Currently there are quite a few problems concerning PvE, ranging from social structure to risk vs. reward, and time investment. The problem becomes all the more apparent when PvP advancement heavily outpaces PvE.

For this case, I'd like to examine the benefits of a token system for all 25 man content rewards, and the benefits it would produce. I'll be making comparisons between the PvP and PvE system based on the assumption that developers would like PvP and PvE to progress at the same pace, and that rewards are supposed to be equal for both systems.

What is a token system? A token system is an alternative method of risk reward compared to the current random loot system. As a case example, under a token system, Hydros would drop three 'Marks of Hydros' which would go to players depending on the raid distribution system. These players could then turn in their tokens to a vendor for any item off Hydros's default loot table. If a guild downs Karathres he would drop 3 tokens as well, players would be able to turn in these tokens for either Tier pants, or other items off his drop table.

The random loot system currently suffers from double filtration in regards to Risk vs. Reward. The first filtering of loot is the random aspect, in that some items will never show up. The second level of filtration is through the guild system of loot dispersal. The first random factor often creates scenarios causing waste and making the risk unequal to the reward. As a domino effect, this hinders progression, and moral. The biggest factor, however, is the waste it creates. Not all items have equal utility, and repeated rewards of low utility items results in the rewards being sharded. (Take the example of half our guild running around with World Breakers we never use for kicks and giggles)

Logical loot is another issue that needs to be factored. It's been said that Blizzard is always looking for a more logical and intelligent loot system. Unfortunately, what is 'logical' and what is 'intelligent' as far as rewards go changes from guild and group make up. No AI could ever appropriately disperse logical rewards compared to a human moderated system. The PvP reward system and Tier token piece systems are shining examples of success with an intelligent and logical loot system.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benefits of a tokenized reward system for 25 man content
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Social Structure:
First off, a tokenized reward system would lead for a healthier social structure within the World of Warcraft, leading to greater guild retention and progression through PvE progress.

One of the biggest issues that can collapse a guild and ruin the fun (and subscriptions) for an entire group of members is when a key player leaves the guild. Losing an OT that always shows up or a primary healer, especially if attendance is tight, is often enough to stop a guild in its tracks from completing both new content, and previous content. Allowing control of loot allows these players to be replaced more efficiently in a short amount of time by gearing up a suitable replacement within the span of a week. Currently, especially in the case of a tank, a replacement needs to be found, and then it is dependent on luck for him to be suitably geared up to fill the slot required. Sitting around for a month or more trying to recover kills the fun, and progression, for everyone. More often than not, leading to guild disbands.

Drama often results through loot, especially when, due to the random nature of the current system, items finally show up that have been missing for months. Using a token system would allow people to streamline what is acquired forming an orderly progression of who gets to what, and relieving the *if* factor of every seeing an item again. In addition, this would calm the competitive drive that is innate to human nature which can lead to social issues.

Lastly, guilds often find themselves having to attune people for Hyjal or BT. Going back through SSC and The Eye would be less of a chore, and something to loath if we could control what drops. There -ARE- items we could use from the instances, but knowing that they won't be seen creates 7 hours of game play that no one wants to partake in, and that isn't fun.

Progression:
Blizzard would like more people to experience their content; however the current system works against progression in many different ways. Progression in PvE is much more challenging than PvP, requiring more time and coordination, however rewards are not equal to accomplishments currently.

First off, the very nature of random loot means that guilds may be heavily hindered based on random chance alone. Repeated acquisition of items that can't be utilized is the very essence of a failure in progression despite success over game content. In any instance you will find what has become known as 'gear checks' and in many cases, guilds will struggle with this simply due to a failure of the system.

A token system would also allow guilds a response to content and advancement in progression on a system that they can control. If they need more dps, better tanking, or better healing, the reward system would be malleable to allow them to cover what is needed to make progress, especially in a 25 man environment.

Content longevity, and focus:
One of the main points of progression is to gain access to content that was not previously available. In this interest, better loot options are opened up, and old instances are left behind, rarely to be touched again, with the exception of attunements.

Utilizing a tokenized system would increase the longevity of an instance, even after the guild progresses to higher content. It would increase the likely hood of older content to be played to patch holes in gear, run off spec items, try out new gear load outs, and obtain specific or popular items only available in those instances. As of current, old content is not worth running because when time investment is compared to time rewarded, there's a large difference.

This would also open up instances to more alts, and players helping their friends through the instances. Players could go in knowing that they can have a reasonable chance at what they need, and know that their work towards helping others, trying something new, or gearing your alt will see a definite reward. It would prolong the longevity of the content, and the game, and broaden the player experience as a whole.

Waste:
The current system creates a tremendous amount of waste, if you're 2 weeks in, or 2 months into an instance, you're more than likely seeing items going to off specs or getting sharded, diminishing the risk vs. the reward.

At its most basic level, getting loot is fun. Not getting loot is not fun. When players see an item get sharded the umpteenth time, it's demoralizing to the raid. Players aren't proud of void crystals in the bank. This is why you don't see many BT guilds making a large effort to run older content. It's nothing but an expensive void crystal run. Kael would be a good example of waste skewing content. By the time players are able to down Kael, there is very little left in the instance that is worth the time investment, thus Kael will only be killed a handful of times by any guild as the current instances are worthless, and they'll opt to spend all of their time in BT or Hyjal. It's not worth farming void crystals to access Kael’s loot table.

Under the current system, as the raid progresses and spends more time in an instance, the risk vs. reward factor diminishes quickly. After a short while, the risk is not worth the reward, and if a guild is unable to progress through the end of an instance for to long, the reward does not remain large enough to merit, no matter how 'fun' the instance may be. People grow frustrated and guilds disband, progress is stopped and content left untouched.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PvE vs PvP: Risk, Reward and acquisition
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a currently a lot of controversy currently comparing the two loot systems, risk vs. reward, and time investment, especially now that PvP has heavily outpaced PvE, making much of what is meant for PvE content inferior to its PvP counterpart on multiple levels.

Risk
PvP has very little risk. There is no penalty for failure (rather it rewards), very little group coordination required, extremely minimal scheduling requirements, and no need to be logged on for extended periods of time.

PvE has much higher risk. Success and failure are not based only on one individual’s performance, rather the groups as a whole collection of individuals. There is a penalty for failure (gold & time). Scheduling must be done, people have to show, there's a learning curve, and a substantial time investment.

Acquisition:
When a PvPer wishes to receive his reward, he goes over to a vendor and receives the reward that he/she has earned. There are no hitches, no side requirements, or random chance involved. It’s an absolute reward. All items are always available.

PvE is an entirely different matter. If we wish to receive and item we’ve earned, we must rely on chance over a period of time to gain possible access to an item, with no guarantee. Earned items may not be available at all times.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tokens: Proof of design & problems & design benefits
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The current token systems in place work incredibly well. They’ve already been proven to work within the system, and are much preferred. Both the PvP and tier token pieces are a shining example of successful game design.

In addition, using a token system would allow developers to create new and interesting items for nitch specs, and alternative builds without having to worry about adjusting drop rates, or bloating a loot table.

This system needs to be expanded to PvE to cover the current issues outlined above. Moving to a token system will benefit both the game play and social structure of WoW while exposing players to more of the designed content and expanding longevity of current content. These are all goals within the continued development of WoW.

I love this idea.

P.S. If you weren;t finished i'll delete this.

Its a good read and I wish for you and the rest of the folks that still like PvE that it would get read.

The single greatest point made in your posts is that for niche specs and niche items that 99% of the time you dont want to drop would still be available along with the items that all the casters or dps would want. Viability is a good thing but it would be nice to gear up the rest of the raid before we have 4 healing palas with amazing pala tank gear :) due to drops.

I read the first few paragraphs. A token type system for PvE wont fix much, alot of guilds can't even down Hydross cause many people gave up to PvP, not to mention if people got the loot they wanted when they down a boss the first time there will be numerous problems.

PvP is whats flawed. Put the damn ladder system to use. Only top teams on the server should be in Season 3 gear, much like only top Raid guilds are in Tier 6

---

Q u o t e:
It's like taking the tiered tokens one step further.

Honestly, I think it'd be a stellar idea. However, it would remove a huge portion of the timesink from raiding, as decent guilds will be able to run through the lower tiered 25 mans quickly to get their core guaranteed items instead of running through it several times hoping for the drop.

---

Under the current system, decent guilds very rarely run 'lower' tiered 25 man content cause it's not worth it. RIght now it's an avoided time sink, under a new system it would be another instance to run in addition to their 'current' 25 man progression, and a backup if they can't field an ideal raid for BT or Hyjal.

Very good idea imo. Definitely removes the most frustrating part of the current PvE loot system and doesnt hurt blizz's artificial wall for progressing too fast. I hope they take this novel idea into consideration.

---

Q u o t e:
PvP is whats flawed. Put the damn ladder system to use. Only top teams on the server should be in Season 3 gear, much like only top Raid guilds are in Tier 6

---

---

Q u o t e:

PvE Raiding loot Revolution

---

Good Band Name.

---

Q u o t e:
I like the pvp takes very little group coordination part. Alot of the post was good but acting like the pvp system is easy, dosn't require coordination, and rewards failure, is pretty funny.

---

Let me explain my basis for that arguement then.

I don't pvp much, hardly at all actually, last season we ran about 1800-1900 ranking wise.
We've only played one week so far, and have seen as low as 1550, and as high as 1700. We don't put much effort or time into PvP. 10 games, a ny more is a bother.

Season 3 hit.
I bought these:
Pvp Neck
PvP Ring
PvP Libram
PvP Helmet
PvP Hands

I still have a ton of honor, marks, and arena points left. I' pretty much done for S3, all that stuff took me about 10 minutes to pick up after S3 hit.

Haven't won much Hyjal/BT loot so far, and my T5 set took me about 2 months to complete and countless hours working with a team.

The random loot system has become outdated. It could be the equivalent of going to the honor vendor, and getting a "mystery box" with your arena points. In that mystery box, you might find something of value, or you might not. Sure, there's more to it than that, but that is the gist of it.

Something must be done, else my guild, and many others like it, will die a slow death.

but they're both important.

Get rewarded for losing or just being okay in PvP. can say that covers the skill topic
Get rewarded for 10 quick games, afking in a BG, or a quick game here or there. That covers the time topic.

/signed

I completely agree with the OP.

/signed

So what is your proposal for when every guild gets all the loot they need out of the dungeon after 6 weeks and has no reason to go back?

This post addresses a number of issues I've been having with the PvE in WoW for a long time now.

PvP does take time and skill is rewarded, but there are no real penalties, in fact I agree in that you are still rewarded for failing. This just doesn't exist in PvE, if you fail it costs you gold in repairs and materials, and it's very frustrating because of the long time in running back, rebuffing and setting back up for the next pull. I wish there was more of a PvP res in that you could pop back up maybe at the start of the instance with full health/life ready to go.

In PvP you do need some team coordination but in BG's it's not that essential, you can pretty easily type "go to mage tower, defend blacksmith, flag is at their GY". It helps greatly in arena but if you're of the "10-20 games a week" type it's still not that big of a deal to play and get your points then move on. PvE coordination...well, there's a reason why very few guilds are in Tier 6 encounters but most all players have at least a few pieces of season 3 pvp gear (even I do and I barely play PvP).

Removing random loot from PvE is one step in the right direction. Another step would be to fix the death/time to setup issue in PvE. I'd also like to see less trash and more bosses, but that's just me. I feel like ZA is a step in the right direction for this. Maybe what I'm asking for is PvE to become more casual for the same rewards because to me that's what's fun. I'd rather have more casual content then a few instances of hardcore content with random and uninteresting rewards.

maybe I'm just ranting...and maybe I'm just getting burned out anyways.

---

Q u o t e:
So what is your proposal for when every guild gets all the loot they need out of the dungeon after 6 weeks and has no reason to go back?

---

Unfortunatly thats how awful raid loot currently is in this game. Illidan loot going for min dkp after several kills? Thats worth the effort.