Loot Council v. Point systems like EPGP/DKP/etc. - What are your thoughts?

[Adoxe]

Loot council is vastly superior if the members of the council are smart about it and not biased towards certain people, which doesn't happen often. DKP can easily be abused to gain an advantage by those who perhaps shouldn't be given the opportunity to.

[bearlolz]

Loot council - a new player in the guild no matter how good has no chance at gear vs the 'veterans' that have been there since p server days

DKP - fairest, simplest, no BS system. You want to save up for that Perditions Blade? Be ready to pass the other rogue gear to the rogues for weeks.

[AeneasBK]

Assigning loot before hand is a pretty good way to get people not to show up.

In reality though, there are more than one "sought after" item per tier for each role, so it's pretty easy to ensure every raider has their name on the table somewhere. So you may not be first, second, or third in line for the Staff of Shadow Flame, but you're second in line for Neltharions Tear so...

Without wanting to go into it too much in yet another loot system thread, by having it transparent and visible before the raid (and btw this isn't something that is posted a day before raid its a constant google doc set up at the start of the tier, that every raider can see so you can see your progression towards getting the item each time one drops, I guess "before the raid starts" was a little misleading) you give every raider an opportunity to raise any concerns with the distribution outside of raid time - of which there is an abundance. That way anyone who's feeling like its not even worth showing up to raids because they've been overlooked has a chance to ask why this is the case. The only chance that people will be really far down any list is if your raid is stacking a class because tryhard. Sure if you have 9 mages it will cause a fuss but 9 mages is gonna cause a loot headache in any guild and frankly if the mages themselves weren't prepared for that they shouldn't join a raid team with 8 other mages.

Also while it takes a bit of time at the start of each tier to discuss and set up, after each raid its very quick to update, and when bosses die, its very quick to assign the loot and move onto clearing to the next boss because the loot drops have already been assigned before they've even appeared. It also makes any council corruption immediately clear.

But yeah in reality, basically every raider is going to be inline for *something* once it drops, even if it isn't Drakefang Talisman the first couple of times. And at that point anyone who won't show up because they may not be getting loot that night isn't someone whos feelings on loot you need to pay any attention to whatsoever because they're only in it for themselves, so fuck 'em.

At any rate, its a system that works for a guild who are "into" raiding, it wouldn't work with high raidteam churn.

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Loot council - a new player in the guild no matter how good has no chance at gear vs the 'veterans' that have been there since p server days

DKP - fairest, simplest, no BS system. You want to save up for that Perditions Blade? Be ready to pass the other rogue gear to the rogues for weeks.

Why compare apples to oranges. In a DKP system a new player in the guild no matter how good has no chance at gear vs the veterans who have just been 'turning up' for months more than they have. If anything in a Loot Council you can turn up, outperform the scrub rogues who *aren't* the GMs buddies (*given the apparent bias against LC I'll assume that every LC is a "gear up the GM and his buddies first" system, so that's a given but they won't all be rogues ) and get loot before them despite them turning up to raids for months longer than you have just by dint of "being in the guild sooner".

[LordCowz]

I was a part of pretty competetive raiding guild between T6 BC and WotLK. We had a system that was implemented after some loot council drama that would up working really well. It was a hybrid council/roll/point system.

We had a "council" that was made up of the most senior person playing each class They would determine if any in-class items were a good choice to be given to their class. Once that was determined, every person would be invited to do a roll for that item. Highest roll would win. Class tokens/items worked the same way, but without the council consideration first.

We also had points assigned to each person that we tracked. Showing up to a raid was worth 5 points. Anyone on standby to fill leaver spots got 2 points for this which we changed to 5 if they eventually filled a spot. Each boss killed was worth 5 points the first time we killed it, and 2 points each time after that. You could use your points (in any amount) to increase your roll for an item by that amount. So, If for example a trinket dropped that was good for Mages, Warlocks, Ele Shamans, Shadow Priests, and Moonkins, those people could roll, and after their numbers were in, any of them from lowest to highest could spend their points to increase their roll. If at any point someone spent enough points to make their roll 100, the item was theirs, and no one above them in roll would have to spend any points.

This encouraged participation, and made it so that you could in theory spend enough points to "buy" an item outright, but even if you were low on points or newer to our raiding team, if you got lucky and rolled high enough, you still could conceivably get an item. And if you maintained high attendance, if there was an item you really wanted, you could spend enough to buy it out even if you rolled low.

*note* Mounts were given out by the class council based on moments of exceptional performance/guild assistant or work.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

We use EPGP as a guide but make final decisions in LC. EPGP does a great job of giving a quick look at measurables. They donate to the bank, they help teammates, show up to raids type of thing in a protracted system. It also shows if they are getting everything or if someone else isn't getting anything. Nice and publicly displayed too. But having the bonus of the council let's smart decisions happen and makes hording and gaming the system less attractive. Sure, 90% of the time the LC chat is 5 people saying "go with epgp" and it assigns the loot. But that important 10% of the time keeps critical items in critical hands first and more often and allows us to directly reward items we desire or think is nessessary.

It really helps once things are in full farm mode. Loot is just shelled out on system without it mattering or to much thought. The LC is mostly active during the first few clears where we want key personal and roles to get over the curve to ease future clears more easily.

[endorus]

I think that LC can be better if done fairly.

We used dkp in vanilla, forcing people to take items if they were upgrades. In retrospect, I wouldn't go that route again.

Switched to a guild who used EPGP in BC. Which was the best of both worlds, some items can be held back and given LC style but also has the traditional effort = reward of dkp.

Were we in actual vanilla again, i would go EPGP in a heartbeat. It just works for guild community culture, effort points can be awarded for anything not just raids, its slick.

As this is classic though and the content is being steamed through I see no point in using over complex systems.

LC important items, round robin the rest.

[Heathy]

I don't get the point that new ppl who join a guild using dkp don't get loot, they are usually the ones that get loot at min bid, because the dudes who have 'tons of dkp' obviously aren't bidding on gear they already have. you only get tons of dkp if you've done tons of raids, during these tons of raids loot drops, after a while most of it you'll have and that is where dkp inflation begins, you're raiding and not bidding on gear because you have it or most of it.

I don't think its unfair that if a particular item is not dropping for you, a specific weapon or tier piece, that those who have sat through most of the raids to the point that it does finally drop, that they get a better chance at winning said item over someone whos first raid it is.

its been a while since dkp but i remember it went something like this, 15 per raid earned, min bid 5 or 10, increments of 5 upto whatever, you could open with high bids if you wanted but i don't remember anyone deliberately forcing ppl to waste dkp, I don't remember ppl being able to bid on items they already had or couldn't use, so you could only raise the price of an item if you actually needed it. I could force someone to pay a certain amount for an item, the eye of divinity comes to mind, when it came down to the last 2 or 3 priests that needed it, i remember forcing the other priests to pay at least 50 - 70 dkp for it. as the other priests had. certain items you want to maintain a value at. a lot of items will go cheap some won't. it totally depends on what drops, you could have 2 guilds do 10 raids and the loots they get would likely be totally different.

the idea is to just find a value conversion from dkp to the items, how often they are dropping for your guild, you don't have to turn dkp into a fuck you contest for it to function, you just have to carefully deplete each others dkp at a reasonable rate. force ppl to pay what you think the value of that item is, nothing more. when there is only one person who needs it, congratulations for being patient you get it for min bid.

the first few raids a guild does are always the strangest because you have to create a baseline, so you roll in the first raid and those who win are at 0 dkp on their second raid, or at least lower than those who didn't win anything, then in the second raid you have ppl capping out their dkp and rolling again because its quite likely you'll not have enough dkp to out bid yet. then the 3rd raid you'll probably see rolling again as ppl bid all they have which is like 10 or 20 by that point assuming they won 1 item and attended all 3 raids. it takes a while before you have ppl with 100s of dkp stored up. or until you see a bid war into the 100s.

[Akasha64]

I generally have a mistrust of people, so DKP/EPGP for me. I don't trust people to have that great knowledge on the game and what item better belongs to what spec or is the bigger upgrade for the person. BiS lists are one thing, but they don't tell the whole story. Loot decisions are made in an instant, within 10 minutes, but any serious theorycrafting probably takes many hours (it's a lot of math and number-crunching), so how are we even sure the LC officers are making the best decisions?

With DKP/EPGP at least, I feel like I'm in control to an extent over my character's gear progression, and I do my own spreadsheets/math when I can. I certainly don't have the time to do it for everybody else in the raid. Additionally, I haven't played all the classes in the game at a high level, so let's say if I was on the council, I'm pretty sure I'd be making sub-optimal decisions if I only had 10 minutes to work with, and likely I'll fall victim to groupthink and just agree with who knows the most about the subject.

Groupthink: https://media.buzzle.com/media/image...groupthink.jpg

[bearlolz]

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Why compare apples to oranges. In a DKP system a new player in the guild no matter how good has no chance at gear vs the veterans who have just been 'turning up' for months more than they have. If anything in a Loot Council you can turn up, outperform the scrub rogues who *aren't* the GMs buddies (*given the apparent bias against LC I'll assume that every LC is a "gear up the GM and his buddies first" system, so that's a given but they won't all be rogues ) and get loot before them despite them turning up to raids for months longer than you have just by dint of "being in the guild sooner".

first time on vanilla?

[Weilyn]

I think that LC can be better if done fairly.

We used dkp in vanilla, forcing people to take items if they were upgrades. In retrospect, I wouldn't go that route again.

Switched to a guild who used EPGP in BC. Which was the best of both worlds, some items can be held back and given LC style but also has the traditional effort = reward of dkp.

Were we in actual vanilla again, i would go EPGP in a heartbeat. It just works for guild community culture, effort points can be awarded for anything not just raids, its slick.

As this is classic though and the content is being steamed through I see no point in using over complex systems.

LC important items, round robin the rest.

What he said. EPGP

[GrumpyNugget]

DKP makes no sence in classic wow as everyone is just pugging the end game content.

I've ran MC twice now and im already tired of it.

HOLD MY BEER!

At 20-09 you already ran MC twice?!

So within 3 days you leveld from 11 to 60 and ran MC TWICE!?

Oh boiii .....

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[d00mh4cker]

HOLD MY BEER!

At 20-09 you already ran MC twice?!

So within 3 days you leveld from 11 to 60 and ran MC TWICE!?

Oh boiii .....

-----

I have hating stalker, help me actually.

[schwank05]

I did DKP through early Naxx, worked great then we started to strictly focus on 10 man content so we just /Rolled on everything which worked equally as well.

[erifwodahs]

You could try just rolling for gear in classic? No drama that way.

Rolls are not drama free. Also it is by far the worst distribution for progression oriented guilds.

[Nobleshield]

This is why I like EPGP. Fixes the issue of DKP (hoarding) and makes it so the more items you get the lower your priority becomes so others can have a chance even if you have more points. That said though my guild is going to use DKP.

[Locknrollen]

I generally have a mistrust of people, so DKP/EPGP for me. I don't trust people to have that great knowledge on the game and what item better belongs to what spec or is the bigger upgrade for the person. BiS lists are one thing, but they don't tell the whole story. Loot decisions are made in an instant, within 10 minutes, but any serious theorycrafting probably takes many hours (it's a lot of math and number-crunching), so how are we even sure the LC officers are making the best decisions?

With DKP/EPGP at least, I feel like I'm in control to an extent over my character's gear progression, and I do my own spreadsheets/math when I can. I certainly don't have the time to do it for everybody else in the raid. Additionally, I haven't played all the classes in the game at a high level, so let's say if I was on the council, I'm pretty sure I'd be making sub-optimal decisions if I only had 10 minutes to work with, and likely I'll fall victim to groupthink and just agree with who knows the most about the subject.

Groupthink: https://media.buzzle.com/media/image...groupthink.jpg

After 15 years all the number crunching has been done. Bis lists are correct.
Maybe you shouldnt be in a guild where you mistrust the leadership.

[Milfshaked]

So within 3 days you leveld from 11 to 60 and ran MC TWICE!?

I dont see what is so weird about that. I have already run MC four times.

Rolls are not drama free. Also it is by far the worst distribution for progression oriented guilds.

Rolls are hardly the worst distribution system. Both a bad DKP system or a bad loot council is worse. DKP systems or loot councils have a massive variance in how effective they are depending on how they are set up. Rolls dont suffer from the same problem. Rolls will never be best nor the worst system. By its very nature it will always be an average system.

After 15 years all the number crunching has been done. Bis lists are correct.
Maybe you shouldnt be in a guild where you mistrust the leadership.

Well that is simply not true. I can look at 3 different bis lists and they will all show my different items as bis. Bis is also far more complicated than it seems because that depends on what you define as best in slot. Currently, most bis lists for dps revolves around what gives you the highest dps on a patchwerk fight. That said, they often completely ignore support stats. For example, stamina is pretty good for raiding and is not a 0 value stat. For example, casters using epics over green spellpower pieces resulting in 5% less damage but having 1000 more health can be very useful in a lot of fights.

Your bis list will be completely different depending on how high you value damage stats vs for example stamina, mp5 or intellect.

[Akasha64]

After 15 years all the number crunching has been done. Bis lists are correct.
Maybe you shouldnt be in a guild where you mistrust the leadership.

Not all items are on the BiS list but could still be upgrades. And BiS lists don't tell how big of an upgrade it is, e.g. someone with a green in that slot is going to benefit way more from the drop than someone who has a near-BiS epic. This is an extreme example (green vs. near-BiS epic), but in practice the difference could be smaller and harder to tell. BiS lists tell only a part of the story.

[GrumpyNugget]

I dont see what is so weird about that. I have already run MC four times.



Rolls are hardly the worst distribution system. Both a bad DKP system or a bad loot council is worse. DKP systems or loot councils have a massive variance in how effective they are depending on how they are set up. Rolls dont suffer from the same problem. Rolls will never be best nor the worst system. By its very nature it will always be an average system.



Well that is simply not true. I can look at 3 different bis lists and they will all show my different items as bis. Bis is also far more complicated than it seems because that depends on what you define as best in slot. Currently, most bis lists for dps revolves around what gives you the highest dps on a patchwerk fight. That said, they often completely ignore support stats. For example, stamina is pretty good for raiding and is not a 0 value stat. For example, casters using epics over green spellpower pieces resulting in 5% less damage but having 1000 more health can be very useful in a lot of fights.

Your bis list will be completely different depending on how high you value damage stats vs for example stamina, mp5 or intellect.

Leveling from 11 to 60 within 3 NORMAL days (not even played days) is weird yes. I don't care what you are calling that, but it's a lie. It's not true.

[Lora]

Open free roll is the best system.