No, You May Not Roll on Items for Another Class and Strip Out the Mods

The only time I might get upset (in as much as I might get upset about loot in a video game) is if someone was repeatedly pressing need on things and then later posting the items on the GTN. If you are going to sell it (or send it to an alt/guildmate/friend), that's what the "greed" button is for.

Agreed, people are different and have various opinions.

When it is all on you, when you design purpose for which you need an item then it all becomes unpredictable and turns into dice contest where all people can do virtually anything. I can't trust that the other people will be following same pattern as I do (I have my own rules I don't force people to follow, aside from already existing social contract). That's why I need people who I can relay on. It's safer and more beneficial when everything is established.

Let's be clear. We both want to gain, but our means are different - I gain by going in with group of like minded individuals, you gain by rolling a dice and trusting the system to point you as a winner. Completely different approaches and different results. That's why we need to stay apart. It's not something we can solve by discussion.

I think I'll have to start asking people about loot rules from now on. I didn't do it before, because I thought people are thinking like me and they did (except for the one man in the very first flashpoint who was a typical ninja needing on EVERYTHING) not let me down.

What if someone needs that gear for an alternate character?

The Marauder in the original post was rolling on the item to use the item. Well to wear it.

The item this thread was about was not BoP.

Your heals are irrelevant after the boss is dead. This is nothing more than a straw man argument used in some vain hope that someone will go "OMG, I'll give him everything cuz his heals suxxorz" outs.

Morality is inbuilt into the system, as is further shown by the use of morally loaded words like "Need" and "Greed" to distinguish the choices. The system is all about honesty, civility, courtesy and letting one's greed be subordinate to someone else's need (as per the class they are playing).

I'm not happy with the 'ninja' comment though, as it was not ninja'ing at all. But lots of people tent to use that term in many many different ways.

Exactly, but how are you going to be able to tell?

Again, people keep missing out on the obvious.

Everyone gets a chance to roll, but the person who rolls "Need" gets a higher chance than the person who rolls "Greed", right?

Now why on earth would BioWare implement such a system, bearing in mind:-

You cannot ensure that whoever has pressed "Need" pressed it HONESTLY and wasn't just taking advantage of the higher chance with a "Need" roll to maximise their chances of getting the item so they can just sell it?

But guess what?

You can darn well see what class they're playing.

The Need/Greed system has a function - otherwise BW could just as easily implement a straight roll in which everybody has the same chance.

And that function is (and logically can only be) twofold:-

1) to ensure as much as possible in a situation of freedom, but given courtesy and politeness, that classes which benefit from an item of gear are more likely to get that gear, but also

2) to enable players to check each others' honesty, and for people who consistently ninja to be identifiable and blackballable on that server.

This is why WoW implemented a "hard" Need/Greed system concurrently with the cross-server LFG tool (with patch 3.3):- when you have a cross-server tool, the community-self-monitoring function of the Need/Greed system goes out the window, so you might as well hard-code it that classes can only roll for what they Need, because dishonesty can no longer be monitored by a server's community when people from all servers can just nip in and out and ninja costlessly.

IOW, you can be absolutely guaranteed that if BW ever implement a cross-server LFG tool, they will at the same time make "Need" greyed out for non-appropriate classes (or some equivalent mechanism).

Now I agree that with a game like this, that Orange gear and Companions do complicate the issue - it's not quite so clear-cut as some of the hardliners here would have it, I agree. Perhaps the system could be cleverer in some ways. It may be that BW haven't quite thought through the ramifications of these two complications yet, as they've had bigger fish to fry to get the game up and running.

But it's just not credible to keep claiming that the purpose and function of the Need/Greed system is not obviously (and traditionally) in place to serve the two functions above.

Morality is inbuilt into the system, as is further shown by the use of morally loaded words like "Need" and "Greed" to distinguish the choices. The system is all about honesty, civility, courtesy and letting one's greed be subordinate to someone else's need (as per the class they are playing).

It's not about people like you, who take need when they want. I am sure you do it for the right reasons and are honest while doing so. But I can't describe otherwise a man who need on EVERY item that is looted EVERY time he can do so. That's greed - boosted by the fact that he simply did use need to win items over all other party members - if I ever saw greedy person. While I can respect your opinion I wouldn't respect person like described above.