Main Looters you SuckFollow

While there is always a risk of ML cheating in pick up group, you can avoid this obviously by volunteering. In my experience, most people avoid being ML (had groups already kill 3-4 mobs and still arguing about who had to do it). I have been ML a number of times as a last resort and I can tell you from experience some mobs drop less or nothing compared to others - shadows, bats, and spiders in MM seem to have a lot less than vampires and werewolves for example. Also, the type of loot varies - merchant trash vs. weapons and gems can impact split if group leaves after finishing adventure rather than staying to clean up. Played 8 times over the weekend (low 30s or mid 40s) and splits went from a low of 29 plat to over 60 plat. With regard to ML selling with low char, group can overcome this by bufs or loaning steins - though group should figure this out before selecting ML. Finally, my chanter has 150 char and boosting this has no impact on price in my experience.

I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of people saying loot has dropped in LDoN.

I group with a couple RL friends and we have been doing low 50's adventures for some time now. We basically go just until we win the adventure, which is now taking us about 45 min. Used to take us longer, but I think that is mostly because we just killed slower. Our splits used to range from 50-100pp per person per adventure have dropped to the sort of 30-60pp range.

However, I have noted an increase in agument drops: right after release, there seemed to be lots dropping, but after about a week or two it seemed to go *way* down. Now we are getting way more. We could literally go 3-4 adventures and not get a single augment to drop. Average of maybe one every 2 missions. (Again, we are just playing until we win, no overtime). Now I would say our average is a little less than 2/mission so increased by a factor of 4.

I can't really comment about the rate of good tradable gear dropping. I think it is about constant - but it certainly seems lower but this may be because we switched from doing NRo mission to Everfrost missions. These things used to sell for maybe 1kpp in the bazaar. I have not won a roll for one recently thus I don't really know maybe there is a glut of them now. Anyhow, the 1kpp is way more than the, say, 50pp per person (*6 people = 300pp total per mission) thus if you win a roll on a drop you may be looking at more plat than you are going to see in like 20 missions! In this light, the drop rate of tradable goods used to totally dominate the cash for us. (We used to get stuff like the gemmed jeweled bow - so I'm not sure maybe there is sort of a glut of these now and they are not worth as much I have not checked lately.)

Also, we used to get some Sand Verbena drops in NRo, but the Ice Lichen drops in EF seem pretty low and we just get forages. The market for these seems pretty strong - although I do see loads of sand verbena for sale - perhaps it is just really easy to get? I don't think the NRo camp is really that popular on my server as compared with, say, BB (Mistmore) or the East Commons ones.

Back to the original topic of suckie ML, I did have a ML just totally rip us off once (go LD right after we won and exited the dungeon - along with his buddy) and I did eventually get the money back from him. All I can say is just list these people on your server message board - at least until you can contact them and get the money back. We really don't have a strong server board on Terris Thule (or do we and I don't know it? Correct me I hope to be wrong :) so I guess it's not as much of a threat there, but there are guild boards. Of course, we should include the circumstances of the linkdeath, because some people are going to have connection problems, and so I totally recommend stating what happened. If someone you read about on one of these threads is just jumping up and down to be ML for you, perhaps you should think twice about it - but in general you should be aware that one person's write up could be totally wrong.

Now a days, I just play with friends and guild and family about 90% of the time so I really don't have any trouble. Further, I always go for the deep pockets - if they are a member of a big guild it is unlikely that they want their reputation smeared by people flagrently just abdicating ML responsibilities - yet if the splits seem a bit low I think it is just the whole loot in LDoN being nerfed lately it is unlikely they actually steal.

I feel badly that clerics do foot the bill for temps and such, but at the same time, I can tell you that as a Wizard, I've never been reimbursed for a Spellshield, which costs a dot, never been reimbursed for disarming a trap, and the component for that costs 17p each. I guess in some ways it is a cost of me doing business, so to speak. But, I'll grant you, Clerics will be casting temp/aego/virt a lot more than i'll be casting spellshield. My policy is to try to remember to give the cleric in a pick-up group 2 dots. One for me one for him/herself, or it covers the cost of the group version of spell if I remember correctly. People should try to keep in mind before doing an adventure to either supply dots to the cleric or pay the 10ish plat.
As far as main looters, I have been seeing a downward trend in pick-up groups. I'll grant you that it seems like over-all splits have gotten lower, but, the splits have been a LOT lower in pick-up groups. I was in a group last night where the split was 30p. Possible, but unlikely in a lvl 60 average group. And this was after we lost our 6th player to LD mid-way through adventure, and our 5th player bailed before split. So, divided by 4, I especially take issue when the ML splits out something like this: 30p 30g 20s 20c. I mean, it's a happy coincidence if they have such a nice exact number to be able to split, but at the same time, it really raises a flag for me that they are not being completely honest about how much they are splitting, even if they are just rounding off. It's bad form. About half the time I do an LDoN pick-up group, something bad happens, and often it is something with the division of loot, LD ML, etc.
I suppose I should stick with guild groups, but that's not always possible. Ok, I've said my rambling peace.

All you really need to do, next time you *know* the ML is cheating you, is just to call them out in /group chat.

To do this, you need facts. Track the loots. Just a few gems ALONE equals at least a 50pp split for everyone in a 6-group, not including regular mob PP or crap items.

Hopefully their conscience or embarrasment will lead them to split more....Again, you'll have to say something like

"/g Person X, I saw you looted these gems -- Diamond, Ruby Crown, Fire Emerald, Ruby Ring -- and yet we're only getting 45pp each?"

Then blacklist them, or (if able) contact their guild officer.

Hm ok...I'm a cleric too. I have never and never will take anything off the top if I'm ML. But if you add up all the "free" temps/virt I've done it would round out to about 15k total up to now. That's about 1500 dots i've spent on people. So you don't really lose all that much technically...only 15k so far right.....

I don't ever ask for a donation so i suppose the money loss is my fault...and I fully accept it as something i do to help my group succeed(spending a lil loot for a group success, nice thing to do). But when people start getting annoying and calling clerics whiners and (blah blah blah) its your job suck it up (blah blah blah) i just wanna punch em in their mouths an tell em to stuff it. I didn't become a cleric to spend money and suck it up, i became a cleric to heal jo **** an keep YOU alive. hehe that's all =)

Thanks

Just thinking about my Rogue would account his costs for silver tipped arrows or poison used during an adventure ......people would ask me if i was braindead *lol*

I wouldn't go quite that far, I had a 230pp split in a 55 hard risk yesterday, and we didn't kill all the mobs. I haven't had a split under 80pp since 40 or so

I often get asked to ML, and I consider myself one of those peeps that you enjoy getting your split from. LDoN provides a very mixed split. The split you will get is very camp sensitive. If you want loot, I suggest you ensure you do kills or resuces, this will give you enuf time to accumulate those incrementals/stackable items.

A good ML, IMHO, also knows what could drop in zone, what its for and also what its worth. 65 groups get runes/words/pages dropping alot, although they are often duplicate. These small items that the ML can ask if group needs "Anyone a reseacher, let me know at end". Goblin Bones - again "Anyone a Smith". Take an interest in what drops in zone, what its for an what its worth. Tradeskillers have been looked after with LDoN, as opposed to getting nothing dropping.

Heres my personal quirk - I was taught to ML by a cleric so my view here is biased...First Diamond of my group goes to Cleric for DoTs. Now, I can see heads of cleric nodding, and others going WTF WTF...but by the time you split a diamond thru a 65 grp, why bother, and the courtesy to replace the clerics dots wont be lost on them. Clerics get screwed on DoTs, I use ML as a way to ensure they dont get screwed in my groups.