Raid looting and EPGP

[Deleted]

I'm asking here because my reseaeches on the internet have been useless and I have some questions about how you manage loot in your raids.

We are a Normal / Heroic guild. We are usually ahead of the curve but not by much because we don't leave people behind. Whatever, we have been using EPGP since WotLK, and with just a pair of cases of selfish people wanting everything that droped and leaving, we have had not much problems.

But during this expansion we have noted a new problem. As saves begun being personal, people started to pug the bosses we had in progression and ahead, looting their own loot outside the EPGP guild system. We can't forbid people to pug whatever they want, but with that our loot system lost part of its meaning.

People who pug stay at the top of the system because they loot less with us and have always priority in whatever they want. On the other side, as they have looted outside, more pieces are available to the rest of the raid. This ended in some hard but civilized discusions between the officers.

Have your guild ever had this problem? Can we change the EPGP system someway? Do you use another loot system that might work beter? Thanks for your time and your help!

[ThePants999]

Technically, if you really want to, you can calculate their GP from all their upgrades, regardless of where they got them from. Not a good idea though IMO, sets up the wrong incentives.

You need to look past the perceived unfairness of them having more loot overall. These people getting gear from other raids is all upside for your team. Their extra work benefits you all. They could achieve exactly the same priority on the items they're getting from your raids by just saving their EP for them, so the only difference is that they're contributing more DPS/HPS by also having better gear in other slots, and they're leaving drops in those slots available for other raiders in your team.

[Adramelch]

@ThePants999: I don't really agree. Let's say you have 20 people and 5 of them are pugging before the guild raid, that's 1 less item per boss for the guild. So these people get their gear, offer nothing additional to the guild (their extra DPS/HPS is offset by less loot for the guild) and get to hoard EP.

Honestly, I would be "strict" with such occurrences such as: People that are saved for the bosses the guild is killing get less EP than the rest. Or actually, since it's just Normal/Heroic, I would just switch to personal loot altogether, but I get why you might not want to do that.

PS: Greetings from another raider from Barcelona (not spanish though).

[Deja Thoris]

You can and should forbid them to pug unless you won't be raiding anymore that week as a team.

If they are part of the team they do whats the best for the team. If they want to put their own interests ahead they can look for another guild. Also, if they are consistently pugging more than you can kill, should they even be with you because you're dragging them down.

[Adramelch]

You can and should forbid them to pug unless you won't be raiding anymore that week as a team.

If they are part of the team they do whats the best for the team. If they want to put their own interests ahead they can look for another guild. Also, if they are consistently pugging more than you can kill, should they even be with you because you're dragging them down.

I agree with you but the last part is not necessarily true. They might be in the guild because they have friends and they want to help and they have fun in the raids, but since their skill allows it, they are pugging later bosses for the challenge (without being interested in changing guilds). It's a more common occurrence than you think (I've done it myself, and I was even raid leading for the guild).

[ThePants999]

@ThePants999: I don't really agree. Let's say you have 20 people and 5 of them are pugging before the guild raid, that's 1 less item per boss for the guild. So these people get their gear, offer nothing additional to the guild (their extra DPS/HPS is offset by less loot for the guild) and get to hoard EP.

The OP said they were pugging the bosses BEYOND the ones the guild had done - presumably they did the previous ones with the guild. Pure extra loot.

[hyperio]

If they are putting in more effort to get gearthey shouldn't be punished

[Deleted]

Perhaps look to move away from an effort point system?

It sounds strange, but as you say you're a normal/heroic guild and you take your time so not to leave anyone behind. That's your philosophy and it works. EPGP is essentially an old, hardcore-type relic of looting bosses. It can be made very fair in a sense, but it can be very frustrating as well. Personally I'd suggest switching to a loot council, or even personal loot, with a loot council that decides what happens with extra, unwanted loot that people have drop on personal.

With a loot council set-up you can always make a reasonable justification, still keep track of attendance with EP if you'd like. Still award GP to show how many pieces of loot you've given that person - but you can ensure that anyone who's new to the fold over time isn't tremendously penalised as they are with EPGP (or that current members aren't penalised through any normalising of their EP)

I don't think you can ever tell people not to pug now, the only time you can is on mythic because of how the lockout works. If someone wants to raid more than your guild does now, its a free-for-all and I don't think you can actually check if people are saved or not at present can you? They could just realise and pass on loot instead of saying "oh I'm saved" and then it just looks like they're hoarding EP for something else.

Embrace those who put in the extra work and don't denigrate them, every guild benefits from having those types. Paired with your guild philosophy, don't enable them to cherry pick the loot they want through a system skewed in their favour, because that harms any guild. Personal loot drops more loot overall, which may be of a massive benefit to your guild in the long run. Then use a loot council to redistribute duplicates/unwanted items. Or just loot council all the way I'd suggest. As a casual 13/13m guild we've found loot council fitted the approach we have far better.

[Kikazz]

we had the same people do that in the guild we were in.

they pugged all throughout herioc, and saved EP to get the items they were missing.

if they are raiding with your guild, why should it matter.
they are gearing themselves for the sake of helping you progress, them saving ep for the items they want doesnt matter.

they put in the same raid hours as your raiders they should also be entitled to the loot.

if they raid outside your hours thats on them.

penalising them for making the extra effort to help your group is wrong.

the only way around this, is before you start raiding, let people know it will go off PR through epgp for Loot, BUT, you will also loot council to make sure the loot is evenly distributed to your raid group so your groups entire ilvl increases.

[Caladia]

We just use loot council, so no scoring to keep track of. But we did have a few guildies that would pug on Wednesday night, between our Tuesday and Thursday night runs and lower our loot count for the guild.

We just asked them to hold off on pugging any bosses that we would and/or could kill on Thursday for after Thursday and on the weekend. So while we were working on Fel Lord, Iskar, etc. we asked that they not go for the next few bosses (Xhul or Soc) until after Thursday night.

That's about the best you can do unless you want to get really strict. Just let them know that any pugging before the guild raids are done for the week can lower loot count per boss and potentially do more harm than good. Our guildies were ok with this request.

[Deleted]

@ThePants999 As you say keeping trak of everyone's pugs and charging GP for outside loot would be wrong, a part of an extra work for the offices that would have to chek every looted piece and if it was a minor or major upg, etc. This people bring positive thing to the guild too, as you say thanks they spend their time outside they come with beter dps/hps and extra experience. Until now what we have decided is do nothing.

@Adramelch Having people who already looted during the week doesn't reduce the loot per person, if in a 20 group 5 already killed the boss means we get the loot for 15 to share between 15 because the 5 who already killed the boss can't loot. Bad RNG can produce less loot per person, but good RNG can produce more. It is not a problem we think. Hi from Barcelona too!

@Deja Thoris We have this intention sometimes, to ask people who pug to stop raiding with us. But our server is not extremely populated and usually the ones who pug are the ones who pull the raid too, so we would shot our own feet. And as someone said, this ones play with us because our raids are fun and we allow people come raiding when they can. Much of them can't commit to a strictier schedule because of work or continuous trips.

@Hiperio We think that too, but some raiders have complained they lost loot due to the others being on top in an "unfair" way. We had real problems with tier pieces, as this pugers where spending their GP in tokens to ser if they got a warforged or socketed piece in front of raiders who didn't have the tier. We solved this by only allowing to roll main spec if you didn't have the piece, and rolling minor upgrade if you wanted to "try luck".

@santy We don't like loot council because opinions are always different and in every decision we took would be someone who would be against it leading to problems. We need a point system because we have very different types of raiders who would not understand all the decisions we took, even if we belived and showed it was the best for the raid. Personal loot would be an option, but if someone already killed a boss outside our raid one week, can he get items traded who someone else got? If yes, we would have the same problem.

@Kikazz We can't add a loot council factor to epgp, see the reasons just above. It is true, people who pug outside really don't hurt the raid, only that our EPGP systems feels less important.

@Caladia We asked people not to kill bosses not killed by us during a week, and we control and warn raiders who do so and don't come to our raids being online (because they already got the kills and don't want to raid twice) But we have had only a pair of cases of these. Th problem is that in the long run the EPGP week after week gets screwed by puggers.

In conclusion to all, we need a point system which distribuites the loot "automatically". We are 95% happy with EPGP but we have this little puggers problem. As I see there is no work arround without being a lot more strict, which we don't want to be. Thanks for all the help until now and any discusion we continue having helps us a lot.

[Adramelch]

@Adramelch Having people who already looted during the week doesn't reduce the loot per person, if in a 20 group 5 already killed the boss means we get the loot for 15 to share between 15 because the 5 who already killed the boss can't loot. Bad RNG can produce less loot per person, but good RNG can produce more. It is not a problem we think. Hi from Barcelona too!

Well yeah that goes without saying, but getting the same EP when you're contributing less (in the form of less loot) seems unfair to me for the other people, not to mention that even if it's the same ratio in loot/loot-eligible raider, you're missing out on a bigger variety of items. For example given that tier pieces are 10% per eligible person, the above scenario means that 1 in 2 bosses that drop tier will only drop 1 token instead of 2. And I know the ratio stays the same, but you're clearly missing out on the variety.

Again, my advice would be go personal loot, but then again that does't really factor in attendance (the same way that EPGP or a loot council would) so that might be a no-go for some guilds.

[Deleted]

@Pedrolo If they're already saved they cannot get loot from the boss and cannot be traded it either. It would create too much of an easy-gear route for guilds if they could just keep trading loot to one toon that's already killed a boss 20 times that week.

Personal Loot may work as a result.

Loot councils aren't for everyone, but EPGP is kind of archaic (we still use the add-on with some customisation in my raid team mostly as a loot UI though) because it can be so punishing to new people who join you further down the line.

[Deleted]

That is so crazy what i read here. Next you punish people who craft their gear or upgrade gear faster (with valor or similar upgrades). People who get gear alternatively should be rewarded, they put more effort and give more to guild. The problem is only when you start disenchanting gear what drops... but then you should do higher and more difficult content.

[Gorsameth]

That is so crazy what i read here. Next you punish people who craft their gear or upgrade gear faster (with valor or similar upgrades). People who get gear alternatively should be rewarded, they put more effort and give more to guild. The problem is only when you start disenchanting gear what drops... but then you should do higher and more difficult content.

The difference is that crafted loot does not prevent other people from getting items.
Pugging bosses does because less loot eligible people means less items drops.

They (indirectly) punishing their guild by running pugs

[Deleted]

The difference is that crafted loot does not prevent other people from getting items.
Pugging bosses does because less loot eligible people means less items drops.

They (indirectly) punishing their guild by running pugs

Same way getting loot elsewhere gives bonus (they do not need that loot anymore themselves), as long as loot doesn't go waste, it is still better for overall guild group.
Only thing what could make it bad is when alternative way gives less loot, than they would get in guild runs - ie. they run pugs without getting any loot.

[Kikazz]

@Kikazz We can't add a loot council factor to epgp, see the reasons just above. It is true, people who pug outside really don't hurt the raid, only that our EPGP systems feels less important.

that may be true,

but i think you should leave it as is,

you shouldnt penalise others for doing things outside of the raid to get gear, when they put in more effort than your standard raider.

@Hiperio We think that too, but some raiders have complained they lost loot due to the others being on top in an "unfair" way. We had real problems with tier pieces, as this pugers where spending their GP in tokens to ser if they got a warforged or socketed piece in front of raiders who didn't have the tier. We solved this by only allowing to roll main spec if you didn't have the piece, and rolling minor upgrade if you wanted to "try luck".

also on the topic of you saying things about people spending there GP on more Tier, thats your own fault as Master Looters, not there fault.
If they have tier you should Auto Greed roll them , and people who dont get the MS roll.

[pmkaboo]

Technically, if you really want to, you can calculate their GP from all their upgrades, regardless of where they got them from. Not a good idea though IMO, sets up the wrong incentives.

You need to look past the perceived unfairness of them having more loot overall. These people getting gear from other raids is all upside for your team. Their extra work benefits you all. They could achieve exactly the same priority on the items they're getting from your raids by just saving their EP for them, so the only difference is that they're contributing more DPS/HPS by also having better gear in other slots, and they're leaving drops in those slots available for other raiders in your team.

i dunno, run pugs for loot on easy bosses, clear them again with guild for ep and then use ep for hard bosses like archi that pugs cant kill yet. its a pretty shitty move imo.

[Kikazz]

Removed due to error.

[Cheveyo]

@Pedrolo

Personal Loot may work as a result.

It will. My guild has inclusiveness as one of it's core principals. We did a MAJOR philosophy shift during WoD, strongly encouraging people to raid outside the guild and swapping to a points system to using personal loot. Surprise surprise, encouraging outside raiding has increased our numbers with new, quality raiders and improved our progression.