Question about the Shroud DKP system

[Deleted]

I've been looking for a loot system for my guild and the Shroud system looks really promising. But there is one thing I'm not sure about.

In another thread I found this:

Basically you get a set amount of points per night, with deductions for unexcused tardy/absent, and bonuses for progression nights. You set a "min bid" of typically twice that of what you get a night (in our system it's 3 pts per raid night, so therefore 6 is min bid).

When item drops, you have a choice of bidding "min" or "half". Min is just what it is, min bid, and half is your maximum bid of half your dkp. This in effect builds in a mechanism to reduce dkp hoarding, and usually someone is not gonna get more than really 2 "highly desirable" items before running out of points to even newer members.

My question is; in a 10 man situation, this system allows someone bidding "min" instead of "half" when that person knows he/she doesn't have any competition for the item (either other people have it, or he/she is the only one who can use it). Is this a problem?

[Herecius]

Loot council (or just straight up rolling) is almost always better for 10 man. DKP systems are almost always designed with handling large numbers of people in mind.

[Tripping]

best DKP system i have ever seen is percentage based items. gloves, belt, boots, rings 30% of your DKP, trinkets and other pieces 40% and tier tokens 50%. Thatw ay if you DKP hoard, you will lose it faster.

OT: for 10man its probably best just to give the items to people who need them most, no point faffing about with DKP

[Emane]

Unless, you are working with a big roster for a 10 man guild, DKP isn't that good. In our guild we have 14 people. We have about 10-11 signups per raid night. Meaning, you don't have that many people.

For example, we have 1 rogue and 1 feral druid (Me), we have decided between us, on who get what leather item. Lets call us "Agi melee."
We also have a hunter, that we share, neck, cloak, rings and trinkets with. So now we are 3 people making compromises and such.

We have 2 cloth dps.
We have 1 balance druid and 1 resto druid. (Balance druid joins a pact with the cloth dps for rings, necks and such, while resto druid do it for the healers).

Just because you have 14 people, doesn't mean that it will be 14 people needing on the same loot. And for tier pieces, we just see what others need and such.

In 25 mans thou, you have more people needing the same gear, therefor DKP is good in a 25 man setting, while in a 10 man setting, it doesn't really work out that good. Because you will end up with pacts anyway. (Which is a good thing, as you spend less time looting, and more time pew pew-ing bosses.)

[darkwarrior42]

It's not a problem per se, but it does skew the system in favor of those without competition. If, for example, you have two cloth dps caster (say mage + warlock), as well as an elemental shaman, but no resto shaman, all three will want the caster dps trinket.... but the mage + warlock will have to bid hard against each other for the cloth stuff, while the shaman can conserve his dkp by bidding only min, saving his dkp for the trinket when it drops.

If you find that to be problematic, then yes, it is a problem you'll have to address. If not, then you should be fine. I like Shroud myself, but I have to echo the thoughts of the others here.... DKP is not a good system for a 10m guild with a small roster.

Specifically, DKP is pretty much reliant on competition forcing people to use their points. If you regularly have situations where people have no potential competition, DKP is probably not the best way to handle loot distribution.

[Deleted]

Thanks for all the input so far.

We have downsized from a 25 man guild (like so many guilds). There are some nights were we can run two 10 man groups. The group of players is around 15 most nights, with some nights where 20+ are available. There is a lot of rotating going on to let everyone raid.

Do you think it would be better to handle the loot per raidnight (by rolls or Loot Council) or have a system for every player in the guild (carrying over multiple raids)?

[Dorfie]

I'd highly suggest not using DKP for 10 mans. Just make a judgement and try to be fair. If people whine then obviously they don't have their priorities straight and you can find a replacement.

For example I (the loot master) gave our Feral Druid 4 set on the first week (4 vanq dropped). I'm very happy I did because the 4 set turned out to be a stupidly powerful raid cooldown. If we ran DKP he probably wouldn't have gotten it for 1-2 months. Loot council will always be the best system to benefit the raid. DKP is for whiny babies (wahhhhhhh why did he get the trinket)

[Cerunnir]

I will echo what alot of people have said here. In my guild we have a roster of 13 people, and we just roll for items. Everyone is going to get everything they want anyways. Beyond this we use a bit of common sense, people tend to pass items if it "makes sense" that another guy gets it. As an example, if the item would give the tank his 4 set bonus, or it being way better for a different class than theirs.

[sakkdaddy]

We had a DKP system with penalties given for hoarding and passing intermediate upgrades, adjusting prices of offspec items etc. to discourage letting them get sharded, etc. etc. basically coming up with all sorts of extra rules and caveats to try to patch up the problems of DKP systems.

Then going into WotLK, we switched to a wishlist + loot council system that works very well, and I recommend it highly. Everyone posts a BiS list for that tier, and gets priority on BiS items over others for whom an item might be 2nd best, for example. An item drops, people say wl, n, or o (wishlist, need, offspec) and we have a bit of priority based on guild rank (raider > member > recruit), with a team of 5 officers who handle decisions that don't already work themselves out by the system.

Nothing gets sharded unless it is truly useless, even a resto shaman's 2nd offspec. Everyone has very good gear for offspecs, which is fantastic for a team with a small, active roster. And loot distribution is fast without much drama.


DKP sucks. Loot council systems, as long as you have genuinely fair guild leadership, are much more effective and fair.

[Deleted]

Thanks, after reading all the advice given, I think I'll go for a Loot Council system.

[zoefschildpad]

My guild was using epgp in 10 man, it actually works really well and all the data is stored in officers notes, so you just need the addon and you're good.

[Brett Skullcrack]

Loot Council is an overkill for 10 mans (not to mention its other typical problems of power tripping, subjectivity and lack of transparency). Need/greed should be enough for 10 mans.

[Herecius]

Loot Council is an overkill for 10 mans (not to mention its other typical problems of power tripping, subjectivity and lack of transparency). Need/greed should be enough for 10 mans.

Loot council can still be absolutely transparent. Been doing completely transparent loot council for a long time now, and it's worked wonderfully. Everybody sees where loot if going and even has the power to give input. A transparent loot council helps get the mindset of 'what benefits the raid the most' over 'what benefits one guy the most.'

But, everybody has a preference, when it comes to loot! Either way, there's no point using any complicated system for 10m. Far too few people and not enough loot to bother futzing around with it.

[Hviske10ske]

Back when we were a 25man guild, we changed to EPGP system wich prevent DKP hoarding aswell, having fixed prices for items and able to adjust those for MS/OS, Minor upgrade vs. normal upgrades and so on. I really like the system, but on the other hand, it might not work that great in a 10man guild where a normal /roll or loot counciling will do better i belive.

[Deleted]

Tier chest drops.
/roll
Warrior in my raid rolls higher than me.
"Gz dude."
There's always next week

Tier shoulders drop
/roll
Warrior passes because he knows that I as an enhancement shaman have no alternative and his BiS are from spine.

Oh look common sense.

In a 10 man guild you're only going to have 4 people (maybe 5 depending on yourraid comp) rolling on any given piece of loot. That small group of people need to accept the competition for pieces of loot and use common sense and team work to know to pass on pieces of loot, either becuse the other person needs it more, or because you don't need it at all, or because they had just recently got rather lucky on a few pieces of gear and it would be rather selfish to expect to win more pieces depriving other people.

You're always going to end up with certain people getting luckier than others. That's just RNG. For instance, in my raid group, there are only 2 of us on the protector token, 4 on vanquisher and 4 on conqueror. We have seen an abundance of protector tokens, so much so that certain tokens are not needed anymore by either me or the warrior, for any spec. 6 protector shoulders, 5 protector heads, 4 protector chests and counting. In T12 for the first 5 weeks of rag kills we saw ONLY protector heads, it took a further 4 weeks before we saw our first vanquisher head.

[Brett Skullcrack]

Loot council can still be absolutely transparent.

By definition it cannot. Ultimately the decisions will be made by the council officers, and you will never get a transparent view of what's really going on in their heads. This is in contrast to DKP systems that are completely transparent, and you can always tell exactly how the decisions ends up being made, even beforehand.

[Deleted]

Well, I think I prefer loot council over need/greed so we can decide to give the tanks and healers upgrades faster. Especially in early progress and the nice bonus from tank 4 sets. As long as that is clear to the DPS, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Mammoon]

By definition it cannot. Ultimately the decisions will be made by the council officers, and you will never get a transparent view of what's really going on in their heads. This is in contrast to DKP systems that are completely transparent, and you can always tell exactly how the decisions ends up being made, even beforehand.

So what if the loot council is made up of all 10 raiding members...?

Even if that one person (Bob) really wants the drop, and the other 9 know it would benefit someone else more, either Bob needs to get over it and be happy that it is going to help the guild out, or Bob needs to find a new guild.
Obviously, this only works if you have a good 10 man group that cares more about progression than personal glory.

[Deleted]

Op , that will NEVER STOP dkp hoarding . Example , im holy pala and there another holy pala . Gloves from spine drop , we both need them , but instead of both of us biding half of our dkp , we chose that i take them now for min and he takes the next pair for min . Simple .
Best way for dkp to work is to have a set amount . Example , 40 pts / raid night , 120 pts for a main spec weapon . Seems to work fine for us this way .

[Deleted]

Op , that will NEVER STOP dkp hoarding . Example , im holy pala and there another holy pala . Gloves from spine drop , we both need them , but instead of both of us biding half of our dkp , we chose that i take them now for min and he takes the next pair for min . Simple .
Best way for dkp to work is to have a set amount . Example , 40 pts / raid night , 120 pts for a main spec weapon . Seems to work fine for us this way .

That is how EP/GP works right? Point for showing up, points for gear. In theory it could work, but in my experience players will not take gear because they want to be sure they have highest priority on that awesome weapon or trinket off the next boss. Sadly I've seen great gear being sharded because of this sort of system. I want a system where no gear is wasted.

Guild progression is top priority.