My guilds proposing a new loot distribution system that's causing alot of controversy

[ocis]

Agreed, though in a 10 man it's fine for the most part. Eventually it will even out.


that's what decay is for and EPGP fully supports that.


No, the other systems are NOT based on a lack of trust, they're based on eliminating any drama and on an objective criterion or set of criteria. EPGP for example, rewards attendance. It says nothing about whether a given upgrade is given to the best performing DPS or the person for whom it's the biggest upgrade. However, I'd say that giving loot according to those criteria is problematic. If someone isn't good they shouldn't be in the raid period. Loot isn't the right enforcement mechanism for performance.

You also skipped right by one of the biggest issues with loot council - knowledge. If LC is going to say "A will get more from that piece than B or C" they need to really know all of the classes and specs running with them. SOME progression raiders do. Some don't. However, given the number of RLs I've seen who cant use WoL properly to analyze their raid or who judge healers on HPS, I've very little confidence that the vast majority of RLs really know other classes all that well. Yes, the top 100 probably do. Below that? Not so much.

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ANd for the 4th time... you're rewarding people for not working to upgrade their gear outside of the raid if you do this on ilevel.

There's nothing saying that a loot council cannot use a system like EPGP to be one of the deciding factors into who gets what. It just means that you have the flexibility to change things up based on other criteria like set bonus and trinket strengths. Honestly,the biggest weakness with an open run EPGP is the fact that it is transparent. Decay doesn't stop people from trying to pool points for certain pieces of gear, often passing up loot that they can use and hurting their overall performance in the end. The whole point of a loot council is that it stops people from trying to exploit the loot system to gain an advantage or a perceived one.

Yes, you do have to trust the council in order for it to work, and yes, the council can't be corrupt or biased. But if you can't trust those people, or those people can't be trusted, then it's time to find another guild because either you care about loot too much and it's distracting you or your guild leaders are shooting progression in the foot. I've been in raiding guilds and have gone through all sorts of systems - free roll, DKP, various incarnations of EPGP, but loot council has been the smoothest. Hell, half the time in my raid the loot gets talked over and decided upon by the eligible players without it even having to go to a council decision. Everyone in the group has the same goal - downing that next boss that we haven't killed yet. Nobody stresses about loot, and we know that piece will drop again - all that's important is that the gear will go to whomever needs it the most, and we trust the council to make up our minds for us when we can't decide ourselves. It's perfectly drama free, and it's great for catching possible issues we will have with trials or new members who will put personal loot in front of the team and cause their own drama.

[speakpkhq]

wow that is one of the most complicated systems ive ever heard of lol.

[clevin]

There's nothing saying that a loot council cannot use a system like EPGP to be one of the deciding factors into who gets what. It just means that you have the flexibility to change things up based on other criteria like set bonus and trinket strengths. Honestly,the biggest weakness with an open run EPGP is the fact that it is transparent. Decay doesn't stop people from trying to pool points for certain pieces of gear, often passing up loot that they can use and hurting their overall performance in the end. The whole point of a loot council is that it stops people from trying to exploit the loot system to gain an advantage or a perceived one.

Yes, you do have to trust the council in order for it to work, and yes, the council can't be corrupt or biased. But if you can't trust those people, or those people can't be trusted, then it's time to find another guild because ...

You keep coming back to trust and totally ignoring the knowledge part of council. Loot Council can't work well if the council doesn't know how to evaluate fairly close calls and that means they need to know a fair amount about all of the class/spec combos in the raid.

Also, it's interesting that you and others talk about how a raider is supposed to trust the council... but that the raider can't be trusted with a transparent loot system. Trust goes both ways.

If there aren't a lot of close calls (and there typically are not in 10 mans), then it really doesn't matter what system you use. I mean, it's not as if the spirit leather is going to anyone but the druid or the spirit mail to the shaman and 10s rarely have multiples of a given class/spec.

PS: Oh look, OP hasn't posted since starting this. How... special.

[Deleted]

This system is okay-ish in spirit, but it would be better if players could just resolve loot distribution informally. (As you can see in several dozen of the above posts.)

If you have a few members of your raid who are very difficult to satisfy with regard to loot, then the problem isn't the loot, but those players.

And as some other folks have said, if you don't trust your members to distribute loot in the best interests of the raid, then you might as well use loot council. In the short term it will work. However, in the long run, loot council blows and is worse than every other alternative no matter how terrible.

That's your personal opinion, probably based off personal experience in a casual guild where people didn't know what they were doing.

For any serious 10 man guild both DKP and EPGP are a waste. It's not hard for competent players/leaders to ask, who needs an item and then have a short discussion about who needs it more. If 2 players both need it equally, you look at role i.e dps>tank>healer and if they're still equal, you look at performance. Who's the better player, who's more likely to make more use of an item.

The only reason some people don't like loot council, is if they think they're being treated unfair. But that's not a flaw with that type of loot distribution, that's a flaw with the guild management/players.

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You keep coming back to trust and totally ignoring the knowledge part of council. Loot Council can't work well if the council doesn't know how to evaluate fairly close calls and that means they need to know a fair amount about all of the class/spec combos in the raid.

Also, it's interesting that you and others talk about how a raider is supposed to trust the council... but that the raider can't be trusted with a transparent loot system. Trust goes both ways.

If there aren't a lot of close calls (and there typically are not in 10 mans), then it really doesn't matter what system you use. I mean, it's not as if the spirit leather is going to anyone but the druid or the spirit mail to the shaman and 10s rarely have multiples of a given class/spec.

PS: Oh look, OP hasn't posted since starting this. How... special.

There are often close calls, specially during progression ofc. We currently have 4 casters in our raid and they funnily enough all want caster trinkets. Do you not think, that's close calls? Or weapons? Or Tier pieces? What happens if 2 dps can get a 4p bonus, is that not a close call?

I get what you say about trust going both ways. The issue with DKP and EPGP is that there's always going to be people speculating and passing minor upgrades, just so that they can get a bigger one.

It doesn't have to require the leader/officer to know a whole lot about all classes tbh. It just require that each player know their own class and that each player will put the guild before themselves. "This belt is BIS for me, but X player has a worse item in that slot than me. So even if the belt isn't BIS for him, it will overall still be a bigger upgrade for him. So I pass belt to X". That's the sort of loot discussions we have in my guild.

Also, the Spirit leather items could go to either a Resto Druid, a Boomkin or a Mistweaver. While 10 man guilds don't often stack classes, several classes just share gear across the board. So saying that there aren't a lot of close calls in a 10 man guild simply isn't true.

[meekus]

Whatever is best for the guild and it's progress should always be prioritized in my opinion. Usually this means whoever has a good set bonus in reach or whoever has the shittier item for that slot, should also get the lewt. Of course exceptions can be made if you brought new raiders and such.

I just don't think a DKP:ish system should be necessary for any somewhat serious guild. Everyone should be thinking "what's better for the guild?", not "what's better for my personal dps?"

[Mongoose19]

Rofl so complicated, time consuming. Just roll or use loot council. Nothing works as good as these two options.

[Deja Thoris]

However, in the long run, loot council blows and is worse than every other alternative no matter how terrible.

Loot council rocks. If you think it sucks its because the people on the loot council are dicks or the raiders themselves are.

Nothing beats a fairly run loot council.

[Ham on Rye]

However, in the long run, loot council blows and is worse than every other alternative no matter how terrible.

In the long run, loot council is always the best system if the members of the council aren't selfish retarded pricks. If you trust your guild, loot council > all. Every other loot system exists because of a lack of trust.

[meekus]

People should have to earn their gear. I only stay in guilds that use dkp type systems.

If I show up every week and contribute, waiting for a piece to drop why should I have to give that upgrade to some guy that shows up when he feels like it?

Dkp is like money to buy gear, like in real life if you don't show up to work you don't get money, if you don't show up to Raid you don't get gear. Sounds good to me.

In real life, you work for money. But in WoW, you shouldn't raid for epix. I wouldn't wanna raid with people with completely different goals than myself either, though. But for me it's not about them stealing my loot.

[Daltin]

This seems really complicated for a 10 man loot system.

[Aboubacar]

loot council with nice + smart people ftw

[clevin]

There are often close calls, specially during progression ofc. We currently have 4 casters in our raid and they funnily enough all want caster trinkets. Do you not think, that's close calls? Or weapons? Or Tier pieces? What happens if 2 dps can get a 4p bonus, is that not a close call?

it's not that there are never close calls, but that they're more rare in a 10 man than in a 25. Sure, if two dps share a tier token and the one that drops happens to be a non-tier slot it's a close call... but presuming both are comparable in skill and gear does it really matter who gets it? Systems like EPGP will reward the person who has helped you get to that point over the person who's been spotty in attendance.

That said, I can see loot council working for a) progression raids and b) where everyone has raided together for a while and thus there's trust in both the intentions and knowledge of the council.

I get what you say about trust going both ways. The issue with DKP and EPGP is that there's always going to be people speculating and passing minor upgrades, just so that they can get a bigger one. It just require that each player know their own class and that each player will put the guild before themselves. "This belt is BIS for me, but X player has a worse item in that slot than me. So even if the belt isn't BIS for him, it will overall still be a bigger upgrade for him. So I pass belt to X". That's the sort of loot discussions we have in my guild.

and in mine when we raided. But that's not really council, that's people being reasonable adults. You can do that in any loot system.

Also, the Spirit leather items could go to either a Resto Druid, a Boomkin or a Mistweaver. While 10 man guilds don't often stack classes, several classes just share gear across the board. So saying that there aren't a lot of close calls in a 10 man guild simply isn't true.

Ok, sure if you have a resto druid, a boomkin and a MW. But that's a rather odd combination and in general I'd advocate for a broader class/spec diversity to avoid having 1/3 of your raid all competing for drops.

[Paulosio]

My guild is 9/13 heroic and we just roll for our main spec. If someone wants something from offspec they check that nobody needs it for main spec 1st.

We use common sense. So for example I already had my 4 set of tier while many others on my token did not have their 4 set.... So when the 1 piece of tier drops that I don't have I pass for someone else so that they can get their set bonuses despite the fact the chest would be an upgrade for me.

I also passed the 1st 2 pieces of tier I won (legs and shoulders) to our warrior tank because he was a bit undergeared and he was taking a pounding on some of the bosses in the 1st week or 2. When the protector token dropped from Garrosh he returned the favour and gave it to me after he won it so I could complete my 2 set of tier.

If I won an upgrade that someone else would get a bigger upgrade from but they hadn't bothered to maximise their oportunities to improve their gear (by running flex for example) then I would probably keep it..

As a hunter in a guild with no other hunters, rogues, enhancement shammies or feral druids I don't have a massive ammount of competition on gear (except for tier).

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In the long run, loot council is always the best system if the members of the council aren't selfish retarded pricks. If you trust your guild, loot council > all. Every other loot system exists because of a lack of trust.

If people are really honest then you don't need loot council either. If 2 people want an item then it should be pretty easy for those 2 people to see who will get the bigger upgrade out of it.

[Deleted]

If you're planning on heroic progression, you guys should really learn how to just distribute the loot to whoever needs it the most. Tell your GM about how wrong his system is. As for the normal loot; I agree that BiS should be valued quite high and even if your plan is heroic progression, normal BiS gear should be taken into account as well, especially if it's from one of the later bosses.

In my guild, we usually take a quick loot among everyone who needs it. We ask if it's a huge upgrade for anyone. It's a huge upgrade for two people? Well, then we simply take a look at who can really benefit most from it and if it's BiS for anyone of us. Is it BiS for only one of them? Congratulations, that player now has a new gear piece.

Some people may complain if they get robbed of a lot of pieces, but there's always one or two people that care too much about their gear rather than the guild's gear.

I was at 550 the first week of SoO, best geared player in the guild. Now I'm at 558 and probably one of the lesser geared players except for our 555 pally reroll without a cloak and one of the few players without a single heroic piece. I don't have any problem passing at all if it means the guild benefits from it and I think that's important to your attitude if you're going to raid heroics.

[lakhesis]

Seems like a decent system as far as mechanistic systems go. Ilvls are increasingly related to quality of gear nowadays - the times when a lower ilvl better itemised piece was superior have mostly gone by the wayside.

Having run DKP, EPGP, etc systems in the past, I will say that it seems like a maintenance heavy system. You need to be checking the equipped ilvls of multiple players for multiple pieces on every boss kill, and then you need to do some basic mathematics & record the difference. It could be automated to some degree, but it's not light on the book keeping.

IMO that degree of maintenance is likely to cause it to be a long-term failure, unless you do some programming to create tools to support the system or have someone with the mind of an accountant who's responsible for it (and that person never gquits).

As an aside, there are certain things people fail to take into account with loot systems:

1) Someone will always be unhappy. It's the nature of the beast. It's in large part about creating a system that stops people causing problems and/or gquitting due to unhappiness
2) Focused distribution of gear probably won't raise your raid DPS any better than randomised distribution of gear, unless there is a truly massive disparity of skill between your raiders or you've got a group that's capable of top 50 in your region (i.e. already skill capped & capable of matching their sim'd dps). Sometimes the good melee will miss out on the trinket to the bad melee, but at +1% dps effect you're probably talking about a 1500 dps gain rather than a 2000 dps gain, which is going to be well within noise level variance on your standard overall raid dps (which'll be varying by 10s of thousands depending on how people perform-or-get-lucky).
3) Players distracted by drama tend to perform worse

The best thing that can ever be done in any loot system, imo, is to foster a guild culture where people talk about what they've got & agree to pass items to each other occasionally.

For example, I have a semi-regular arrangement with the other 1h strength user in my raid where he normally gets the 1st weapon that drops (he's DW dps), I get the second (I'm a tank), and he gets the third (for his offhand). When we've been getting tier drops, people've been checking if the person they beat on the roll is 1 piece short of a set bonus & normally passing if so.

That sort of give & take "horse trading" approach will do a lot more to foster less drama & better results than any specific loot system ever will.

[MoanaLisa]

It seems really complicated and over-thought to be honest. A good raid leader should know in a general way who needs what and if loot assignment needs to happen everyone should be on board with that. But mainly what you propose is too complicated and will be difficult to sustain over the long run. Usually who gets drops is more a matter of common sense than anything else.

[Khamke]

We're 10/14 right now and our loot doesn't have any wacky system other than:

1. Raid Lead links item.
2. If you want it, you link your item in that slot (ring/trinket you'd replace for those two).
3. If no one else wants it, or it's clearly the best for you (upgrading from 543 vs. upgrading from 561, or BiS vs. 'I'll replace this ASAP'), BINGO! Enjoy your loot.
4. If there's competition, we usually just talk about it ("How good is your 4pc?" "Go ahead, I already have weapon/sweet trinkets." etc.)
5. Otherwise Raid Lead just hands it out based on Council-esque judgement.
6. If you're trialing, you're last on priority for loot.

Our guild isn't without drama hiccups, but loot hasn't been a cause of that since I've been around. Even when it's on open roll because someone forgot to set Master Loot, no one is trying to steal loot because you're not getting away with that, and no one would really want to.

[clevin]

We're 10/14 right now and our loot doesn't have any wacky system other than:

1. Raid Lead links item.
2. If you want it, you link your item in that slot (ring/trinket you'd replace for those two).
3. If no one else wants it, or it's clearly the best for you (upgrading from 543 vs. upgrading from 561, or BiS vs. 'I'll replace this ASAP'), BINGO! Enjoy your loot.
4. If there's competition, we usually just talk about it ("How good is your 4pc?" "Go ahead, I already have weapon/sweet trinkets." etc.)
5. Otherwise Raid Lead just hands it out based on Council-esque judgement.
6. If you're trialing, you're last on priority for loot.

Our guild isn't without drama hiccups, but loot hasn't been a cause of that since I've been around. Even when it's on open roll because someone forgot to set Master Loot, no one is trying to steal loot because you're not getting away with that, and no one would really want to.

How often do you have to talk it out = and doesn't that do two things:

1) Slow the raid

2) If it's a huge upgrade, is it a huge upgrade because the raider with the less good item has been slacking (no LFR/Flex?). If so, that's the same downside as OPs system - you increase you chancees as normal mode loot by doing less to improve outside of the raid.

[Sonnillon]

If you have rather "fixed" 10-man roster the priority based loot-system is uberly complex and time consuming for the people (person) keeping track.
If your GM feels that he needs to prioritize certain people, like many have said, loot council. If you have decent none lootwhore-dramaqueen raiders, then you might as well use /roll, specially if people use their sense to pass on loot to someone who really needs it.

BiS is being ignored because we plan on doing Heroic content eventually which means BiS normal gear will just be upgraded anyway.

Ehm? You plan to do Heroics, sure... But you cannot guarantee that you get "decent" or needed loot from it on first few goes. People with BiS gear, properly optimized BiS gear that is, do better numbers, be it HPS or DPS. For Heroics you need to have your people as good geared as possible. If "good" players have the gear, they will be even better.

But honestly. You can try your new system out on trial bases on few resets. See how it works out. If there is complaints, it is a failure - look for other options. If it seems to work for you, keep at it

We raid 10-man, with a rather set roster of 12-13 people. Using /roll raider > trial priority MS > OS priority. As we all know how to share it has never been an issue to pass a piece to someone who needs it.

[Kreeshak]

For clarification, I'm an officer, and I personally agree very much so with this system, but I'm weary of the fact that some other raiders think they're being cheated.

_________________

Essentially, loot goes to whomever considers the item the largest upgrade (All player gear is treated as being not upgraded yet).

Players who have to forfeit the loot (due to it not being as much an upgrade) receive priority rating equal to half (rounded down) the ilvl difference between their own gear (treated as non upgraded) and the piece that was given to a different player.

Players can spend priority rating to artificially increase the ilvl gap between their current gear and dropped loot to attain gear.

Example:

Boss 1:
Player 1 has an ilvl 528 0/2 Sword, Player 2 has a 510 2/2 (Treated as 502). A 553 weapon drops and is given to Player 2. Player 1 receives 12 priority rating. ( (553-528) / 2 = 12.5)

Boss 2:
Player 1 has an ilvl 540 helm, Player 2 has a 528 helm. A 553 helm drops and is given to Player 2. Player 1 gains 6 priority rating for a total of 18

Boss 3:
Player 1 has an ilvl 540 chest, Player 2 has a 528 chest. A 559 warforged chest drops. Whilst Player 2 has a 31 ilvl difference and Player 1 has a 19 ilvl difference, Player 1 spends 13 of his 18 rating to artifically attain a 32 ilvl difference.

Player 1 receives the warforged chest and now sits at 5 priority rating.

__________________

This system was chosen for two reasons:

* Making sure progression remains the largest priority for the guild by ensuring upgrades make the largest possible difference
* The Priority Rating system helps counteract under geared/newer players getting ALL the loot, this rewards better players by still giving them a chance to attain loot

The biggest complaints here are:

* Better players are being rewarded the least
* BiS gear is being ignored entirely

My GM feels that prioritising better players to get gear means that the drops are making smaller differences thus slowing down progression. BiS is being ignored because we plan on doing Heroic content eventually which means BiS normal gear will just be upgraded anyway.

I'd like to know everyone's opinion here. We're at the point where we're considering telling those players to just leave if they dislike it. I feel players should put progression above their own gear, but I dont want to tell people this if the consensus is that its wrong.

I strongly disagree with this system.

It rewards being lazy about your character. A dedicated player that cares for progression would make sure they get BIS gear from timeless island and upgrade it 535+ 8 = 543 while pugging as much flex as possible 540+8 = 548.

Your suggested system rewards players who skip farming, content, wipes, learning the mechanics of the fight and so on.

My gut feeling is that chances are that the better geared player, excluding extreme occurances of supreme or bad luck, will contribute much more to the guild in the long run, than the undergeared person.