Lukov, aside from the occasional visit (and slightly more frequent scanning of the Lugh forum here), I haven't played this game for over a year. As Venus suggests, and I will confirm, this is partly due to issues of drop distribution when playing multiple characters. Although this issue is a big one, it is not, in fact, the main reason I stopped playing.
In any case, having said that, I hear you and I remember your pain. My view has always been pretty simple:
if you bring a character to a fight, then you deserve to roll for that character as long as your contribution is as much as the least skilled/qualified/contributing player who is allowed to roll for the drops on that fight.
This view was not popular back when I was active, and it's likely to be outvoted by pretty much every single-device/single-account player on Lugh. But yeah, I routinely took flak for bringing my rogue and three(!) druids to aggy back when aggy was the end-game boss. In fact, I remember times when my rogue was the only one casting smoke bomb, while I was single-handedly keeping the punching bag alive with my druid trio, not that you need a punching bag anymore, but those were the days. And, of course, all this for one drop. At least in those situations I was allowed to roll once per druid. But then I'd still get complaints about being greedy. (Yes, I do recognize that my characters were rarely the highest level, but all of them met the requirements for being at all the fights.) Back before dragonfire when all we had was aggy and the otherworld bosses I got tired of all the drama around which of my characters were allowed to roll for what on which bosses so I just stopped calling people to anything other than the stonelord or the lavalord. Yes, chained king was a pain on 4 devices, but it was doable. And no one ever complained when I brought my crew to help them on one of the otherworld armor kill quests.
As for whether you're contributing sufficiently on each of your characters, I think the people who are accusing you of not doing so need to take a long hard look at the kinds of people who they
do let roll for drops. Because ultimately a given character's contribution to a fight is only as good as the player behind the device. Some people playing 2 or more devices at once can play each of those devices significantly better than others playing only a single device. In many cases 65% of a Lukov x 3 devices or 80% of a Venus x 2 devices is going to be a better fight than 100% of [not named player afk with device in pocket his way to school] or 100% of [not named player with a tank build but we have a good tank already so just auto attack] or 100% of [not named player supposed to be taking care of adds on druids but chatting instead so druids die and then everyone blames the druids for not being able to keep the tank alive].
As suggested by my examples above, even when you have a player who
is skilled at playing their single character, for some classes how are you going to tell when that player isn't afk, or whether they have an appropriate build for the fight? Again, there will always be a loud chorus of single-account players who have very little awareness of what it takes to play--let alone play well--on multiple devices who are quick to dismiss any suggestion of "equal reward (or chance for it) for equal work" as simple greed. They will defend the second string tank warriors being allowed to roll when they aren't needed for the fight, or the fire mages who have no lures in their build on lava lord (or whatever the current equivalent is), or the people who decide that a long boss fight is good time to level up their hand-to-hand skill, or the person who shows up right before the fight and says "shoot, all my lux is on my alt and I don't have time to transfer but I'll join the fight anyway".
In any case, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if OTM wasn't so stingy and misguided about loot. It would be a vast improvement if loot was instanced. In the game I play these days, if you (or members of your group) do a certain amount of damage to the mob or boss, everyone in your group has a chance at drops. Although this same game has other flaws, handwringing about who gets to roll for what drops and when is not one of them
Given that the loot engine issue is unlikely to be fixed, and you're unlikely to win any arguments in favour of more equitable loot distribution for qualified multi-device players, here is my suggestion:
- decide which single character you want to roll for, and bring that character to the fight as your "main", and declare it
- if you bring more characters to the fight, use them to help your main. That is, if you're playing rogue main, heal/buff him with your druid, and use boost on him with your mage.
- if people ask why you're not healing/buffing them, or luring the boss, tell them your rogue can't do that, and that your druid and mage aren't volunteering for that job, they're just there to help your main
It will become apparent pretty quickly whether those "alt" characters are actually needed for the fight. If they are, then the obvious thing to do is to allow them in as a main, with all rights and privileges that anyone else's main would get. Either that, or continue with the status quo and let single-device characters take advantage of your willingness to volunteer (i.e. work without pay) "for the good of Lugh".
As for Venus's reply regarding the group wiping, if you don't have enough qualified people at a fight that you're relying on the multi-device player to carry you through, then the wipe isn't the fault of the multi-device player.
Footnote for those of you wondering if I'm going back: no. And if you're wondering if/why I might have dropped you from my friends list on the rare occasions I've logged in, it's most likely due to the second half of "Light! Welcome back! Are you selling or giving away any [gear]?"
).
