Anyone who has been in a group instance or raid probably has a story (or five) about loot gone bad: loot you missed out on, loot the raid leader ninja’d, loot you really, really, really wanted but someone “accidentally” rolled on even though it wasn’t for their class and is bind on acquire, and so on.
This happened to me last night and the wound is still raw, so I thought I’d come to CSTM to share my pain as well as give CSTM readers some solace in that whatever has happened to them, it’s happened to others as well. Feel free to share your own stories in the comments below.
Last night, I was in a group running Siege of Gondamon as a level 85 skirm-raid with 8 kinmates and 4 people the leader PUG’d. At the end of it, we get a Tarnished Symbol of Celebrimbabbillybobwhateverthehellhisnameisbor.1
We roll, and the random number generates a 93.
Ha, take that suckers!2
I had a good feeling about this . . . at least until one of my kinmates in the raid also came up with a 93. We’re the high two, so we do a /roll off.
You can probably guess what I /roll on the second try, right?
FYI: The other guy rolled a 63.
I roll and the random number generator decides to show its true colours and kick me right in the jimmy: 8.
It would have been my preference to get the 8 on the first roll rather than the second.3 At least then, the random number generator wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up only to crush them like a two year-old taking apart a tower of Lego Duplos.4
It’s like in college when you go out with that hawt girl from Econ 2204 and the first date goes really well, but the next time you go out, right when you’re about to make your move and slide into second base, she tells you that she’s thinking about getting back together with her old boyfriend.
So you slink back to your dorm room/apartment and have a “no pride” night that starts with a bottle of Southern Comfort and ends with you waking up in Tijuana naked next to a half-empty quart of 5W-30 motor oil, a box of BBs and a one-legged Bolivian midget.5
At least a kinmate got the Symbol, not some schlep we PUG’d from GLFF.
So that’s just the latest time the random number generator has ripped the (virtual) heart from my (virtual) chest and stomped on it in front of me. If you have your own story, please share it here, and know that whatever has happened to you, there is someone else out there who has a sorrier tale than you.
- I really, really, really wanted the Tarnished Symbol, because I’d like a shiny, new level 85 Second Age LI, but I’m not lucky like one of my kinmates who got two in two days from killing Bugud. On the bright side, I have enough banners and pennants from killing Bugud to fill my personal house, a kin house and clothe half of Bree. ↩
- To truly appreciate this, you should understand my troubled history with the /roll function. One week, I ran Draigoch on 3 of my 75s and my rolls for the scales were 2, 1, and 7. It also likes to generate numbers like 88 or 93, but only when the winning roll is 89 or 94. ↩
- I have also recently lost a fantasy football matchup by 0.26 points, which the way this league scores, is one person running or receiving for 3 yards or passing for 6. I would rather get blown out by 50 points than lose by 0.26. ↩
- I swear to god I could hear it laughing at me! ↩
- What? That’s never happened to you? ↩
November 22, 2012 at 10:38 am
That is rough! I remember doing one of the Enedwaith 3-man, doing DPS on my loremaster. This was literally a week before Isengard launched. I was a little behind in gear, and it would have been nice to get some initial leveling gear on my LM (third toon). So a Will ring drops. The captain wins it. I told the captain afterwards that captains are going to might as a main stat in Isengard and will would be useless. He said “oh ok.” Later a will item drops and the captain rolls on it and wins it again. I grit my teeth and ask him why he rolled on it. He said that it was better than what he had. Sigh. The final straw was on the last boss when a light armor piece with will dropped and he rolled and won it! As you can tell, a year later and I’m still bitter.
Luckily, now that I am playing SWTOR, I am the only smuggler in my raid group, so when something drops, I win it by default. Also, and I would love it if they implemented this in LOTRO, SWTOR has a two-hour delayed binding mechanism, allowing for mis-rolls.
November 23, 2012 at 8:13 pm
That captain was an idiot, I hope they really enjoyed the worthless loot they won from you.
November 22, 2012 at 11:02 am
WoW developed a similar system for trading “misrolled” loot within a group for a set time after the drop was collected.
System for weighting drops that swtor had was pretty good as it meant you had a theoretically better chance of seeing the drops for your class if not winning them.
Generally though when something thats useful for me drops I get single digit rolls exceptions to that being a 25man dragon boss mount and the firebird from the revamped ragnaros where I got a 100 both times. But when I was raiding in wow the only time rolls came into effect were for stuff like that where the guild didnt use dkp to decide.
Thankfully most pug skirm raids run with a master looter so it’s less likely that people win offstatted items (or ninja rolls)
November 22, 2012 at 12:12 pm
I almost always roll between 30 and 80, which usually places me 3rd to 9th in the loot order. Now while it is true that I have won shiny loot in the past, we’re talking perhaps 5 times in 5 years. The other day a new tarnished symbol dropped in a skraid and guess what I rolled…that’s right, 80. Of course, the winning roll was 96 (someone always rolls between 95 and 100 – usually the same 3 lucky people over and over) and second was an 89.
Honestly, while I’m happy for the people who achieve their loot goals within a week of new content, I do wish there were an alternate way to determine the winners (beyond player instituted frameworks like a kinship point system or spreadsheet madness). Blind luck is…problematic at best.
November 22, 2012 at 12:18 pm
“At least a kinmate got the Symbol, not some schlep we PUG’d from GLFF.”
By ‘schlep’ you mean that other player/s invited to joined your raid by the leader as a PUG and helped make up a raid team so you could raid?
I understand your pain as RNG can play out that way but if your kin relies on PUGs’ to make up their raid groups then those players have just as much right to drops as any other player.
November 22, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Aside from my own personal disappointment at not winning the shiny loot at the end, I don’t begrudge anyone–kin or not–for having better luck with the random number generator than me.
But all things being equal, I’d rather have a schlep from my kin win the big loot at the end than a schlep we PUG’d from GLFF.
November 22, 2012 at 12:50 pm
My kin would do a T2 lightning usually every week. We would always be short 1 or 2 people and have to pug those slots. For about a month and a half straight nobody in the kin could roll higher than the pugs. We were supplying all of the puggers on our servers with first ages. It gets a little frustrating when no one in the group has a nice item to show for our hard work.
November 22, 2012 at 12:55 pm
The RNG hates me, too much even to get my hopes up by giving me halfway decent rolls. Most of the time, I’m rolling something less than 10, unless it’s on the junk rolls after the “good” loot has been distributed. I typically end up winning because I’m the only one rolling on the item.
Every now and then, it’ll throw me a bone: a few days ago, I ran a Ringwraith’s Gate skraid on my LM, and we got the lvl 85 Western Seas Navigation Chart out of the chest. I rolled a 94. Then the guard rolls a 96, but the leader refused to give it to him and passed it to me. I don’t expect to win anything else for a long, long time.
November 22, 2012 at 4:30 pm
I have no problem with the roll of the dice or who end up getting it. I hate watching a group where sau in turtle one of those first age items comes up and someone from a differing class wins it and then 5 mins later it is for sale on GLFF. I have also rolled on a item like that I didn’t need and won it. After I realised I gave it straight to the guy in the group who actually needed it.
It comes down to values and standards of people. LOTRO reflects that we don’t share the same just as in real life.
November 22, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Oh my. Now I’m bitter about that captain in your group and I wasn’t even there!
November 23, 2012 at 2:01 am
On rare occasions RNG likes me. In a skraid we got a 75 cele. My kinmate rolled a 99. Guess what! 100! Even without the horseshoe
November 23, 2012 at 2:31 am
RNG loves me. i really can’t complain, i never raid to sell stuff in AH just to get my gear. and because RNG loves me, after a while i just end up raiding to pass on all loot
)
however, my main problem was finding groups for draigoch (this was a year ago). i used to raid with some guys that were all in a kin and i was the outsider. everytime it was the same: you’ll get the scales next time when you raid with us, now’s this guy’s turn. keep in mind that this went on for a bit, 10 – 15 runs, during which i got no cloak. i can understand the need to gear up your kin, but hey, let’s be fair to the idiots that are helping you every goddamn time – i was usually on my healer back then.
you cannot imagine the amount of frustration involved when you’re a somewhat casual raider in a non-raiding kin. you’re always the outsider in any serious raid (not talking about skirms here). you get passed over every time when it comes to loot, but you can’t realy stop because you need that armor / scale / symbol and it’s the only way to get it. it’s infuriating, week after week, trying to get something that’s just out of reach.
eventually, i had to leave the kin i was in. it was getting too frustrating to even play. and i was damn sorry to leave those guys, because they were really, really, really nice guys – they just didn’t share my interest in raiding. few were of lvl 75, and half of those were usually in the moors. the others ended up leaving too. so that’s when i joined a raid-oriented kin and got the cloak on the first try because everyone else already had it. needless to say, i’m still there, and i’m not planning on leaving, like, ever. the guys still raid almost daily, and when i’ll be 85 i’ll join them. but the best part is – there’s no pressure!
November 23, 2012 at 2:42 am
Back on Imladris, back during SoM, I was in a mostly kin run, where we pugged out a warden for the Halls of Crafting.
We make it to the end, and the anvil drops (remember the pretty, pretty anvil?) The warden wins the roll, then asks to use it.
./inspect, the warden has the flask from SG equipped.
November 23, 2012 at 3:14 am
So about that Bolivian midget…
November 23, 2012 at 4:00 pm
My memories of this event are hazy at best, and this was (to show my age) back in the days before cell phone cameras and even pagers. Remember those times? When people did the same stupid things they’re doing today but there was no Facebook or Twitter to let everyone in the world know about it.
Her name was Consuela and even though she had a Ph.D. in cryophysics, she was working as a “dancer” in Tijuana while she saved up enough money to pursue her lifelong dream of being a Tina Turner impersonator in Branson, MO.
After waking up, we had a nice breakfast at a cafe in San Diego’s Gaslamp quarter, then went our separate ways and I haven’t seen her since.
November 26, 2012 at 10:44 am
*applause* Just for the amount of thought and effort you put into this one. Well played.
Unless that actually happened, in which case…were you enough of a gentleman to pay for breakfast?
November 26, 2012 at 1:29 pm
A buddy of mine had to spot me $20 to buy breakfast.
Apparently, the night before, we had pooled all of our cash to see Consuela’s version of the ping pong ball trick, which also featured a set of Channellocks, a Pez dispenser and two strings of Christmas lights.
It’s too bad I don’t remember that part. My friends tell me she was very impressive.
November 23, 2012 at 4:23 am
Hahaha, oh yes how well I know that problem. But as far as mean computers go, my one really tried to top it. I constantly roll so called ‘Leah rolls’. (nickname for my char’s rolls). They usually range between 2 and 24. So at one sage we did DN and the raid leader said (voice dripping with pity
), “okay for the next gem the lowest roll wins”. I thought; ‘hey that will be my gem, make no mistake.’.
Guess what. I rolled a 89. WTF???? I was near tears and on the verge of giving my pc a good kick in a really sensitive area.
November 23, 2012 at 5:10 am
you could always try /roll 1000, guaranteed win
Whether you’ll be invited next time is another story…
November 24, 2012 at 8:43 am
One of my kin mates did a /roll 1000 for S&Gs, and rolled a 1.
November 24, 2012 at 8:42 am
“”I really, really, really wanted the Tarnished Symbol, because I’d like a shiny, new level 85 Second Age LI, but I’m not lucky like one of my kinmates who got two in two days from killing Bugud. On the bright side, I have enough banners and pennants from killing Bugud to fill my personal house, a kin house and clothe half of Bree. ↩
To truly appreciate this, you should understand my troubled history with the /roll function. One week, I ran Draigoch on 3 of my 75s and my rolls for the scales were 2, 1, and 7. It also likes to generate numbers like 88 or 93, but only when the winning roll is 89 or 94. ↩”"
^ That, in a nut shell, is my entire experience with the generator.
November 24, 2012 at 1:21 pm
My bags are always full… so I have to be selective on what I roll for. One friend/kinmate sells everything quickly, has tons of space and auto loots… and on rolls, will roll for any and everything that comes up unless we yell at him first or in advance about a specific item. It’s annoying. My rolls pretty much average “lose”.
November 26, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Yeah, I know the feeling. I ran Draigoch so many times I can’t even tell you, and NEVER ONCE won a roll for scales. The only reason I got a cloak on one of my 75s was that a wonderfully generous kinnie took pity on me and gave me some extras she had lying around. /facepalm