Star Wars: The Old Republic: 'Welfare Epics'

MikeB

MMORPG.com Community Manager Michael Bitton discusses the recent revelations regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic's Operation loot distribution in this week's The Old Republic column.

Last week, we reported on a story that shed some light on BioWare’s current approach to loot distribution in Operations. Differing somewhat from other games on the market, BioWare’s approach involves granting all players an individual loot container at the end of a key Operation encounter. These containers will offer a chance at class-specific gear. Even in the absence of desired loot, the containers will, at the very least, contain commendations that can be traded for class-specific loot at appropriate vendors. Think Warhammer Online’s ‘PQ Bags,’ though there is no word on whether there will be different quality containers based on contribution level.

Read more of Michael Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: 'Welfare Epics'.

esos24

I like the idea of "loot containers"

toodlepip123

Im amazed that some people think its a terrible idea for others to have access to base gear. Guess what? If you want good epics, switch the difficulty of the raid to max.

 

Running the same raid over and over ad infinitum and not seeing the drop you want, and when it does finally drop, you have to roll against other people for it...  Yea.. that is not fun at all.

 

Bioware are distributing loot the right way. The only thing that has not been confirmed is the amount of commendations that you could recieve in the loot bag. It could only be 1, with a single piece of gear costing 10+

DarVashiel

As do I. after all, I helped down that damn boss and I derserve something for the work I put into it.

xenom

not caring for items so much but this idea is nice nevertheless...

 

i just hope there is others layers of char development as well all this items, items, items and even more items crap since wow was never good. good ol daoc had it just right :P

Khaine007

Loot containers, in this gamer's opinion, are a great idea.  I don't know why it hasn't been done, but cheers to Bioware for bringing this idea into reality.  I've been playing MMO's for the past 14 or so years, pretty much since they started, and raiding in every one that I can.  I can't tell you how many times I've done raids, some of them easier, some of them hours of wipe fests, and gotten nothing.  In AoC a few years back, I went through a 3 month stretch of raiding both T1 and T2 raids, so 4 raid instances a week, and got 0 items.  That's disheartening.

DKP is one way to do it, but it is flawed, do to human greed.  There are many ways to do loot, and sure, you could even be the next to get loot in your guild from raids, but if said loot never drops for your class, you are never going to get it.  Welfare epics was coined back in WoW Classic, when PvP epics came out, while most were raiding the hard as hell at the time, Molten Core and Onyxia.  What these Loot Containers are, are simply a way to reward players for actively playing the game and experiencing what it has to offer.  They are still putting forth the effort to raid and down bosses, so they should be rewarded.

And that's my 2 cents on the idea.

Stryfe6

I think its a great idea, it rewards people for the time spend in a Flashpoint and Operation.

mCalvert

Sounds good to me. I hate randomness and wasting time only to have the one thing you need not drop.

xKingdomx

If the game isn't gear centric, but story centric, why is 'welfare epics' come into the picture? You aren't suppose to grind for gear in a story centric MMORPG.

simmihi

The idea is great. I want to see it live, and also i would love to see it in other games. Containers dropping gear or bound currency which buys gear, i see it also as a strong step against gold selling.

tinuelle

I support any initiativ that is a counterweight to the "repetetive gear grind" endgame feature.

buttniks

Loot containers is an awesome idea, no more ninja's, no loot whores, no loot crybabies and the chance to also get commendations for vendor loot is awesome as well.  I can't wait for this damn game to come out.

NBlitz

Maybe a step in the right direction. I must say I'm tired of the loot pi

Oziius

I think it's a really great idea! Do you know how many Dungeons I ran in WoW just to be one of 2-3 Warrriors at the end rolling on one piece of gear? It was shitty. At least with this, you may not get what you want, but you'll get something. 

Darth_Osor

I was actually surprised over how little whining there was on the forums over this loot system.  I don't see what's so controversial about everyone that participated in the raid getting something for their efforts.  It's not like you're going to be guaranteed purples every time.

Yalexy

I do actually like this system, as it makes gear less important when everyone has access to it.

People are still required to run through the dungeons couple of times to get either items or enough commodations to buy the equipment, and people are still required to down the bosses. And downing the bosses is still the hardest part for most people.

I can't understand people who like the gear-grind anyways, as a game should be all about personal skill.

Siveria

This actually is not the first game to do this, Hellgate London did it first, loot is droped individually per person on the team. It is a nice touch though for a game thats just yet another world of warcraft clone. Hopefully there will be an option where if a epix drops and its not for your class, you could turn it into some special currency to get one that is for your class. Though would preferably take quite a bit of these to get what you want.

Then again I find the whole pve raiding endgame to be stupid and pointless anyway. Take WoW as a prime example, what can you do with your raid gear? pretty much nothing but more boring pve raids due to the carrot-on-a-stick approach wow uses. Which IMO you have to be pretty stupid to fall for. Now if it was like DAoC, Aion, Rising force online it'd be good, you pve raid for the top gear in game, then insted of it just stoping there like in WoW and its ilk, you can go into mass pvp with land control, in RFO's case its a 3 way faction war every 8 hours for control of a mine. DAoC and Aion's case the Frontier/Abyss respectivly. Its really stupid to not have some sort of pvp land control thing in games with factions.

WoW has 2 factions that been at war sort of for ages, yet they always seem to be buddy buddy, due to nothing in the game pvp wise to do at endgame. Arena pvp and battlegrounds do not count, it has to be something thats more.. persistant, that gives factionwide bonuses to all members of that faction. If they lose the battle it should hurt them not just be a slap on the wrist. In RFO the 2 losing races get a attack and defense debuff that can hit -15% which is major when the game is pretty much open pvp race vs race.

Many games that say they have pvp only have crappy arena garbage thats not real pvp in my eyes. Real pvp is like Eve, Endgame in daoc/aion/rfo etc. Stuff that matters and effects yourself as well as your faction as a whole. DAoC also had character advancement in the endgame with Realm skill points, which was like a talent tree to let you up stats and such past the base limits, add new abilities, or make current ones even stronger. Though the atlantis expansion kinda sucked, it sucked so bad that mythic actually made a new server type called classic, that had all expansions EXCEPT trials of atlantis.

Then again, I dislike pvp like Eve, Darkfall, Perpetuum where you lose everything on you if you die. In the rare instance I find the pvp meaningful enough to bother with (Sadly not many games quality for this), I'd like to not have to worry about losing all my gear. The threat of permament gear loss is actually a major detterant from getting the common casual gamer to pvp.

Siveria

Originally posted by Yalexy

I do actually like this system, as it makes gear less important when everyone has access to it.

People are still required to run through the dungeons couple of times to get either items or enough commodations to buy the equipment, and people are still required to down the bosses. And downing the bosses is still the hardest part for most people.

I can't understand people who like the gear-grind anyways, as a game should be all about personal skill.

My guess would be the people who lack skill like a gear grind? Its also fairly had to make skill based pvp in a game thats bascally a generic mmorpg/wow clone, it usually ends up being whoever can circle straife better and slam keys faster, that about sums up pvp in all these wow-like mmo's that keep coming out, little skill at all involved in facerolling your KB while circling someone XD. A Game where pvp takes skill..lets see barring fps games.. maybe Dungeon Fighter Online. Its about the only one I can think of atm, Fallen Earth too I bet, since you have to lead your target and do alot of other things to win in pvp. Hell one time at lv 20 ish I took out a lv 40 1 on 1 due to being better at the game than he was. in Fallen Earth you aren't given magical massive attack and defense bonuses just for being higher level like you do in WoW, Aion etc. Its 100% based on your equipment, and your skill levels. Most other mmo's if a lv 20 went up to a lv 40, the lv 20 would get 1 shoted instantly. I am just trying to see peoples opinions because I am tired of the same old carrot-on-a-stick endgame that WoW, SWTOR and probally GW2 will end up having or do have. I take no enjoyment in killing some pve boss for gear, just to get into a slightly higher up raid repeating the exact same process over and over.

Eladi

Love the system, and lets not forget, the game will have "Legendary Drops"  this might not directly come in the form of a new weapon or chest piece but rather in the form of unique scematics/plans for crafting that little to no one else will have.  and welll, the more you play the more chance you have to aquire sutch items. 

DarthPiglet

I definitely like this system. As others have said, going through an entire raid without obtaining even a single piece of loot, much less useful loot, gets quite frustrating. That said, I would also love to see something in the end game that doesn't follow the raid -> loot, raid -> bigger loot, raid -> biggerer loot cycle.

The idea of handing out different levels of loot based on contribution level strikes me as a dicey proposition. I do hope they avoid it. What if you have some very well geared people along on this particular Operation? Do they get better loot because they're already better geared and can thus contribute more? There will also undoubtedly be scenarios in which one particular class or role performs better than another. Will they get better rewards because the mechanics favored them?

I say let people sort it out. If someone doesn't play so well, for whatever reason, don't punish them for it. Maybe we took them along on the Operation so they could learn to do better. If they person in question not pulling their weight the rest of the team can decide to replace them with someone who's more enthused to participate.

I was there in WoW when the whole "welfare epics" whine fest happend so I have to say: rather poor choice of title. It made me steel myself for a diatribe against TOR.

Draftbeer

Originally posted by xKingdomx

If the game isn't gear centric, but story centric, why is 'welfare epics' come into the picture? You aren't suppose to grind for gear in a story centric MMORPG.

This.

tiapheres

So what happens when something drops for someone else of the same class and build but he already has that piece and you need it? Traditional looting gives that option of getting the gear to the people who need it rather than it getting bound to someone who is going to vendor or break it down.

I like the idea, I just don't see it being practical unless you can trade your loot with the raid in case you get something someone else can use more.

tiapheres

Originally posted by Draftbeer

Originally posted by xKingdomx

If the game isn't gear centric, but story centric, why is 'welfare epics' come into the picture? You aren't suppose to grind for gear in a story centric MMORPG.

This.

 

 I agree, lets wait and see.

Nazgol

Originally posted by Draftbeer

Originally posted by xKingdomx

If the game isn't gear centric, but story centric, why is 'welfare epics' come into the picture? You aren't suppose to grind for gear in a story centric MMORPG.

This.

 Gear is sorta irrelevant from my understanding of it, most of your stats come from modifactions to your gear, although better quality gear has more modification slots.

Theodgrim

'Welfare' Epic?  'Douchebag' terminology.

helthros

Originally posted by xKingdomx

If the game isn't gear centric, but story centric, why is 'welfare epics' come into the picture? You aren't suppose to grind for gear in a story centric MMORPG.

lol, love these. Oh yah, because you wrote the guidebook on story centric MMORPGs?