1. #1

    Loot system advice

    Hello everybody!
    I'm the guild leader of a 5/14H guild. We got our 5 kills as a 10m team, and merged with our other 10m team for 25m heroics.

    I need advice on the proper loot system for this group. I've heard loot council and DKP work great. I'm confused as to how loot council should work, and how DKP is. I've never done DKP with 25 people, and I've heard there are a ton of different ways to do it. Our 10 man teams did the standard /roll 100 MS>OS roll. Any thoughts?

    Thank you

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Are you solely in charge of this new guild that youve merged into? What about 'officers' from your team, or RL/officers from the other team/guild that merged with you?

    I'd try and get their opinions before asking people online, because theirs actually matters.

    If both teams ran /roll, then there's no reason not to still do it. It isnt more complicated than that.

    If you decide on any other system I'd firstly suggest EPGP: effort/gear points where attendance and new progress bosses give points, while receiving gear awards gearpoints, and EP divided by GP = priority. This system is the least biased and least prone to 'gaming'.

    The reason loot councils work so well is because established guilds already have a predetermined hierarchy/leadership that people (to an extent) trust. A merger of guilds into a loot council can open up for alot of resentment as youre bound to be biased.

  3. #3
    Yeah, I really prefer loot council over DKP. But you have to have the right guild for it. Basically it means that every upgrade will go to the person who gets the most out of it. DKP system is a selfish one and can mean that people get a 1% dps increase, while others would get a 5% dps increase.

  4. #4
    I would steer away from DKP systems. They tend to cause abnormal behavior in your members. Players refusing to bid on gear that is a significant upgrade merely because they're saving DKP for some weapon or trinket from a boss that you aren't even close to killing yet. That type of behavior will only hurt your progression.

    I speak from experience from using DKP in Classic and TBC. If I even explained half the zany stuff I saw or participated in, you would think I was embellishing the truth.

  5. #5
    We've always run with the standard MS>OS /roll also and it works fairly well. Where I (and my officers) have run into heartburn with it at times is around absences and PuGs. And really just absences because if there weren't absences there wouldn't be PuGs. It's not fair to the person who shows up consistently each week to raid to lose that one piece of gear they have been waiting for to someone who hasn't been consistent in attendance and wins off a /roll. And even moreso difficult to swallow when that person is a non-guildie that you pugged to fill the absence. The loot council, if based on who needs the gear the most, will end up rewarding those with inconsistent attendance so I wouldn't want that either. If you use a true "committee" approach to loot council where it is a select few people making the decisions, it has the potential to be the most fair but will likely just alienate people as they disagree with the decisions.

    So what I'm planning to do (assuming my officers agree), is go with a suicide kings priority approach. Where there are gear conflicts with players, established a ranked priority list of the players so that whomever is on top of the list will get the first dibs at gear when it drops. The initial ranking can be setup based on /roll or need or however you see fit. To Vilate's point above, if you have priority and choose to pass on the gear because it is a small upgrade and you want to retain priority for the next boss that has a major upgrade for you, that's your prio... err call. You can pass and take your chances of going home empty handed.

    Whenever someone gets loot, they drop to the bottom of their priority ranking. Likewise, to curb attendance issues, if you miss a raid it's handled the same as getting loot and you drop to the bottom of the list. If attendance is an issue for you does this mean you will be the most undergeared person on the team? Yup. And it will be noticeable by you and everyone else every raid night. If you are undergeared compared to the rest of the team, doesn't that bring down the rest of the team (chain only as strong as its weakest link)? Yup. And again it will be noticeable and if severe enough, a replacement will have to be found. Because you know what is even MORE detrimental to the team than being undergeared? NOT SHOWING UP. Having 9 or 24 other people waiting around while a replacement is found. Having everyone ELSE know the fight and have experienced it while you didn't. So we'll get to take another 5min of wasting people's time next week standing at the boss while we review the strat we employed that you missed.

    As for PuGs, they would also come in at the bottom of the ranking. Now many will jump up and say "Who would ever PuG with you if they were likely to not get any gear!?!". That's a completely valid point. But not a situation that should happen very often unless you are having to PuG right at the beginning of your progression. The reality is that PuGs are generally more undergeared than your team and after you've killed the same boss a number of times, your members don't need the gear anyhow so even though the PuG is at the bottom of the ranking list, they'll still get the gear. The important point though is that the ranking will stay the same so that when one of your members DOES need the piece, they get it.

    That's the plan anyhow. It also ensures loot is distributed evenly (everyone gets one piece rather than 1 person getting 3 pieces and everyone else none). And in the event where loot isn't distributed evenly, there isn't any room for people to complain because they chose to allow it to happen (since the only way it could happen is if people passed their priority or didn't need the gear).

    Sorry for the soapbox. You can tell I am jaded of the attendance boss.

  6. #6
    3 People loot council
    1 Tank, 1 DPS, 1 Healer

    Loot drops, everyone that is eligible to wear that piece link what you are currently wearing. And you three vote on who gets it.

    Is it a long process for 25m loot? maybe at the start of a tier, but if everyone in the raid understands how the process works it goes pretty quickly.
    Loot decisions are final. Any trading of loot after loot is given to the chosen receiver is beyond Loot council's control.
    Disputes can be promptly placed up their own ass.

    The game is about killing bad guys over and over. Gear will drop here and there. Bring your coins and cross your fingers to get the piece you want. Council's job is to balance loot distribution based on what the raid needs, not wants.

  7. #7
    Thank you guys for your insight. We have always been one solid guild with 2 10m teams, now we are 25 strong and I (GM) have 2 officers that have the trust of the guild. The problem is I need to research more as to who would get more out of a piece than somebody else.
    I am leaning towards loot council, because DKP while fair for attendence, does lead to people getting a slight upgrade over somebody who needs a bigger upgrade. We are a mature, social guild, and everyone seems to be on board with a loot council, especially early on.

  8. #8
    I wouldn't bother with loot council in a casual guild. The benefits you get from it (more loot on people that matter for progression) are basically nil when you're not going up against bosses very, very early when every gear piece counts. It also has a very high potential for drama and can take a lot of extra time.

    I'd favor EPGP. When set up correctly, it offers a lot of necessary incentives and more or less fairly distributes loot. With an appropriate decay, it also deters hoarding points and passing on decent upgrades for that one big upgrade. We used EPGP in my last, more casual guild and it worked fantastically.

    Here's an article about it. It looks really complicated, but it's not once you understand it. Basically, you get EP for raiding and you get GP when you get gear. Your priority for loot is the ratio of your EP to your GP, or EP/GP. EP and GP decay by a percentage each week, so it keeps values in check and rewards taking gear while punishing passing on gear.

    Some additional tips:

    • Don't award EP for non-raid things, and make sure everyone has an opportunity at the same gains. Actually raiding should always be 90%+ of the total EP though.
    • Apply a heavy decay; somewhere in the ballpark of 20-30%.
    • Start awarding EP 15-20min early to incentivize people showing up early to clear trash so you can pull the boss right at raid time.
    • Give EP to people warming the bench. Not a bonus, but the same as those actually in the raid.
    • Don't charge GP for offspec pieces. This just discourages flexibility in your raid.
    • Reset it every tier. Old gear and attendance doesn't matter when a new one comes out.
    • Still don't be a dick with loot. If you have a higher ratio and a belt drops that's a sidegrade for you (i.e. better secondaries) but a huge upgrade for someone else (like normal to heroic) with a lower ratio, pass it to the person that actually needs it. If your guild is as mature and social as you say it is, that shouldn't be a problem. You can even make it a hard rule, like MS (ilvl upgrade) > MS (ilvl sidegrade) > OS and even provide a GP discount on same-ilvl gear.
    Last edited by Squirl; 2014-02-25 at 11:58 PM.

  9. #9
    High Overlord Raic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Squirl View Post
    • Don't award EP for non-raid things, and make sure everyone has an opportunity at the same gains. Actually raiding should always be 90%+ of the total EP though.
    • Apply a heavy decay; somewhere in the ballpark of 20-30%.
    • Start awarding EP 15-20min early to incentivize people showing up early to clear trash so you can pull the boss right at raid time.
    • Give EP to people warming the bench. Not a bonus, but the same as those actually in the raid.
    • Don't charge GP for offspec pieces. This just discourages flexibility in your raid.
    • Reset it every tier. Old gear and attendance doesn't matter when a new one comes out.
    • Still don't be a dick with loot. If you have a higher ratio and a belt drops that's a sidegrade for you (i.e. better secondaries) but a huge upgrade for someone else (like normal to heroic) with a lower ratio, pass it to the person that actually needs it. If your guild is as mature and social as you say it is, that shouldn't be a problem. You can even make it a hard rule, like MS (ilvl upgrade) > MS (ilvl sidegrade) > OS and even provide a GP discount on same-ilvl gear.
    Almost exactly what my old guild did and it seemed to work well (especially for 25m, when we regularly had 35+ show up). There might have been a few tweaks that my old guild did specifically, here's an overview...

    We were awarded a small amount of EP for showing up to the raid on-time and another small amount for staying til the end of raid. Everyone in the raid group, regardless of whether they were in the instance or on the bench, received the same amount of EP for each kill. EP wasn't rewarded for anything outside the scheduled raids.

    EP would also change based on the type of boss. EP assignment would go up for heroic or progression kills, but would eventually go down for bosses clearly on farm. We could also receive a small amount EP during progression without killing a boss if we were showing clear progress.

    There was no EP penalty for missing raid (aside from not actually getting EP), however leaving in the middle of the raid without prior notice resulted in a sizable EP loss. Decay was applied periodically to prevent PR (loot priority) hoarding, and everything was reset once a new tier starts.

    GP was assessed based on need, 100% GP for an upgrade, 75% GP for a sidegrade, 50% GP for offspec. People who selected 100% had priority over 75% who had priority over 50%, from there loot would be assigned based on PR (PR=EP/GP) (ex. whoever had highest PR in the 100% group received the piece of loot). There was also an EP threshold so that new recruits wouldn't have priority over established raiders.

  10. #10
    The Patient Jaceo's Avatar
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    We do pretty much the same as squirl has posted above and it seems to work well for us. The main thing is no loot system is 100% fair or will keep your raider 100% happy. Pick one loot system and a set of rules and stick to them for at least that tier. Over the years I have seen many guilds chop and change their systems and rules during raids etc and it only leads to drama.
    Last edited by Jaceo; 2014-02-26 at 11:24 PM.

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