Tons of runs, for not a lotta loots...
An interesting forum topic has popped up on the World of Warcraft general forum today. It reflects on the amount of time we spend trying to gain one or two specific pieces of loot, only to have the gods of random drop-rates look unfavorably down upon us.
It is a vicious cycle of farming that has eaten away at hours upon hours of our lives, but we still do it. We still go after that one elusive item that taunts us from the virtual nether. "I have a 25% drop rate, but you can run this place a hundred times and never see me! Mwahahaha!..."
Players are recalling their 50+ runs for class chest from Upper Blackrock Spire, or their class helm from Scholomance. Mindtap Talisman seems to be a recurring theme, as well as the Tidal Charm. My worst experience was on my 67th run through UBRS for my Lightforge Shoulders from The Beast. They finally dropped, everyone congratulated me, and then the fury warrior rolled need. Ah well, water under the bridge as they say, especially since in my first Botanica run, I received the Spaulders of the Righteous.
Some would say, "if it doesn't drop this time, it has a better chance of dropping next time." Of course this isn't true. If you flip a coin 99 times and it comes up heads each time, what are the chances that it will be heads again? 50%, the same as that first flip. Many people suggest that blizzard should impliment a more intuitive loot system, that would at least check the classes that are there. For example, a wand would not drop if there were no mages, locks, or priests in the group; or, the Gloves of the Fallen Champion would not drop if a rogue, paladin, or shaman was not present.
I wonder what the new generation of players feel is an unreasonable wait-time for their level 70 class pieces. They might be even more upset, because they didn't know to expect this because they hadn't had to do this before with their Tier 0 (now Dungeon Set 1), Tier 1, and Tier 2. At least Blizzard implemented the token system to get the better class gear, to avoid the troubles of disenchanting class pieces while other people get nothing.
Have you run a dungeon an inconceivable number of times for an item? What is it, and how long has it taken you?
