drops, grief and aggravation. Asking then to stop or to give the item over to someone who actually needs it results in no reply and they continue to do so until they can be kicked.

I've been reporting all these players through opening a ticket and all of the GM so far claim that they are going to look into it and that something WILL happen. The last GM who replied to my this morning didn't seem to properly read my original ticked which leads me to believe that nothing is being done about this.

Is blizzard allowing this to happen, knowing that it ruins the fun of other players because someone is being greedy? That knowing full well it may cause players to quit playing due to lack of enjoyment of the game. There is nothing like doing the same instance over and over to get a specific drop because it would be a great upgrade only to have someone click "need" on it when they can't even use it.

I'm going to post this in the suggestion section, so please reply to it there and not here.
This ninja looting needs to be stopped. I suggest a "need vote". As in, when players select "need" all the other players, except those who clicked "need" must vote "yes" or "no" to accept that the player(s) actually need it.
Example:
Cloth chest piece drops, and they all make their selection. After all 5 players have made their selection, then a "yes" or "no" would pop up such as the voting system.
Player A (mage)has selected Need, do you agree "yes or "no" --Players select "yes"
Player B has selected Greed.
Player C has selected Pass.
Player D (warlock)has selected Need, do you agree "yes" or "no" --Players select "yes"
Player E (warrior) has selected Need, do you agree "yes" or "no" --Players select "No"
So for this example, players B and C would vote "yes" or "no" to the other 3. If some reason that all 5 select "need" then it's a normal roll as we have now without any "voting system"

If both have the majority of "yes" ( such as the vote kick system) then the game does its thing and randomly gives the item. If there are the same amount of "yes and "no", then it should be like a master system given to 1 of the players who voted "yes", not to the "dungeon leader" because if he's one that selected "need" it would go to him. That 1 person who is the temporary "loot mater" would only have the option of giving the loot to 1 of the 2 players who selected "need". That way he can't turn around and take it. OR the system counts it as a yes and rolls as it normally would.
This would take a few extra seconds in game to do for the players and would stop the ninja looting.
This would NOT affect raids as that is set to "master loot" most of the times

Malkorix

#27 - Feb. 11, 2010, 7:44 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Ever since the random looking for group, my wife and I have been in tons of instances on our lower level characters. A pally tank and a priest healer. The only real grief I have about it are other players clicking "need" on every drop. Items that they can't use and not even for their class. Such as a warrior needing on a caster cloth chest piece that was a drop from the boss that was a good upgrade for my shadow priest. It was a bound when picked up item as well.

Due to the timer, they usually can't get kicked and continue to do so until many minutes later, lost drops, grief and aggravation. Asking then to stop or to give the item over to someone who actually needs it results in no reply and they continue to do so until they can be kicked.

I've been reporting all these players through opening a ticket and all of the GM so far claim that they are going to look into it and that something WILL happen. The last GM who replied to my this morning didn't seem to properly read my original ticked which leads me to believe that nothing is being done about this.

Those Game Masters are indeed investigating the situations that you've faced in an effort to determine if anything resembling a scam is taking place. Naturally, due to our privacy policies, we are unable to reveal the actions taken against another player's account.

I do take issue with the very term 'ninja looting' because of the imprecision of its language though. The term implies many things - including theft, which is impossible within the loot assignment methods we have available - but it is not an explicit term. Unfortunately, 'ninja looting' means many different things to many different people, while offering no standard definition; this ultimately creates vast misunderstandings and confusion.

Instead, if only for the sake of clarity, lets use the term 'looting out of turn' to express a scenario where a player loots an item that they may eligible for, but in doing so go against the wishes of the group or 'common' looting practices. That sounds like a more succinct definition to express the situation you are facing, but I also feel compelled to point out that we are not in a position to adjudicate over such disputes.

All of that aside, I am sorry to hear that you might have had some unpleasant experiences while leveling up. Prior to the random dungeons, I recall experiencing my own fair share of disputes regarding need rolls and the like - particularly in lower level dungeons where other players may have been inexperienced and did not realize that an item they were rolling on was not an ideal choice for their class. While it is easier than ever to find a group, you may want to try establishing some looting ground rules at the start of the instance

You may be pleased to know that the very nature of the Dungeon Finder random dungeon Need Before Greed looting method precludes 'looting out of turn' almost entirely once a requisite level is reached. Bornakk has commented on that design decision here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22418703455&pageNo=1&ST=US-1545149-g3gqraXkRcvOwa3SElmUfEd4Is2clgACVod#12

While it isn't necessarily appropriate to report these players via an in-game petition, you can certainly use the /ignore feature to ignore them. This will prevent you from being placed with these players in future Dungeon Finder generated groups. You can learn the ins and outs of the Dungeon Finder tool here, in the guide we had posted on the subject when it was introduced:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21627535173&sid=1

Q u o t e:
Note: You may now ignore characters from different realms. To do so, simply right-click the character's name next to a line of chat and select the "Ignore" option; type "/ignore <playername>-<playerrealm>" into your chat window; or open up your Ignore list, click "Ignore," and then type in the character's name and realm.