I think raid loot should be envied, and elitist for the following reasons: Not to engender worthlessness or inadequacy but rather to encourage organized social interactions with the intent to achieve a common goal. Which is presicely the intent of an MMO, to encourage socialization. A raid type event represents a-some would say higher-different level of interactive social gameplay for which the rewards need to be clearly differentiated based on difficulty and coordination of # of players to achieve while at the same time not being perceived as insurmountable. In other words the thought process should be, if they can do it why can't we, which then begets the question: who's "we"?.
Also, I think what is crucial is not to have so much raid loots be expansion bound in that this stuff from this "old" expansion is now worthless and we have to get the new stuff. Thats ok for secondary markets in a tradeable server but takes the effort out of earning those items. Rather, I feel those items should be obtainable by those who wish to organize to get those items at their own pace, wether it be as soon as the expansion goes live, or 5 years later when it is new to them 5 years later and they are playing through. Ideally, the loot these 5 year later players are obtaining on those raids will still be viable at current content along with groupable and craftable stuff wether it is balanced through clicky effects, or must-haves, or secondary procs. But I feel the lure to try to go for those uber items that one top end guild has is a valid desire as that also begets more socal interaction with members of that group or others and however that interaction goes creates a social dynamic that is always solidifying to the community. How? if the top end refuses to communicate and is strict in membership, that will tend to have the rest of the server combine in effort to work against them without their help, likewise if the top end shares their strats with up and coming guilds, the server will be known as a different vibe- in either case the end result is more social interaction and more players exposed to more aspects of the game they never would have experienced otherwise.
Raid loot should focus on making raiding easier. Group loot focused on making grouping easier. Group loot won't need very high enviromental resistances if the group content doesn't need it. Progression of raid equipment could require subsequent higher and better aclimation to environments not exposed to solo and group players.
Silvermink said:Raid loot should focus on making raiding easier. Group loot focused on making grouping easier.
The problem is that raid loot always makes grouping easier as raid gear is, nearly always, better than group gear in several (if not many) ways making that player far better than it's group geared counterpart.