Ok, so a while back, my GM decided that he wasn't going to use the Group Finder for raids. According to him (I have no experience using the GF yet myself), using GF to put a group together disables the group's ability to use the Master Looter function, basically putting whatever loot the group gets back in the hands of random chance and the honor system (expecting teammates to ONLY hit Need if they actually need the item rather than just needing everything, even if someone else in the group would obviously benefit from it more). That stance caused that raid to take quite a bit longer to get going, but it got me at least a little bit worried about using the GF for raids.

 

Anyway, our guild hasn't managed a raid for a while now, and with our GM's sub fee expired and him temporarily unable to resub, I'm now acting GM, and I'm trying to see if we can actually make a raid work again. Problem is, I'm still a little worried about how the GF and Master Looter will work together. Does GF still disable the ability to use Master Looter, or has that been changed? Or was this never actually an issue and my GM was just mistaken? Any and all input on this issue (constructive, at least) would be greatly appreciated.

IIRC the LFG tool selects somebody as the group leader when you zone into the op and that person should be able to set it to master looter but honestly i've never really had an issue with people needing on gear that they don't need but as always YMMV

Master looter is time-consuming and IMO should never be used (a) on anything less than ops-level loot and (b) with a group you don't know and trust. You think ninjas in pugs are bad? At least, if 2 of you roll need, you have an equal chance. Wait until you get done over by Master Looter in a HM op. If you're in a pug, or you're filling the gaps in someone else's guild run and you don't know them, and they set the loot to Master Looter, run like the wind!

If I join a Raid on a World Boss or Operation and the leader has loot set to Loot Master you can bet I'm calling him out on it and once I do so will the rest of the team once they realizes whats going on. I'm not letting some guy screw me out of loot so he he can give it to his guild buddies, screw that.

 

One time I was LFG for World Boss and was invited to a group for the Nar Sadaa WB. half of them were a guild and the other half were randoms (like me). When the fight was half-way over the leader (one of the guild guys) switched from round robin to LootMaster and I called him out on it immediately and so did some the other guys. His response was : Screw-you we don't need you anymore. then he kicked me and all the randoms out of the Raid. me and the random guys were shocked, we couldn't believe what just happen. So I took charge, invited all the randoms to a separate op and we put a plan together. half our team set-up right where the boss starts and the other half got half way across the play field. when their was only 10 % health left on the WB I TAUNTED him and made WB boss chase me to the entrance area. When the WB got too far away from his start point he ran back and RESET. The other half of our team was in position and stole the WB when he reset, by dealing the first blow and locking the WB for our team. the opposing op's team (the guild) was screwed and they had some choice words for us but we got the loot and they didn't.

 

In short Round-Robin is fair and LootMaster is Bull-****.

Master looter is time-consuming and IMO should never be used (a) on anything less than ops-level loot and (b) with a group you don't know and trust. You think ninjas in pugs are bad? At least, if 2 of you roll need, you have an equal chance. Wait until you get done over by Master Looter in a HM op. If you're in a pug, or you're filling the gaps in someone else's guild run and you don't know them, and they set the loot to Master Looter, run like the wind!

If I join a Raid on a World Boss or Operation and the leader has loot set to Loot Master you can bet I'm calling him out on it and once I do so will the rest of the team once they realizes whats going on. I'm not letting some guy screw me out of loot so he he can give it to his guild buddies, screw that.

 

One time I was LFG for World Boss and was invited to a group for the Nar Sadaa WB. half of them were a guild and the other half were randoms (like me). When the fight was half-way over the leader (one of the guild guys) switched from round robin to LootMaster and I called him out on it immediately and so did some the other guys. His response was : Screw-you we don't need you anymore. then he kicked me and all the randoms out of the Raid. me and the random guys were shocked, we couldn't believe what just happen. So I took charge, invited all the randoms to a separate op and we put a plan together. half our team set-up right where the boss starts and the other half got half way across the play field. when their was only 10 % health left on the WB I TAUNTED him and made WB boss chase me to the entrance area. When the WB got too far away from his start point he ran back and RESET. The other half of our team was in position and stole the WB when he reset, by dealing the first blow and locking the WB for our team. the opposing op's team (the guild) was screwed and they had some choice words for us but we got the loot and they didn't.

 

In short Round-Robin is fair and LootMaster is Bull-****.

Hmm...kinda confused why this thread got moved to the Ops sub-forum, since it has more to do with how two general-game features work together (in the context of doing a raid, yes, but this isn't discussing FP/Op/Heroics particulars), but as long as people post something useful, I'm not complaining.

 

Anyway, I do appreciate the advice, although I would respectfully disagree with your stance that Master Looter is automatically BS and Round Robin is automatically fair. I've rarely raided or done WBs without at least some amount of pugging being done (our guild isn't especially big and only has a few 50s), but I've actually found the pug groups I've been in to be incredibly fair when it comes to Master Looter. The second time my wife and I ran EV (first time completing it; our group wiped on Soa our first time), we were the pugs in a group where the other 6 were guildmates. After we beat Soa, a chestpiece token I needed popped up; I rolled lower than the other person who wanted it, but the leader gave it to me anyway, saying that the other guy didn't really need it. Conversely, in a heroic group my wife and I got together on Coruscant a while back, we found a strength-based earpiece among the loot that everyone hit Need for even though I was the only Knight in the group. I was lucky enough to eventually get it since my wife (running a Trooper) won the roll but admitted to not having looked closely at the item's stats beforehand and gave it to me anyway.

 

As for luck with WBs, I've actually had more problems with outside interference than anything from the group itself. Every group I've been a part of for WB fights (which, admittedly, has only been a few) has been courteous and fair about loot distribution; the one problem I remember having with a WB was when my wife and I were trying to two-man the Nar WB with our Sentinel/Commando pair and a Powertech came along, taunted and reset the boss as described in the above rant, and told us to "move along" even though we'd been there first--and when we refused, he continually reset the boss until his Warrior pal (don't remember if it was a Marauder or Juggernaut) showed up to gank him away from us, also as described above.

 

In any case, luck with other players was never really what I was asking about; some people find the nice, polite players in some situations and the jerks in others, while other people find the nice ones and the jerks in reverse. What I'm still curious about (and what only one person so far has even tried to address) is if Master Looter works with a GF-formed group or not. As I said, I do appreciate the advice, but it didn't really address what I was asking about (and besides, not like you have reason to trust me based just on this, but if I'm running a Master-Looter group, you can bet it'd be run fair and square regardless of who's in it; even my wife would have to roll and accept what the RNG gives her).

This thread is so wierd. Why worry so much about not being able to use master loot in group finder.

 

True you can't use it, but so what?

 

The only ops you can do in group finder are storymode EV and KP, and they really don't play a significant part in the gearing up process in terms of loot. The best you can get from them is some columi stuff which you can get the same or better so easily from from somewhere else.

 

SM EV/KP are generally not done for the loot. They are done for the 5 blackhole commendations.

 

And even if someone needs something from there, as of patch 1.4 you can even trade the loot for 2 hours with other people who were eligible for the loot so if someone "accidentally" presses need on something that someone else would benefit more from, they can just give the item to the other person, (and if someone ninja loots something he can't even use and does not want to give it to someone who would use it, just kick him and ignore and problem solved. It's only columi at the most and you get same or better item very soon anyway)

 

And all the other ops you do will do without group finder anyway and can use whatever you want.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Eternalnight

And all these people speaking against master looter, are a bit wierd too. Generally experienced raiders do not ever oppose the use of master loot. But looks to me like most people who are against the use of master loot, have not done much endgame raids.

 

If I join a Raid on a World Boss or Operation and the leader has loot set to Loot Master you can bet I'm calling him out on it

And most likely you just get replaced by someone else.

 

and once I do so will the rest of the team once they realizes whats going on.

Sorry to brake your bubble, but most likely they will not.

 

More often than not, especially if it is a group for some endgame raids (not low level worldbosses or other trivial content), it is actually the other way around. Many times I have seen people actually ask for the raid leader to turn on master looter, if he is not using it. And yes, even the pugs who are from different guilds than the raid leader do actually often want master looter to be used.

 

Also never really seen anyone abuse the master loot system. The only times I have seen something ninjaed in a raid was when master loot was not used and in those cases it would have been avoided if it was used.

 

Like one time I was doing EV hm (back in the old days when Rakata gear was still more important) at the third boss some imperial agent rakata piece dropped and one of the healers needed it for it was an upgrade but at the same time one sith marauder decided to be a jerk and press need for everything and won the item. We of course kicked the marauder and everybody put him on ignore, and found a replacement dps quickly, but by the time everyone else realized what had happened the healer had already left the group in anger for having lost his gear to a ninja looter and we all then had to just sit there doing nothing and wait for almost an hour while trying to look for a new healer which was not easy to find. (eventually someone managed to convince the same healer to come back and luckily more items dropped for him from the last 2 bosses and this time master looter was used to make sure that the items were given to the people who can use them, instead of allowing everyone to click need on it)