Selecting need for loot

apples and oranges.

its the person behind the avatar who chooses how to behave when grouped with others. its the specific avatar they used that contributed to the run. not some avatar they have elsewhere. this specific avatar.

you seem to have a huge problem with people saying that social conventions should be followed and if they aren't - person who breaks them suffers the consequences. you are saying that they should be able to chose as they wish and get the same consideration. that there are no in game actual laws against it and therefore - its fine.

real life example for you. you visit a synagogue during services. if you are male - you wear no yarmulke. if you are a female - you come in wearing pants. there is no law against either, naturally. but you are visiting a temple and you are told that this is not good. you should be wearing a yarmulka, you should be wearing a skirt bellow the knees. you refuse, claiming that its infringes on your personal rights, your choice of clothing. you are asked to leave. escorted out. do you continue to argue or do you accept that you broke social conventions, even after being told about them, you insisted on breaking them and therefore regardless of actual legality - you getting kicked out was completely and utterly understandable and justified?

it all comes down to basic courtesy, really. and if you don't like unwritten rules? announce at the start of the run the rules YOU are playing by, so that everyone else is aware of them and can adjust accordingly. and/or kick you out. to avoid any misunderstandings.

it is unfortunate that the best solution to the problem of need/greed is not communication, not mutual courtesy, but "just give everyone the same piece of loot and remove rolls all together"

What a complete load of ARSE. As long as your gear isn't more than 10 lvls behind you're fine. You get planetary comms don't you? Kit your comps out in those.

These people that think that because it's there & available are like the same lot that get paid sick leave scrapped because they see it as extra holidays & use it every time possible, while thinking of others that don't as fools.

Unless you've found some way to transfer in game items into RL, it's the pixelated figure who equips the gear. It's the person behind the pixelated figure on the other hand who makes the decision to put equipping their pets ahead of or equal to allowing the other players to equip their characters. Nothing ironic about it.

Let's do an experiment to see exactly how much that avatar contributes to a boss kill or even the instance as a whole. The next time you are in an instance, let your avatar do all the work, do not even touch a key. Then tell me how much your avatar contributed, and if the rest of the group even let's you stay or if they vote to kick you. After that tell me again how it is the avatar and not the PERSON who contributes.

Regarding your analogy, if a person is escorted out of an establishment for violating "social convention" I would expect that it would be management (in game this would the gm's) asking that person to leave and escorting them out, not the other patrons (in game this would be the rest of the group).

As you say communication is the easiest solution, but that communication should be a two way communication.

As for "the best solution" being giving everyone the same piece of loot, why would that be a problem? Would it offend you if someone else were to get a new shiny in addition to you?

People are free to "need" for anything they want. It's not the typical practice and it's not considered consistent with social etiquette on these sorts of games. Most other players will not want to group up with you if you do that stuff. So,are you free to act selfishly for your own personal interest? Absolutely. But you're not running solo when you're joining up flashpoints and groups. Therefore, don't act shocked if there are consequences.

I just got out of a flashpoint where a Jedi Guardian kept asking whether he could need on things which weren't his class. We all said okay and were fine with that. That's really the generally accepted way to do it. If you ask, most people probably won't care unless they really need the gear too. Of course, the last piece of loot in the flashpoint was a Columi chestpiece token for a Jedi Consular and I actually needed that for my Sage who just turned 50 recently. He didn't ask that time and selected need too and won the roll. At that point, it isn't worth throwing a hissyfit over it. It's not like it was some rare, super-valuable piece of gear. I just him threw on my ignore list solely to ensure that I don't end up getting grouped with him in future queues, because I don't care to play with people who play the game selfishly like that when grouped up. It was his prerogative to need on items throughout the flashpoint and it's my prerogative to make sure I don't end up grouped with him again. Life goes on. But if you want to need on everything and break social conventions, then don't be shocked when your group finder queues take longer and longer as more and more people have you blocked from being queued with them.

no, they are asked/escorted by offended patrons. seeing as its a community thing.

person controlling the avatar contributed, but it was a specific avatar. not some other avatar they have elsewhere, this specific avatar in this specific group,using that avatar's specific abilities. think of it as all you can eat buffet. you cannot take things "to go, for a friend, family member, whatever" in those either.

communication is a 2 way street. but do you honestly expect people to announce "need if upgrade, greed everything else" every single run? you'd think that most people would know it by now. not to mention lets say, someone doesn't in fact know (it happens) - so you tell them, this is how things are normally done, and they decide to ignore it anyways.
there are some things that are just assumed, because they are widespread and well known. like keeping it down at the library. you shouldn't have to be constantly repeatedly told. you communicate extra when you decide to go against the default. why is this such a difficult concept for some of you to grasp?

last but not least, you misunderstand. what makes me sad is not the fact that others will get a shiny - I'm happy when people get shinies (unless they deliberately and selfishly deprive other people from fair chance at those shinies, but silently changing the loot rolls on them). the sad part is people being unable to stick to social conventions and being courteous to each other without some sort of enforcement that takes the choice out of their hands in place. because it highlights "mememe" mentality vs community oriented one that we've been falling into more and more lately.

Then your experiences have been different than mine. Every time I've been in an establishment where there was a rude patron, someone violating "social convention", if any of the other patrons attempted to take matters into their own hands, those patrons ended up being the ones escorted out by management, not the rude patron. On the other hand, if the other patrons chose to ask the establishment management to do something, then the offender either has to change or is asked to leave and escorted out.

If I walk into a store, leaving my family in the car, (aka my companions sitting on my ship), and buy 1 gallon of vegetable soup, I pay for the entire gallon. My family made no contribution, did not pay a single cent, and do not even have to come in to store. The fact that I paid for the soup means that if it is mine to do with as I please. I can eat the whole gallon, I can give it to you or I can give it to my family in the car. I paid for it, not some faceless avatar. You can try to separate the player from the avatar until the cows come home, but in the end it is simply trying to justify taking advantage of another person's efforts. You all contributed to the boss kill. I think it is just as wrong for one person to say "I know that shiny wouldn't exist without your contribution, but you can't have that, I want it for my faceless avatar" as it is for someone to say "I know that shiny wouldn't exist without your contribution, but you can't have that because I want it for the faceless avatar in my ship" In your own words, "why is this such a difficult concept for some of you to grasp?"

Communication is key. Why not take the time up front to make sure that everyone is on the same page? Does it really take that long to type "need for character only"? Isn't 15 seconds of your time worth eliminating the drama? I know that most of the time the answer is going to be "well, duh". There will be those times when someone doesn't know, or really wants a particular piece for their companion, and the drama can be stopped before it ever happens. Will you have some that agree to the "social convention" and then violate it anyway? sure, and those players deserve to be kicked. There is a difference between kicking or otherwise punishing someone whom you know to be aware of the loot rules because everyone agreed to them before the run started and kicking or otherwise punishing someone whom you only ASSUME knows the loot rules you are expecting to be in place. Communication goes both ways. It should never be an excuse that "everyone knows".

You have the option to try to make change in your own little part of the world, either the real world or the virtual in game world. Communication is a great place to start. You might even surprise yourself and find a few more people in game to add to your friends list. One of them might even be me.

Your justifications and high minded arguments are absurd. The reason you succeed on a need roll for a companion is because the vast majority of the player base is following the social convention and choosing greed. You are not some person standing up for the minority, you are abusing the attempt of the majority to be as even handed with the drops as possible.

Equating behavior and following social conventions on the internet and especially in a MMO to real life is a complete fallacy. In your example on the bus you are face to face with the other person and in view of a busload of other people. The pressure to follow social norms is far greater. Online people feel that they can behave as they like and ignore rules the do not like and there will be little to no consequences. We have seen this on the internet countless times.

It has been sorted out. The vast majority of the player base follows the convention of asking to need for a companion before hitting the need button. Miss the last 98 pages of this thread?

It is you who has chosen to ignore the agreed upon rule. Get off your high horse and realize that you want to ignore the rules that almost all follow for you own selfish needs. Expecting everyone else to renegotiate the rules every time you enter a FP or OP to suite your needs is not an enlightened position. You and Ratajak are putting yourselves out there as the standard bearer's for the oppressed minority and are really just spouting justifications for ignoring a rule you do not like for you own needs. Get over it.

First of all, the bus full of people was NOT my example. I was responding to another poster's example. Please, at least get your facts straight.

In real life on that bus in front of a busload of people, if that one person is rude and does not give up his seat, the rest of the bus is much more likely to just accept it rather than cause a scene, so it works both ways. pot, meet kettle.

If you actually bothered to read my posts and look at them OBJECTIVELY, you would know that I do not abuse the rest of the group's choice to roll greed. Again, get your facts straight before you make baseless accusations.