How do you handle loot - progression raiding

[AlmightyGerkin]

What my guild does for loot is whatever drops we throw it into a giant jumble tron and whoever rolls the highest gets the piece of gear that comes out. Warrior wanted Draught of Souls well heres an intellect trinket.

[Onikaroshi]

Didn't Blizz set it up so Personal drops MORE LOOT on average than any other system?

Why wouldn't you do that? More loot = raid team gets better faster, on average.

Giving to "top performers" just funnels everything that way for the whole expansion -- I get more gear cause I've got more gear so I perform better than everybody else so I get more gear cause I've got more gear so I perform better...

Because Personal handles tier HORRIBLY, see two posts up from yours

[Protean]

Didn't Blizz set it up so Personal drops MORE LOOT on average than any other system?

Why wouldn't you do that? More loot = raid team gets better faster, on average.

Giving to "top performers" just funnels everything that way for the whole expansion -- I get more gear cause I've got more gear so I perform better than everybody else so I get more gear cause I've got more gear so I perform better...

It might be actual more item drops per boss, but the way you can't trade half the pieces it works out to be less. Being able to funnel gear is the single best way to increase full raid power.

Top performance is more than who has highest dps at any given point.

It's people who do well regardless of gear, people who don't fuck up mechanics.
It's the people you hope to bring when it's progress night and it's not the people you roll your eyes over whenever they join the raid.

[Liandryl]

Hello friends!

So, this tier was the first time we really saw conundrums on our council as to what is the best way to really handle the Diablo loot, I mean loot going forward. I, honestly, haven't really come up with a system I like that rewards people who put in the most effort since WF/TF became a thing on steroids.

Yes, I know that someone somewhere will always feel slighted by loot. It's the nature of the game, you want to feel your effort rewarded, but I'm crowd sourcing best practices for people that have done this a while.


How we currently handle it
Don't get me wrong, I think the Diablo loot system fucking sucks. I get it, it's supposed to breathe life into farming because you don't know when that one item might drop at a really high ilvl. But, It destroys the logistical value of trying to gear your best performers who put in the work because it used to just be ok, we need x numbers of this trinket to drop so everyone gets one and we're awesome. Hierarchy of who uses it the best, it drops give it to them. Easy.

Now you have to factor in ilvl, sockets, etc. You also get to a threshold where ok everyone has that base drop of x item, no one has gotten anything for weeks as it constantly drops at that level, it final drops big dick 925 with socket...now what >.> Or a spread of, everyone has at least 905, a 915 drops, do you give it to the better performer with a 910, or the guy with a 905 but raid logs and does one M+ a week? Yuck.

Our approach has historically been that 3 officers have a vote on loot, I have veto power if I really feel like we got it wrong. We also add another 4 raiders to loot council and they have a vote as well. They're tasked with trying to spread loot out fairly to everyone, putting in as to what roles need more love (like if we're behind on dps checks), performance of others, etc. We do it this way to curve some of the, officers are just gearing their friends mentality, but we may be adding more officers next tier we'll see.

We have the following RCLootCouncil buttons of - BIS, Main spec for it's an upgrade but not absolute BIS, Off Spec (raid useable), transmog or fun off spec, DE

Loot is usually looked at in the following order: Best in Slot, size of upgrade, performance, attendance, attitude/community impact, etc. Everyone then votes or explains why and talks through it then awards it. It slows it down, but we usually do a pretty good job of making sure everyone gets stuff regularly and it's helping us progress.

Front end of a tier we do stack top performers with 2 set/4 set for biggest DPS upgrades. We don't split, so we do have to be careful with what we dole out.


Issues we saw this tier
We used to do normal first to learn things in a relaxed fashion, but now have swapped to heroic as we want the highest base ilvl stuff on the people performing at the top.

Items that just don't drop no matter what you do - we've had one metronome drop from Anomaly and we killed it first week. People still want it, some under performers when it finally drops it's hard to justify giving it to the first guy again even if it's 925/socket

Ranged switched to alt for Gul'dan, convergence finally dropped over base ilvl. Alt only had a 870, do you award it to the alt to help kill Gul'dan or to the melee who have been waiting for a while D:

Size of upgrade - this loot council seems defaulted to that as a big determinant. For example, say a 915 drops. One raider has comparable 910 (same stats) from mythic plus, other raider has 905 with socket from raid drop. Do you give it to the 910, because next week if a 910 drops again then it'd still be an upgrade for the other, whereas if you give it to the 905 and a 910 drops then it's just a DE? What if the person with the 910 puts in a ton more effort? What if the better performer is the 905? If 910 has better performance? 905 has better attitude? There's too many variables here and you're almost forced to predict loot which is just stupid.


It almost feels like in ways you punish the people who get lucky with M+ drops or grind their ass off to get it and put in a lot of effort. For an overall raid upgrade if they both will use it just as well it's hard to give say a 915 to a 910 if someone still has a 895. Which don't get me started on M+, I've given more upgrades to people than I've gotten, and I have done nowhere near as many as some people in our group and they have it much worse. But, the person who has the 910 put in all the extra effort to have more traits, more gear and won't see another upgrade like that until it stupid TF rolls again. Whereas, you should want to encourage those people who do have the time and put in all the effort. But on paper the 895 to 915 upgrade will produce more than a 910 to a 915.

It's tough, I don't really have a solution so I'm interested in hearing all kinds of thoughts and approaches!

To be honest, your idea of who deserves it more is flawed from the get go in my mind.
You are not a mythic guild so maybe it works somehow, but to me, everyone should deserve it as much and if someone deserves it less because he is a bad player, then I would not have him in the raid to begin with.

If we take that criteria out of the question then it becomes a question of who gains the most out of it.
If 5 players have the 905 and it proc 915, then you go with bis value according to their specs(that is where having basic knowledge of most specs will help). You can also ask for pawn value if it's only a piece that has flat stat on it which in some case works fine.
If 2-3 players gain the same from the item, then you pick one and the next one will go to one of the other, that is all.
If they are not loot whore, it should not create drama.

The first thing I would do is stop thinking about who deserves it the most and if it bothers you, kick those who don't deserve loot...

I used to be using EPGP with my old guild and I did not mind about the system, but it did get me mad sometimes when some players got the loot because they rolled higher. Yeah I like loot, but it was more of a case of this guy does not even deserve to be in this raid because he is underperforming. Best thing I did was leave that group and now I care way less about the loot. My guild is RClootcouncil and it just goes to whoever gains the most out of it.
I don't have to think much about the loot and I just get loot from time to time and that is fine by me. If I care about a certain loot given to someone else that gained less from it, I can just talk to the officer about it and they are cool about it.

They can make mistakes but they do not give loot to certain players over others because they perform better really so I can get past it real fast.

[Chewtoy]

To be honest, your idea of who deserves it more is flawed from the get go in my mind.
You are not a mythic guild so maybe it works somehow, but to me, everyone should deserve it as much and if someone deserves it less because he is a bad player, then I would not have him in the raid to begin with.

I'm not sure where you got that notion, but we're 10/10 M currently. Behind the curve sure, but trying to get back up to competing decently on 3 nights, 9 hour schedule.

If only it was that simple to remove people who deserve it less, but recruiting is tough mid tier. We're looking now and hoping to elevate the bar again for Tomb. But, to pretend like guilds don't always have a hierarchy of performance outside some of the top, that's just unrealistic.

We haven't traditionally used Pawn value, but we could. In this instance I think it was someone disgruntled that was just looking for a reason to be angry. We usually have minimal loot issues, but I also think we could do better. So, I was crowd sourcing what other people do for diablo based loot, and rerolling on tier tokens.

The argument presented in house was that a 915 should go to a better performing player with a 910 instead of the 905 as they hadn't done as much mythic plus etc. to be able to get that piece. Also, if the same item dropped the next week but only 910, then both Player A with the now 915, and Player B that didn't get it last week would both get a 5 ilvl upgrade. Whereas if the 915 went to Player B then this new item would be DE'd. To me, that's a bit much and unless I have raid drop premonition...which hello 1 mythic metronome drop since first week of NH, it's really hard to base it off of that and not do like you said and go biggest raid upgrade. However, that does in some ways deter people from grinding M+ for gear when they can be "lazy" and wait for raid items. So, it's a conundrum I was debating internally and wanted to post to the community.

We use RCLootCouncil, then a council and officer group to determine who gets it like described in the first post.

Are there really 10/10M guilds out there just doing personal and hoping for the best?
@Dracodraco @Emancptr and others, how are you guys handling the WF shit show of diablo loot, or loot in general?

[Inukenshin]

RC Loot Council: BIS, Minor Upgrade, Offspec, RNGESUS, Pass
10/10 M

[Dracodraco]

Are there really 10/10M guilds out there just doing personal and hoping for the best?
@Dracodraco @Emancptr and others, how are you guys handling the WF shit show of diablo loot, or loot in general?

Tier:
No tier items mythic (and want to use it) > No tier items mythic (and might want to use it in the future) > lowest rolled piece.

So a 915 socketed cloak wielder is unlikely to be given another token, as we'd be giving the tokens to people with 905-910 pieces first, so that they can get lucky.

Same deal with actual WF loot, just not as RNG as we know what item it is; Highest upgrade usually wins. If you've got a 915 convergence I know you'd love to get the 925, but the dude with 905 is getting it first because it's a much bigger upgrade.

During progression, we're more goal-minded; We gear up the people we expect to have in for the next boss with impunity, often going over bigger upgrades because that upgrade would just be on the bench (although tier, as it is RNG, is still handled normally. Giving someone with a 905 tier chest a token for WF/socket when someone has a 890 just seems stupid).

[Temp name]

Loot council. Judging based on current gear in that slot, overall gear, attendance, usefulness to the raid, etc.

[Liandryl]

I'm not sure where you got that notion, but we're 10/10 M currently. Behind the curve sure, but trying to get back up to competing decently on 3 nights, 9 hour schedule.

If only it was that simple to remove people who deserve it less, but recruiting is tough mid tier. We're looking now and hoping to elevate the bar again for Tomb. But, to pretend like guilds don't always have a hierarchy of performance outside some of the top, that's just unrealistic.

We haven't traditionally used Pawn value, but we could. In this instance I think it was someone disgruntled that was just looking for a reason to be angry. We usually have minimal loot issues, but I also think we could do better. So, I was crowd sourcing what other people do for diablo based loot, and rerolling on tier tokens.

The argument presented in house was that a 915 should go to a better performing player with a 910 instead of the 905 as they hadn't done as much mythic plus etc. to be able to get that piece. Also, if the same item dropped the next week but only 910, then both Player A with the now 915, and Player B that didn't get it last week would both get a 5 ilvl upgrade. Whereas if the 915 went to Player B then this new item would be DE'd. To me, that's a bit much and unless I have raid drop premonition...which hello 1 mythic metronome drop since first week of NH, it's really hard to base it off of that and not do like you said and go biggest raid upgrade. However, that does in some ways deter people from grinding M+ for gear when they can be "lazy" and wait for raid items. So, it's a conundrum I was debating internally and wanted to post to the community.

We use RCLootCouncil, then a council and officer group to determine who gets it like described in the first post.

Are there really 10/10M guilds out there just doing personal and hoping for the best?
@Dracodraco @Emancptr and others, how are you guys handling the WF shit show of diablo loot, or loot in general?

Well first thing was that you did not mention what type of guild you were and tbh for a 10/10M NH guild, I agree that it can be hard to replace some players as our guild is always recruiting because some people get burned off or have irl issues.

We do not force people to farm loot in m+, but everyone has to do their weekly m+ for ap and chest at least which is easily done. If some players do more and get gear out of it, then it is nice, but we do not consider that when we give out loot. Those who do not have time to farm m+ but still do well enough to be in the raid deserve the loot like the others. I understand the situation you explained and yes, if the 910 would drop the next week, it would be a waste, but basing how you give your loot on that can frustrate some people and it will only make a bigger gap between higher ilvl and lower ilvl.

What I meant about those who do not deserve the loot should be kicked is not about this guy does 5% less dps than his opposite most of the time and he is not as good a player. To me it is more of a situation where the guy is friend to many and does like 10-15% less than he should consistently, but he is kept in because he is friend. If you feel like the guys is not holding the group back and deserve to be in the raid, then threat him as you would another. If 2 players have the same ilvl and one plays better, then it is fine to give to the one that is better.

[Otrew]

WE use EPGP. In progress people loose dkp for failing basic mechanics after a fewwipes. I prefer loot council, but after a couple of months using it we went back to EPGP because works better for us, people fail less and miss less raid nights of progress.

[Darthslider]

We use PL on a first 1-2 weeks of new raid, after that - master loot. We use council loot system. RL links piece of loot to the chat. Each raid member whisper his current ilvl in this slot and add "+" in case if he will definitely not switch this item on another one with +-5 ilvl. After that RL decide who need it more in terms of raid (not personal) performance.

[Tradu]

Didn't Blizz set it up so Personal drops MORE LOOT on average than any other system?

Why wouldn't you do that? More loot = raid team gets better faster, on average.

Giving to "top performers" just funnels everything that way for the whole expansion -- I get more gear cause I've got more gear so I perform better than everybody else so I get more gear cause I've got more gear so I perform better...

Except that's not how you judge "top performers", you judge them based on performance relative to how much gear they've been given. That said, yes, unfortunately PL does drop more total loot on average as well as being tradeable, so purely in terms of quantity it's numerically better.


OT: Master looter with a lootcouncil(although recently it has mostly been a loot dictatorship, in the sense that we didn't really make use of the council a lot, just our raidleader's judgement), works fine for us. The only time I know of that there have been complaints were when I had to take over the masterlooting for a raid and fucked up a tier piece(addon bugged out and I didn't check to make sure the items it showed people having were correct), and even then that was just the guy who I accidentally didn't give it to pointing it out to me and that was that.
For tier we generally go with the same priority as what Dracodraco posted above.

- - - Updated - - -

They need to make personal loot drop tier tokens instead of specific class tier pieces, then the system would be pretty solid.

No, they don't. Personal loot is already way better than it should be.

[Deleted]

Right now, we prioritize certain tokens on players who are most likely to play 2+4 set next raid, other thank that just loot council with dps>tank>heal>trial with exceptions

[Kaykay]

personal loot untill less than 50% of players need loot on a boss. or if less than 50% of players need tier tokens on token bosses.
Then masterlooter and roll on tokens for those who need.

loot councils only work for bleeding edge guilds trusting everyone to show up each week and every upgrade affecting the entire raid, or the raid leaders girlfriend whos sure to be geared up because "x role is important to our progress, rly guys, we're almost done with normal, but if x doesn't get geared up we cant do heroic".

loot councils, epgp and other systems are biased towards players who show least commitment to their character, people who dont do mythic+ to gear up, people who raidlog so everything that drops becomes an upgrade. People who game the council/epgp system, to get more loot than those who just want to play a game, find upgrades and kill bosses.

Personal loot means more items per boss, aslong as everyone needs items from a boss, there isn't a better alternative unless you're carrying bads, or want to gear up your raidleaders girlfriend first. Raid gear isn't required to clear the tier you are working on, wether its normal, heroic or mythic. Once you're killing bosses on heroic, you dont need heroic gear to finish the instance. So spread loot fairly, and dont cause drama, that's a whole lot healthier for a raid group in the long run, than creating cliques and kings and queens who decide upon the plebs fortune in coming tiers.

[Rotted]

We used loot council and all officers voted, then we just switched to PL. Everyone in our raids have their BIS written down or have something like askmrobot open but most people know what are upgrades and which are minor and which are massive upgrades. Usually if its a small upgrade they roll in chat and sort it out, if its a big upgrade for someone, people usually point it out with that add on and they let that person have it.

Tier usually gets DE'd after the first two weeks,

As much as I hate the guild I'm in right now for how they are raiding and their attitudes, looting has always worked and never caused squabbles in their defense

[Deleted]

We use loot council on bosses with tokens at least during progression, also we have addon that simplifies process because people just click neeed/grid and officers get info how good is item compared to current that person is wearing.

[Xargoth6634]

I agree with those saying you're putting too much effort into this, considering the fact that it's "just" heroic raid loot. If you were on the bleeding edge of content it might be worth it, but I feel like the majority of those guilds have set ways they use to hand out loot, and their raiders are probably pretty unconcerned with drops since the prestige lies in the kills, not their personal character's gear sheets. Is the raid held up for the entirety of the time you guys are discussing handing out loot?

[Deleted]

It'd be interesting to see the correlation between guilds using loot council, and where they actually are in terms of rankings. My guess is it would provide a lot of luls.

[Deleted]

Personal loot is crap when you have set pieces in the tier. You really don't want superfluous tier pieces that could've been tokens.