No one should have to ask. They helped down the boss, they have an equal right to stake a claim to gear, and their motivations aren't up for discussion. It's considerate if they choose to ask, but you should never assume it's a requirement.

What SJMC is posting here is a solid bit of writing. This is ultimately what "our crowd" is arguing for: we just don't want someone else telling us we can't roll. We don't want a better chance at loot than someone else, we merely want an equal chance to get something we want. How this gets translated into our being "selfish", as our opposition so frequently accuses, is beyond me.

Oh hey, face, you're back.... fancy that!

Why should your assertion affect other players? What makes you an authority to tell someone "If you want gear for your companion, head elsewhere"? It's fine that you have an opinion (and that's all it is) on the matter, but that opinion doesn't obligate other players to accept it and do as you're saying.

Now I'm fairly confident you're trolling.

If he asked me to, and if I had the time, I see no reason why I wouldn't. It gives me the chance of more gear, and even less chance of drama, since he already knows I'm not going to roll against him on an item a) I've already won and b) he asked me to join him specifically so he could acquire.

If that's how you'd like to play, then by all means do so. It isn't the position folks like Ferroz, VanorDM or I are advocating, but the choice is yours, not ours.

This is accurate.

This would be your right, of course. We'd have no recourse of complaint. Thing is, we aren't advocating rampant use of the Need button in every instant. But it would seem we're advocating its use more than you think we should, which brings us back 'round again to the question of why your definitions of the "appropriate" use of Need should inform ours or affect our decision, or carry negative consequences as a result.

Given that I'm playing a Sith Marauder, the Luke Skywalker quote would likely be met with something a bit more forceful than his father's "It's too late for me... son." Y'see, the issue here is that another player's degree of need doesn't much matter to me. I have a need, they have a need, and I'm not worried about degrees therein. They roll Need, I roll Need, and the dice decide. Nothing could be more impartial to me. If someone, guildmate or random stranger in the zone, asks me to help them in a Flashpoint to get some gear they want, more often than not, unless I'm pressed for time, I'm happy to help them. On more than one occasion I've been on Dromund Kaas and heard someone ask for help in General while I was there to stop off in the city and get back to my ship and out in the galaxy again. I take time out to go help them, and I pass on everything: I don't need it, they do, end of story. If I'm in a party with someone and we both need something, we should both roll Need on it, and should congratulate the person who won it.

Nope. Nope. I would roll Need on what was an upgrade, cosmetic or statistical, for me or a companion. I'd roll Greed on anything I planned to sell/reverse engineer, and I'd pass on anything else. Nope. There you go then.

I don't think you're selfish for rolling as you choose. I would think you're selfish if you were saying you could tell me (or any other player) that their choice to roll Need was an invalid choice, and that they should have chosen Greed so someone else could roll Need on the item in question. I don't roll Need on something that isn't an upgrade for me. It's important to note there that I said "me" and not "my character", because I believe that giving my companion necessary upgrades is as valid and vital as giving my Sith Marauder upgrades. In short, if it's an upgrade for me as a player in the game, then I'll roll Need on it. If I intend to sell it or reverse engineer it, I'll roll Greed. If it isn't an upgrade, a cosmetically-desirable choice for myself or a companion in an orange that I can customize, and not something I can reverse engineer on my own, then I'll either choose "Reverse Engineer" from the loot window, or just pass entirely. Does that really seem so unreasonable?

What I'm saying is that my companion, who while analogous to pets in other games is in this case a pet with gear needs equivalent to those of players' characters, has a need equal to another player. But my companion can't get gear on their own, so I get gear for them. I want them as well-geared as they can be, so I take advantage of opportunities that arise to become so. This means commendation gear, world drops, quest rewards, and, yes, Flashpoint drops. You say someone is wrong for placing their companion at a higher priority than another player, and I say that since we do that for ourselves when we feel it's appropriate, doing so for companions carries equal validity. Put another way, if you're saying it's "wrong", where's your objective proof?

The instant you bring in terms like "should", you're attempting a moralist argument that has no place in this particular discussion. Even if you allow for a moralist perspective, if you feel I should only roll Need if my PC will use it, and should only roll Greed if it's for a companion, if I feel differently, my perspective is as valid as yours, and yours doesn't obligate me to a course of action contrary to the one I've chosen. You'd need something more objective than that. You're diluting the issue by using loaded terms and phrases like "justify" and "who they step on to get what they want". We're saying we aren't stepping on anyone; we're saying you should roll how you want, using whatever determining criteria is appropriate to meet your goals. You would attempt to restrict who can roll on something based on whether they meet your individual determination of "need". I believe our system assumes the best of people: that they aren't out to intentionally screw someone else, that they believe people are free to roll how they like, and would never impose restrictions on how others can roll. I think that speaks more to "basic human decency" than a system which lets one person tell another "What I think determines need supersedes what you think determines need, so you should do it my way." That's what you're advocating.

We aren't being selfish. We're standing up for the rights the system gives us, and saying that we don't require another player's approval to exercise said rights. We may do so as a courtesy, but we understand it isn't required, and thus don't grow upset if someone doesn't show that courtesy. It isn't selfish to stake a claim to something you have an equal right to as anyone else present. If four of us go into a junkyard and find a car that has a diamond stashed in its dashboard, we all four found it. We all four want it equally, though for different reasons (1 to give to his girlfriend, 1 to sell, 1 to sew into a garment, 1 to put into the pommel of a sword they're making for a Renaissance Faire). So we decide to roll a 6-sided die for it, as one of us has one. We each roll, the highest roll gets it, ties re-roll. We don't let someone say "My need is more than yours, so you should give it to me!" We recognize equal claim due to equal effort at finding the diamond. That's what's happening in the game: equal effort to generate the piece from the defeated boss, and thus equal, impartial rolls to determine its ownership. That's all we're advocating.

I admit to having trouble with this. First, we aren't setting rules, which is the whole point of our argument: the rules are already in place, we use them as "written", we aren't attempting to add on to them in a fashion that tells another player that their choices aren't acceptable. We're letting people do what they want. You're attempting to tell other players that they can only roll Need if they receive your approval (the general "your", not specific). We're rebutting that and saying that players don't require each others' approval to roll Need on something. The system lets them decide for themselves, and we think that works just fine.

To be fair, in a PUG no one should have the right to set rules at all. If I wander into a PUG and find someone has set it on Master Looter, I immediately depart. I don't trust a stranger to a) have my best interests at heart or b) to work counter to those interests. I think when you're in a PUG, you should use NBG and let each player decide for themselves how they're going to roll. If someone's rolling Need on anything and doesn't indicate they're gearing up a companion, fine, put them on /ignore so you don't group with them again. Or maybe put them on /ignore if they're gearing up companions and you personally don't like it. The campaign of smearing someone's name or the threat of blacklisting makes no sense to me aside from a reaction by a subset of players feeling unempowered and lashing out in the only fashion they have: attempted social ostracization. I think it's poor behavior personally, but it's their life, and they're welcome to live it how they like. If someone loses a roll, I think they should just accept they lost the roll, and move on.

I thought you were on our side. My mistake if I misunderstood you. Sincerest apologies. Power, brother. \m/ I don't think that orange items throw a kink into the system. They're obviously cosmetic items outside their armor type. Obviously a Sith Inquisitor can't wear a medium piece, but a Mercenary can, though the armor itself is suboptimal. But with the right mods, it's just fine for them. Once you reach BiS via mods in orange items, the only upgrades you're really going to see are from Operations, at which point most people are done gearing up their companions anyway (though some still happens when they're first at level cap and evening things out in their gear). Companions are still necessary for daily quests and the odd Heroic 2+, but past that... I don't think they're as much of an issue.

Vanor, no one is taking anything from you. You don't own it until it's in your inventory. It's in escrow, held by a neutral third party (the NBG distribution algorithm) until its ownership is determined, at which point it's given to the owner. It doesn't matter if you can buy something at a vendor; just because you have one of many distribution channels available doesn't mean that's the only one you should pursue. I can buy a North Face jacket for my girlfriend by going into the North Face Store in my home city. I can also buy one by going to Craigslist and getting it, and it costs me less (often a lot less, with a tradeoff of it not being off-the-rack new) to do so. I could even trade my girlfriend's Patagonia jacket to someone with a NF jacket who prefers Patagonia, and it costs me nothing. Using your logic, however, since I could buy it at the North Face store, I shouldn't consider other avenues of getting it. I don't think that holds water. No one should limit their available avenues of acquisition because someone else wants a higher chance of getting something they want.

If it works on my companion, it's made for "my character", since my companion is an extension of my character. As a result, I'm going to roll Need on anything that's an upgrade for one of my companions.

Irusan, your suggestion of a Companion Need button isn't the first time it's shown up in this discussion; this said, practical realities remain: it will merely become the new Greed button as its priority lies over the actual Greed button, and it loses its whole purpose then. I don't think the solution to this issue (if one can ever be found) is to further complicate the process, I think it's to simplify it since so many people of differing mindsets have valid reasons for why they'd want to roll Need on something. Roll/Pass seems the most efficient to me. As for your claim about folks just debating to hear themselves debate, perhaps that's the case with some. Sometimes others just feel passionately about something and want to continue the discussion. I don't know if it has anything to do with anyone's "glory days", at Princeton or elsewhere. I mean, I certainly didn't go to Princeton; snobby east-coast colleges aren't my style.

Really? If it's unwritten, how do you know it's a rule? If you think it's a rule, and you wind up in a party with those who agree, then fine, for your party, it's a rule. But don't assume that's always going to be the case. If you have even one person in the party who thinks it's fine to roll for a companion, then even if they consider companions alts (and we have no objective rule stating they are), it's no longer a rule, just your opinion, which doesn't obligate them to your preferred method of distribution.

Your premise is flawed, because it assumes an objective authority that isn't present. To you companion rolls are no different than offspec in other games. To another player, who relies heavily on a companion and is leveling (and thus spending more time questing, statistically, than in Flashpoints), gearing their companion is a very present reality, and if they want their companion wearing gear from Flashpoints, their right to facilitate that is the same as yours to choose your companion's gear as a secondary consideration.

They could roll Need on the blue item because it's an upgrade for their companion, of course. In such a case it qualifies as a need if they place priority on their companions having Flashpoint-quality gear. Not all upgrades go on the PC itself.

You're pointing to 6 or 7 people in a thread (or even if you had 100-200 different people from four different threads!) as "consensus" for the gaming community? I, sir, question your data gathering methods and statistical conclusions.