14/06/2010

Three reasons why not looting in instances is bad team play

This is an old subject, but it came up again when I was chatting with some of my guildies last night.

Personally I don't understand people who don't loot their kills. Ever since questing in the area around Northshire Abbey for the first time conditioned me to find sparkling corpses interesting, I've simply found the lure of the sparkle irresistable. I hate having to leave things behind because I ran out of bag space and will often destroy something that's already in my bag just so I can loot the new drop and make the sparkles go away. Moving on while ignoring them just won't do!

However, I realise that's just me. Obviously everyone is free to handle these things in whichever way they want when they play on their own. However, once you step into an instance group things change in my eyes. I'm continually amazed by the amount of people who just don't bother clicking on the sparkles at all. Once upon a time I might have asked people to loot so I can skin the mobs or whatever, but since it's become so frequent these days and people are always in such a hurry I don't find it worth the hassle of arguing anymore. Nonetheless the fact remains that I simply consider not looting all the mobs in an instance very bad form. Mainly there are three reasons for this:

1. Gold still has value

Money has never been as easy to come by in WoW as it is now, and I think that the poor raider who can't pay for his repair bills at the end of the night is a thing of the past. Dedicated goblins will even hit the gold cap repeatedly, but I dare say that they are a minority in the overall playerbase. For the average player, earning gold is at least still relevant, and there's almost always another goal to sink gold into, whether it's epic flying for all ten of your level eighties or a stable of mammoths.

So even if you personally don't need any more gold, there's a good chance that several people in your instance run are still saving, and by not looting all the mobs you're denying them money. I'll admit that it's a bit of a silly system - since any looted gold automatically gets distributed equally among all party members, why does it matter who loots it anyway? Still, fact of the matter is that only the person who the dead mob was assigned to can actually take its money - which means that if you decide not to click on a mob that has five gold on it, not only are you passing on one gold for yourself, you're also depriving all the other party members of one gold each. They don't get an option to not share their loot with you without hurting themselves, but you deny them their part. Nice.

To be fair, a regular instance mob generally won't be dropping five gold, but even if it's only a bunch of silver, that adds up over a whole instance run and then over the course of dozens of instances.

2. You do like those shiny epics, don't you?

I saw an off-hand comment in a thread on the official forums where someone claimed that after being the only person left in a completed heroic Pit of Saron run, he went back and looted any corpses that people had ignored before and that hadn't despawned yet, and one of them had a battered hilt on it. I don't know whether that's a true story or not, but I thought it was amusing. I wonder how many groups there are in which none of the party members bother to loot anything and miss out on a whole bunch of stuff? But hey, at least they all agree on it.

However, if you've got at least one person in the group who clicks on all the sparkles he sees, items of uncommon or greater rarity will always pop up for rolls. Funny how all those people who "don't care" for loot are still happy to make a bid for stuff that someone else dug up. They could just pass if they really didn't care, right? Let the ones who need the money have it! But no, they still do like money, they just can't be bothered to even put the tiniest bit of effort in to grab it themselves. Let the others loot gold and items for them but don't contribute to the pool yourself.

And yes, I realise it's pretty bizarre when we talk about looting as if it's more work than actually killing the mobs. Unfortunately that's how far we've come these days.

3. Give those professions some love!

One of the little perks of many professions is that they allow you to gain extra crafting-related loot off certain corpses. Many beasts can be skinned, treants and flowers can be herbed, constructs can be mined or salvaged for engineering parts, humanoids can be scavenged for additional cloth if you're a tailor. Except, here's the catch: it only works if they've been fully looted by their rightful owner first. Fat chance of that happening, eh? But why not? Why deny the other people in the party their profession perks? If you were a tailor, wouldn't you also want to gather as much cloth as the game allows? Even if you have a different profession like jewelcrafting, you wouldn't have got that design off heroic Anub'arak on your own either, would you?

Cooperation is a great thing, and two seconds to do your share of looting is hardly asking for much.*

*Then again, I had a healer in heroic Pit of Saron complain today because I pulled an extra mob so someone else could finish the quest to free the slaves. OMG, how dare I waste his time time like that!

15 comments:

  1. I always loot all mobs unless I'm tanking. When I'm on my tank I'll never loot anything.

    The reason is simple. I have to stay at the front of the group. If I stop walking for a split second a stupid DD or healer WILL pull the next mob. It's not a chance that it might happen. It's a rule these days. The person at the front of the pack pulls. It's much more work to collect the mobs all back up then if you would have been the one pulling the group. And much less fun, most of the time. Letting someone die is not an option for me as it just makes the run longer and slower.

    Looting throughout a 5 man is worth 20-30g per person, mostly from the gray weapons. I am aware of the fact that I pay these 20g whenever I tank an instance to be allowed to do my job. But whatever, I either pay 20g and have fun or not run a dungeon at all. Running a dungeon and not having fun is not an option for me.

    And when I'm on my paladin there is the additional fact that I have 14 seconds to hit the next mob which just is not enough time to allow for looting in between pulls.

    And regarding to skinning. I completely stop looting in VH if we have a skinner in the group because skinning the dragons takes about as long as killing them. A person skinning all trash in VH is doing 0 dps on all trash and about as much worth as an afk person. Sorry but please don't skill your weapon skill in my group, don't go afk and do not invest more time in your trade skill in a dungeon then in killing stuff. :-)

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  2. WTB tank who gives enough time to loot before the next pull ;-)

    Actually, it's not too hard to find time now on heroic runs, but as a recent levelling healer I remember needing every spare second to drink before the next pull, and there just never seemed to be time to loot until everyone else had left.

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  3. Of course, I'll stand right next to the healer if he sits down to eat a snack. If a DD pulls while my healer is eating, they're going to die. But these days a healer rarely drops below 99% mana. :)

    It has to do with respect to let a healer finish his snack when he thinks he needs mana.

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  4. Kring took the words right out of my mouth, except I usually manage to skin AND do good dps in VH :P you see, even as the portal spawns, there's still a few seconds before the mobs actually emerge - its to give everyone time to get into position...that's when I skin. (well that and between boss portals :) )

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  5. @Kring: I can understand the tank's dilemma, but the more you hurry, the worse it gets - people who would like to go a bit more slowly will feel stressed out too and so on. I always loot even when tanking and while people fidget occasionally when I dare to do as much as take two steps back to loot a mob behind me, they mostly seem to adjust to it well.

    And your VH tactic seems harsh. What if the healer is the skinner? And it doesn't really make much difference either way if the dps is so high that all mobs die within the couple of seconds it takes to skin a few mobs.

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  6. @Kring
    If DPS want to pull, let them. Tanks always pull, ergo DPS who pull are just really, really bad tanks. It's not your responsibility to carry them. So they die and things slow down. The solution isn't to avoid them dying. The solution is to ENJOY them dying.

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  7. I actually had an issue with having enough time to loot in an instance today and I had to say something to the tank. I should be allowed to loot, because as you say, gold still matters to people who aren't swimming in it.

    A copper saved is a copper earned, imo. I will pick up the grey items that people leave on the corpses and at the end of the run, all those greys sell quite nicely.

    And, as you mention, you can get patterns or some nice epic drops off of some things that you wouldn't think would drop anything of use. Surprises are always nice.

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  8. I used to take looting for granted when I did 5-mans on my mage or my rogue. Nowadays I'm only pugging either on my healing druid or on my tanking druid, I loot very little. Especially on the healer, there's just no time to do it.
    On the healer, I have to spend the little time I have between pulls - if any at all - drinking desperately. What is even worse is that this druid is a skinner. No skinning for a healer, I just tell you. I will never again pick skinning as a profession for a resto. It's a very, very bad idea.

    But even on the tank I get in trouble. If I just stop pulling for a sec, running back to loot something, inevitably some dps will get impatient starting to pull mobs and I'll have a complete mess to clear up. I don't want that. So I don't loot.


    So yeah, I'm a non-looter and I think I have good reasons for it.
    Looting as a tank or healer in a pug is to ask for trouble. That's the harsh truth.

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  9. I'd like to get the Guild Wars approach in WoW where you get a pop-up bag at the end of a mission with all the loot you didn't loot and you can pick it up and move it into your bag without having to decide what to destroy while fighting.

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  10. > except I usually manage to skin AND do good dps in VH :P
    > you see, even as the portal spawns, there's still a few
    > seconds before the mobs actually emerge - its to give
    > everyone time to get into position...that's when I skin.
    > (well that and between boss portals :) )

    That's exactly the point. I don't mind that you skin. I do mind
    that some people don't contribute to the group effort and skin
    all 4 dragons before they join the next group. I feel abused
    when people prioritize their personal goal over the group
    effort. But you do it correct. Skin 1 or 2 dragons as time permits
    and the remaining after the boss fight. That's the correct way
    and I don't mind people doing it that way. I do mind the player
    waiting for the healer to loot the last corpse so he can skin it
    while the group is already fighting the next portal.

    > @Kring: I can understand the tank's dilemma, but the more you
    > hurry, the worse it gets - people who would like to go a bit more
    > slowly will feel stressed out too and so on.

    I do enjoy chain-pulling, if the group allows it.

    I completely do not enjoy cleaning up pulls made by DD or healer.

    > And your VH tactic seems harsh. What if the healer is the skinner?

    I don't mind, weaves in VH are not able to kill any decent tank.
    A single HoT in between waves is more then enough. I do mind if the
    healer doesn't heal DD (the caster in VH have random damage) and they
    have to eat instead of killing the next wave because the healer is
    either trying to do damage or skinning. :)

    > And it doesn't really make much difference either way if the dps
    > is so high that all mobs die within the couple of seconds it takes
    > to skin a few mobs.

    That's right. It all boils down to respect. When I'm tanking, I'm
    supposed to do my job 100% of the time. I can't just skip a wave to
    answer a phone call or skin some mobs. Therefore I expect the same
    from you. If you don't concentrate on the group goal for 15 minutes
    you're abusing me. I don't like that.

    > The solution isn't to avoid them dying. The solution is to
    > ENJOY them dying.

    Every tank handles that differently. My goal is to finish the dungeon
    as fast and as clean as possible. That's the role I've selected and
    that's what I enjoy doing. (And if you ask me to do Eck, we'll do Eck.)
    If you don't stand behind me, I'll stand in front of you. :)

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  11. If you don't concentrate on the group goal for 15 minutes you're abusing me.

    I agree that people shouldn't go on announced AFKs and the like, but looting and skinning is a matter of seconds. Judging the other party members by the second is no different than the dps thinking the tank fails if he's not pulling for two seconds. You'd think someone's life depended on finishing the instance as fast as possible or something...

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  12. As I said I don't mind if you do it fast.

    But most skinner are very inefficient and in I think it's rude. If you haven't done any damage to the first few waves you should notice that maybe you shouldn't skin them all and help the team.

    Probably I'm just overreacting as for me VH is the worst instance (afer Oculus). Their single room design just asks for people to go afk unnoticed and it happens a lot in there. Plus disconnects can screw the whole work you've done the last 10 minutes.

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  13. I wish more people would remember to loot. Every green is DUST. Not just if there's an enchanter currently in group, but you can take your greed greens and have them DE'ed later. That's dust I'm gonna need when I get an upgrade in my leet raid later and discover that one enchant costs 30 infinite dust.

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  14. I find the lack of looting ridiculous moreso in dungeons below heroics than the badge grind, 15-minute dungeons. I just got to Northrend and I'm still leveling LW, so skinning is valuable, but people can;t be bother to loot the drakes in UK, which just so happen to occasionally drop really nice scales. I wonder if some people just don't know that gatherers can only get their goods if the mob is already looted?

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  15. I try to loot but it's occasionally dangerous a healer - the half second it takes you, after all, is the half-second in which the undergeared will run into the next room, out of line of sight, and PULL EVERYTHING. Gah :(

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