Watcher Loot Rules

[Bobalin]

First a disclaimer. All of the following is subject to change. Do not hold it against me if it does.

Ok, so the deal is that White Council, Astalderea and Legion of Lions will be looking to run the Watcher twice a week, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I do not think there is a fixed time yet for either, but the Tuesday run will probably be geared towards PST'ers w.r.t. start time and the Wednesday run more towards EST'ers. Read into that what you will. It is more than likely going to be the case that priority will be given to those that run once, i.e. if you run on Tuesday, succesfully or not, you won't be guaranteed a place on Wednesday with an alt, or main, unless the raid is short members. Details with regards this, i.e. making this official, will be forthcoming.

Now for the juicy part. Loot. There are 3 important types of loot that will drop from the Watcher chest. Coins for the radiance set helm/shoulders, 1st age legendary items and random teal armour/jewellery. I'll deal with coins 1st

Coins will be rolled on in the usual manner with the "twist" that the lowest roll will win. With me so far? Ok, here is where it will start to get a little complicated. If you DO NOT win, next time you run the watcher, instead of rolling out of 100, you will roll out of 15 less (85), hence giving you a better chance of rolling a lower number. If you don't win again, next time you will roll from 70, then 55 etc. until you roll out of 1 and are essentially guaranteed the loot. Now, if at any point you DO win the coin, your roll will be reset to 100 for the next time you run the watcher.

Now the random teals jewellery/armour will use the same system, i.e. you can use your "weighted" roll (including rolling out of 100) to roll on any of these items and if you win you will have your roll reset for next time. If NOBODY wants to roll on the item then it will go to a free-roll out of 100 for everyone and winning it will not reset your roll.

Ok now for 1st age weapons. This bit is subject to change more than any other so take it with a pinch of salt. So as usual we will be adopting the 1 teal per person per run (unless a freeroll is in play) and 1st age weapons fall into this category. Classes for whom the weapon is relevant will roll off in the standard manner (out of 100, highest wins). The winner will not be able to roll on any other loot (unless freeroll) and will not "gain 15" on his roll for next time, HOWEVER, because the LI is class specific it will not reset his roll. If you weren't confused before you probably are now so I'll do a mini example to illustrate the whole thing.

Loot: Coin for Helm, Coin for Shoulders, Really nice Teal, Rubbish teal, 1st Age Champ (Lvl60) 1h Axe *cough*

Members: Champ1(85), Champ2(100), Hunter(85), Mini(70), Capt(100), Burg(85)

The numbers in brackets are the persons roll total.

The first thing that is rolled on is the Axe.
Champ1 rolls (100): 76
Champ2 rolls (100): 32

Champ1 wins the Axe

Next the helm, champ1 is locked out.
Champ2 rolls (100): 88
Hunter rolls (85): 21
Mini rolls (70): 39
Capt rolls (100): 20
Burg rolls (85): 56

Capt wins the helm.

Next the shoulders, capt and champ1 are locked out.
Champ2 rolls (100): 42
Hunter rolls (85): 67
Mini rolls (70): 13
Burg rolls (85): 19

Mini wins the shoulders.

Now the teals. Burg and hunter mention they would like to roll on really nice teal (lots of agil/evade? idk)

Hunter rolls (85): 56
Burg rolls (85): 82

Hunter wins.

No-one wants rubbish teal so it goes to a free roll.

Now here is the important part, next time, the rolls will be:
Champ1 : 85 (no change)
Champ2 : 85 (-15)
Hunter : 100 (reset)
Mini : 100 (reset)
Capt : 100 (reset)
Burg : 70 (-15)

Obviously you need to factor in 6 other people but you get the idea.

There is one case that I have not yet mentioned and that is for a 1st Age LI drop for a class you do not have in your raid. Here it will be treated as a "really good teal", i.e. you can use your weighted roll to roll on it for an alt/friend/AH(if you suck!) but if you win your roll WILL be reset. If no-one wants to roll on it like this (I don't see why they wouldn't), it will go to a free roll....

Phew.... I think that's about it. I just need to mention that there will be a record of the attendees made by the raid leaders and a google spreadsheet will be set up for you to keep track of things yourself (link to be added). Weighted rolls will apply for both Tuesday and Wednesday runs. Any "bonus" you get to your roll will be applied at the lock reset date on Thursdays so for example if you don't win something on Tuesday and are asked to bring an alt on Wednesday you won't have your improved roll. However, if you DO win on Tuesday your roll will be reset immedietly and whilst you can roll (out of 100) on items you will not get a "bonus" if you do not win anything. Sorry if this seems pedantic but it is a special case that should be mentioned just in case it does transpire in order for those who can only run once a week to not be disadvantaged to those with the facility to run twice.

[professorchaos]

sounds good to me bob, but i thought that 1st age weps were boa, and not boe?
ps-taking a break for a bit, but i'll be back on sometime in the near future :hump:

[Bearabald]

I bet you didnt think your post was going to be that long when you started it :) Explaining any non purely random loot systems always get surprisingly long. It sounds like a good system.

[kitty]

*amendments* first age items are NOT going to be considerd teals, tho it will be class specfic, you can also pre-claim a different class at the START of the raid. ex: i bring attonare but at the start i choose to roll for captain items (so i can roll on 1st age capt LI, but not for the LM LI) 1st age are boe, not boa. i will edit when i get the link from beleguil with the accounting page. pure..you should be loving this loot system :P

[Fume]

Somewhat. It will still be the same as having no dkp or little dkp, because as long as wednesdays stays at 7, I will never be able to do that one, or extremely rarely. And I haven't seen what time the "later" one is starting yet. My main problem has always been the time frame, regardless of the looting system. I just don't get to go enough.

However, I will still be able to roll, out of 100 or whatever, and just have to hope for a lucky roll, which we all know how I do with that. Although it's low roll for some, so maybe I can win that stuff....eventually.

I never saw one piece of loot from the balrog (other than the trophy), so, we'll see. I look forward to killing him though. ;)

[Bobalin]

*amendments* first age items are NOT going to be considerd teals, tho it will be class specfic.

I think you have misinterpreted my explanation of 1st age weapons. Indeed you are right that 1st age weapons will not be considered teals in that they will not be rolled on using the "weighted" rolls system, however there MUST be a line drawn where someone who wins a 1st age weapon cannot roll on armour pieces or other teals in the interest of fairness and spreading loot to as many raid members as possible. I stand by this whole-heartedly and hope that many of you do too. Kitty, go back through my post paying particular attention to the example with the roll off between the champs for the 1st age weapon and the outcome of this with respect to their starting and finishing rolls total. You will see that you have come to the wrong conclusion w.r.t. the "one teal per run" statement I made.

Now, there IS an argument for "bad" 1st age weapons and being unfairly "locked out" of the armour rolls because of an essentially random occurence. This argument is almost always blown completely out of proportion. Yes, there are a number of LI's (e.g. champ daggers) which even though are 1st age may be considered trash, HOWEVER, whilst many of these items are undesirable, they are by no means useless and should not be considered to be. I could list examples but in the interest of avoiding controversy, I shall avoid this. The argument of "statistical unfavourability towards good 1st age weapons" is also unfounded. Without going into mathematical detail, it should be clear that unless turbine have specifically skewed the gear away from those top grade weapons, the chance of them dropping is equal to any other item dropping. It is unreasonable to take a small sample of known drops on our server (for example) and decide that that is the way the loot is. Any system of rules that we adopt cannot run off the assumption that all 1st age weapons that drop will be useless and so the person who ends up with it should be able to roll on armour as well. After all, if that dreaded champ (or capt) dagger does drop, the champ (or capt) does not HAVE to roll on it. It can be offered to other members to use their weighted rolls on (much like "nice random teals") and if still no-one wants it, it can go to a free-roll. This completely takes care of the useless 1st age LI drop chance not locking people out of coins if they desire it but at the same time gives each member of the raid a better fighting chance of not coming away empty handed.

There is however one distinction that I must make with this and I'm sorry if some of you think this is a bit harsh. The 1st age LI should be rolled on and handed out first, ALWAYS. If, for example, a capt dagger drops, I will not tolerate the capts in the raid saying they want to roll on the armour and if they lose the roll they will take the 1st age weapon. The 1st age is there, you either want it or you don't. Take it, pass on it, whatever, but do it first.


you can also pre-claim a different class at the START of the raid. ex: i bring attonare but at the start i choose to roll for captain items (so i can roll on 1st age capt LI, but not for the LM LI) 1st age are boe, not boa. i will edit when i get the link from beleguil with the accounting page. pure..you should be loving this loot system :P

Yes, this is one thing that I neglected to include in my post and Kitty is right. You can specify at the beginning of the raid that you will be rolling for a different toon because the possibility is that you have been asked to bring an alt for the purposes of class balance. In this case, you must bring your alt into the raid for the opening of the chest, meaning two things. First, you are rolling for everything for that toon, armour, teals, 1st age. There will be no mix and matching, no "I want armour for this guy but LI's for that guy". Once again, make your choice and stick to it. Secondly, the toon you are rolling on must not be locked out of the instance (meaning you've already rolled on things for him). This is to prevent the system from being abused, for example, if I levelled 7 toons to watcher ready status and killed the watcher 7 times a week and each time specified that I was rolling for champ items, this would tip the odds too far in my favour and be slightly unfair to all other champs in the 6 raids which my champ is not involved with.

So to sum up, you can specify that you want to roll for another toon, but you have to be able to bring them in for the chest. Again, this is purely to give those people who can only run once a week an equal chance against those who are able to run multiple times.

Sorry for the slightly militant tone in the post but I feel that someone has to stand up for the little guy....

[Aradel]

Well done on the loot rule post Bob! You simplified it wonderfully for me. =D

Time has always been an issue with a lot of us fume, unfortunately. Although you never got loot from the balrog, I've only recently been able to see him at all. My total balrog visits has been 5 since moria. Actually, I think I went to see the balrog on what was to be the white council's last time before moria with sayde and that was my first. I got to see Thrang a few times more than that, but not by many. Time was always an issue for me because the rift nearly always started forming at 9pm and then didn't get started until 10pm eastern. That was too late and was causing problems in my home life. I know that there were a few other people in kin that weren't able to do those runs either. I like this system that the raid leaders have put together. 7pm est is a wonderful starting time for me for Wednesday nights where Tuesday may not be. I'm okay with that because at least 1 night there will be a time that I have the chance to attend and not be up until 4am est and have to take my hubby to work at 5am like it was in the rift. I hope that the time slots stay this way, because for me it is very workable.

[Fume]

I realize the time is better for all pretty much. Just pointing out that kitty saying I should like the loot system is irrelevant if I can't make the runs.

[Aradel]

Yeah, that is true, but hopefully you'll at least be able to make the Tuesday one when we find out what the time is for it. It's supposed to be geared towards the PSTers from what I understand. =)

[kitty]

hush bob, my point in the teal arguement is that only teals use the weighted roll, and yes, LI should be first, and yes, you can only win one item (unless you win a free roll im assuming, i suppose we will get to that hurdle when it happens) from my understanding, the tuesday PST runs will start about 6 our time..thats 9 for you east coasters :) and i dont care what you say, i feel like i have the right to pass on a capt dagger if it drops, its not mandatory you roll on 1st age weapons (im to lazy to find it now, go to the lotro forums..of all the capt weapons gamewide, 8 have been daggers...seriously) i didnt disagree with your post or the rules..i was there when the loot rules were decided -.- the link bele sent me was crap, someday ill get the right one, beleguil fail ftw.

[Bobalin]

Not hushing. Just redirecting you to what I have actually written as opposed to what you think I had written.

So as usual we will be adopting the 1 teal per person per run (unless a freeroll is in play) and 1st age weapons fall into this category.

Notice how I said "category", I did not say that 1st age weapons = teals. I did not even say that 1st age weapons fall into the "teal" category. I said they fall into the "one teal per run category". For example, Wig-feld was not a teal but we still said one teal per run and Wig-feld fell into this category.

After all, if that dreaded champ (or capt) dagger does drop, the champ (or capt) does not HAVE to roll on it. It can be offered to other members to use their weighted rolls on (much like "nice random teals") and if still no-one wants it, it can go to a free-roll.

No-one said you HAD to roll on a 1st age item if you didn't want to. Just like you have the right to pass on any other loot, any other time. Lol.

[kitty]

*reads the first two words of bob's essay and prepares her arguement*...*something sparkles in the kitchen*...wha?

[Sporto]

So how did the watcher runs go???