1. #1

    A Loot System Reimagined

    I came up with the following idea after a discussion in my 25 man guild about loot systems. I am curious if anyone out there has done anything like this, and if so, how has it worked in practice. I would also be interested in general feedback from the community.

    Some Common Loot System and Raid Team Goals (in no particular order)

    Distribute loot in a time efficient manner
    Distribute loot in a fashion to facilitate more effective progression
    Distribute loot in a way that minimizes interpersonal drama
    Have fun raiding and progressing with a group in which good character and sense of team unity is of the highest importance
    Keep loot distribution straightforward without requiring micromanaging with lots of and lots of analysis or pro/con discussions

    Loot System Idea

    To help communicate the idea, I am going to describe a scenario of loot distribution

    Boss dies. Assigned looter picks up loot, linking the pieces in raid chat as the group moves to begin trash. Each raider looks at drops and links their current item in the slot for any desired pieces they see in the loot list into the appropriate chat channel* for that item. The members of that chat channel review what is linked, and type in the name of the player they think should receive the loot based on whatever the guild leadership has decided should prioritize loot distribution**.

    If there is no clear consensus, then the channel arbiter (an officer) either makes a decision, or if there is no real clear separator in their minds, names the people eligible and calls for them to roll, highest roll wins. If no one wants a piece, it is linked in raid chat for open roll as OS. This process should take no more than 45 sec-1 min, occurring simultaneously in each of the different chat channels. Once trash is cleared, while setting up for the next boss, people getting loot open trade with the looter and link the piece. He/She places it in the trade window. Any pieces not claimed would be relinked one more time mid-way through raid and again at end of raid, and if still no takers, DE'D.

    *There is a loot chat channel for each amour/primary stat group, for each tier token group, for each weapon type group, and for each primary stat ring/neck/trinket group. Each channel has one officer assigned as the arbiter for that channel. Other than officers, raiders belong only to the channels that involve main spec gear, and OS gear would be handled in main raid channel. So even though there is forest of chat channels, most people would be in only 4 channels. A team of 5 Officers would each be in about 7-8 channels the way I have it set up.

    -Cloth/Int
    -Cloth/Int/Spirit
    -Leather/Agi
    -Leather/Int
    -Mail/Agi
    -Mail/Int
    -Plate/Str
    -Plate/Int
    -Protector
    -Vanquisher
    -Conquer
    -Healer Weapons
    -Caster DPS Weapons
    -Ranged DPS Weapons
    -Melee DPS Weapons (Auyen, Kristoo, Alcar, Reigning, Vivell, Nasty, Xrage, Jabbers)
    -Tank Weapons
    -Agi Rings/Trinkets/Neck (includes both tank and dps trinkets for agi based classes)
    -Int Rings/Trinkets/Neck/Offhands (includes both healing and dps trinkets for int based classes
    -Str Rings/Trinkets/Neck (includes both dps and tank trinkets for str based classes)

    **Things that might prioritize loot distribution could include: biggest upgrade, making sure there is some equality in rate of people getting upgrades, raider/initiate, role (tank,healer/dps) priority for efficient progression, gearing top performers first, whatever. These would be established by the officers.

    Reasons I like this idea

    1. I really like the idea of everyone in the raid actively participating in loot assigning. It provides a way to create a guild-wide ethos of everyone thinking about "the greater good" by creating small groups making decisions with full visibility. This is an active structure that provides an easy way to push back against selfish impulses and requires a level of participation and thinking about fellow raiders that I think would help naturally foster good group dynamics and low drama.

    2. It is potentially very fast with very low impact on the pace of raiding

    3. It is a fully transparent process and very democratic

    4. It doesn't get bogged down with hair splitting. Using the roll if there is not a clear consensus or obvious recipient keeps controversy low and time spent haggling low.

    Things it would require to work well

    -Needs everyone to be involved and actively engaged in loot distribution. Even people not interested in a piece would need to be thoughtful about who gets the piece.
    -Would need a clear and well communicated set of loot distribution priorities
    -Some kind of loot award tracking. Having a public spreadsheet showing who has gotten what to supplement memory.

    Possible Cons

    -Assuming that stamping out of any kind of mini-factions crap would be a top priority of the officers, the only major con I can really think of it that it really requires people to pay attention and reduces chance to tune out in between intense fights. It might require actually having people stop controlling their toons and just focus fully on the loot discussions to work well. This would reduce the proposed efficiency a bit, but it would still be more efficient than any one item at a time method.

    Thoughts/experiences?

  2. #2
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    This is just a more structured loot council, no? It feels cumbersome and in pracice is going to fail 2 or 3 of your above criteria (1 and 3 especially). For 25s, loot council with a trusted group can work. For 10s and frankly for most 25s, EPGP with decay feels most efficient backed by a raid group that will do common courtesy things like passing a minor upgrade to someone for whom it's a big upgrade.

  3. #3
    I echo what Clevin said regarding it sounding like a more structured loot council. I see what you're doing trying to keep everyone involved in the process and I applaud that. However, I don't think it will end up being "easy". People aren't all going to want multiple channels they have to monitor. I've raided as a guild/raid leader, officer and worker bee and that just sounds like a pain. Additionally, with that many channels, eventually, people will link in the wrong channel, the right people won't see the link and a bad decision will be made.

    Here's how I've done things both in the 40 man guild from back in vanilla and current 10. (I've also done several variants in between from straight DKP to EP/GP, etc).

    In vanilla we ran loot council and each class had a class officer. As the Hunter lead I made a post on the guild hunter forums stating who had priority for which pieces that would be dropping in the tier we were working on. This list was based off people's specs, their personal preferences, etc. Therefore, they all had input into the final loot list. When something dropped, all I had to do was consult the list and I knew exactly who to hand it to. In the case something dropped (neck/ring/trink) that our rogue or feral (yes, we had a feral in our vanilla raid team) I would say in O chat which hunter was up for it next, the rogue lead would say the same for the rogues/feral and the officers would make a choice. It was always simple and quick. Additionally, by compiling the list beforehand we avoided ever having any loot drama. This all means extra work up front for the officers, but that's supposed to come with the position.

    Currently, we use a trump system. We accumulate dkp for raid time and new boss kills. An item is linked in raid and those who want it link what they will be replacing. 80% of the time, others will pass in favor of the person needing it the most. 19% of the time people will just do a /roll to determine the winner. 1% of the time, someone will call trump. This basically just means they trade in all of their dkp for the item. If two people call trump, it goes to the person with the most dkp. In 8 months raiding with this guild I've seen trump used two times. This format has served us really well thus far. Granted, it is a 10m guild.

    I'm sure I oversimplified things, but I have a tendency to write novels at times without meaning to do so.

    TL;DR: If you want loot council, put the onus on the officers to organize it beforehand imo. You know what might drop. Find out what people are after the most, BiS items, etc and publish the list of loot order somewhere where everyone can see it. If they didn't bitch when the list went up, they can't bitch when the item drops and it goes to someone else.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by clevin View Post
    This is just a more structured loot council, no? It feels cumbersome and in pracice is going to fail 2 or 3 of your above criteria (1 and 3 especially). For 25s, loot council with a trusted group can work. For 10s and frankly for most 25s, EPGP with decay feels most efficient backed by a raid group that will do common courtesy things like passing a minor upgrade to someone for whom it's a big upgrade.
    I guess the difference for me from loot council is that everyone is involved in the loot decisions that affect them, so I don't agree it would likely fail criteria 3; in fact, I think it would work against drama since there was clear visibility. As for timeliness, non-officers would realistically only be participating in 2-3 discussions per boss and never in more than 4 channels. Doing loot council item per item takes easily 5 min. If you are doing these discussions simultaneously, perhaps 1 min is optimistic, but I don't think 3 min is.

    I don't think the experience of being part of this system would be nearly as convoluted as the behind the scenes structure described. As for officers who would be on a loot council, they would have fewer items per boss they would need to think about.

    EPGP even with decay still leads to point hording and passing on minor upgrades which is antithetical to progression.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by thejeremyftw View Post
    Find out what people are after the most, BiS items, etc and publish the list of loot order somewhere where everyone can see it. If they didn't bitch when the list went up, they can't bitch when the item drops and it goes to someone else.
    I like this idea. I will pass this along.

  5. #5
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    Regarding point hoarding... if you have a raid group motivated to progress, that won't happen. If you don't then your 4th criterion is autmatically failed. Put simply, a loot system can't make a raid group motivated and fun.

    I think you're assuming a lot by assuming that people can continue to pull trash and at the same time participate in discussions about loot that affects them. And, well, if they can rationally analyze loot as it affects them then they're probably not the kind to point hoard (see above). Too, I think Jeremy is right about people mislinking things in the wrong channels, etc. I know I don't want to monitor several channels or have it taking space in my UI.

    Sorry, but this sounds convoluted and time-consuming. At the end of the day, either a plain loot council or EPGP+decay (or another DKP system that mitigates point hoarding with decay) is going to be the best solution in my experience. If you have a raid group prone to loot drama the proper action isn't to build a new loot system but to kick the drama queen loot whores.
    Last edited by clevin; 2014-01-31 at 12:10 AM.

  6. #6
    The Patient Jaceo's Avatar
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    For 25m we just use EPGP with buttons setup for Major 8+il (100% cost), Minor <8il (50% cost), Offspec (10% cost). We ask all raiders to put in a note it is a BiS item for them. Priority is BiS > Major > Minor > Offspec and PR determines who gets the item when more than one raider want it at the same priority. Haven’t had any loot QQ or slow loot distribution since implementing this.

  7. #7
    Rule #1 of loot systems: Keep it simple. If it takes more than half a page to describe, it's way too complicated. Remember that loot systems not only have to make sense to the people using them but also everyone else in the guild. All this is is a loot council with unnecessary steps added in for the purpose of structure.

  8. #8
    I see no reason to over-complicate a loot council system, if raiders do not trust officers to make decisions in the best interest of the guild, then there are underlying problems that need to be resolved anyways.

    Realistically using loot council takes about 5 mins per boss for me, loot is linked and raiders use 1+item in slot or 2 for offspec, BiS also works for "1" as well if it applies.

    The problem with a convoluted loot system is that you should trust officers to be impartial, and trust they they want the guild to progress as fast as possible.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Jaceo View Post
    For 25m we just use EPGP with buttons setup for Major 8+il (100% cost), Minor <8il (50% cost), Offspec (10% cost). We ask all raiders to put in a note it is a BiS item for them. Priority is BiS > Major > Minor > Offspec and PR determines who gets the item when more than one raider want it at the same priority. Haven’t had any loot QQ or slow loot distribution since implementing this.
    I get the idea and it's good, but what if I have something which is HC WF, but it has terrible stats (puts me, lets say, 2% over hitcap but was better than the timeless/whatever version I had before) and a HC version of the item which I ACTUALLY need drops. Since it's not HC WF, it's not my BiS yet, but it would definitely be better than the HC WF piece with terrible stats I got now. Which button should I press then?

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by cetraben View Post
    This mentality. Your BiS items are made from heroic items, not WF. If you plan your BiS list around WF then you are a loot whore, simple as that really.
    Assume 0 WF will ever drop. EVER. If it drops its a nice bonus and can be used to reward core players.
    HC WF drops like all the time in 25 HC. And taking this into account in a BiS list is OK. What isn't OK is when you assume a HC WF trinket is BiS and believe you are entitled to it above others, while its BiS for a ton of other classes and players as well. If you got for example an off piece dropping HC WF it should go to the class and spec who use that one as off piece. And that will happen when you use EPGP or DKP because the rest won't wanna pay for it.
    Last edited by mmoc41a7fbf474; 2014-01-31 at 06:06 PM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Kraineth View Post
    I see no reason to over-complicate a loot council system, if raiders do not trust officers to make decisions in the best interest of the guild, then there are underlying problems that need to be resolved anyways.

    Realistically using loot council takes about 5 mins per boss for me, loot is linked and raiders use 1+item in slot or 2 for offspec, BiS also works for "1" as well if it applies.

    The problem with a convoluted loot system is that you should trust officers to be impartial, and trust they they want the guild to progress as fast as possible.
    The officers in the guild don't want to do a loot council. I would completely trust them in this role. This was an attempt to get around the officers having to play loot council by letting the raiders collaborate on making these choices. But as a number of people have correctly pointed out, this is far too convoluted, and is really just a fragmented loot council of the entire guild that rolls when there is a tie.

    My original thinking was of the value that might come from forcing people to be thoughtful about each piece of loot as a way of building a sense of looking out for your team mates, but I suspect there are much better ways than this.

    Thanks for the feedback from those who replied.

  12. #12
    if you think that could work i dont think you ever ran 25 man.

    there is 7 pieces of loot per boss, you have 25 people that need to vote for each. thats 175 votes to keep track of for each boss. 175 votes during which everyone needs to pay attention. the amount of time wasted is gonna be huge. and thats not even counting the os rolls that are gonna happen. literally 10+ mins for each boss just distributing loot...

    also, that does not prevent AT ALL the kind of favoritism that you might see with loot council. if anything, it only makes it worse. if i can vote for my friend to get an upgrade over someone i dont know/dont like, i will do it 100% guaranteed. and if u tell me its not fair and i should vote for the biggest upgrade, then im gonna tell you your fuckin system is stupid and dont ask me to vote if ur not gonna take my vote.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Namor of Muradin View Post
    I came up with the following idea after a discussion in my 25 man guild about loot systems. I am curious if anyone out there has done anything like this, and if so, how has it worked in practice. I would also be interested in general feedback from the community.

    Some Common Loot System and Raid Team Goals (in no particular order)

    Distribute loot in a time efficient manner
    Distribute loot in a fashion to facilitate more effective progression
    Distribute loot in a way that minimizes interpersonal drama
    Have fun raiding and progressing with a group in which good character and sense of team unity is of the highest importance
    Keep loot distribution straightforward without requiring micromanaging with lots of and lots of analysis or pro/con discussions

    Loot System Idea

    To help communicate the idea, I am going to describe a scenario of loot distribution

    Boss dies. Assigned looter picks up loot, linking the pieces in raid chat as the group moves to begin trash. Each raider looks at drops and links their current item in the slot for any desired pieces they see in the loot list into the appropriate chat channel* for that item. The members of that chat channel review what is linked, and type in the name of the player they think should receive the loot based on whatever the guild leadership has decided should prioritize loot distribution**.

    If there is no clear consensus, then the channel arbiter (an officer) either makes a decision, or if there is no real clear separator in their minds, names the people eligible and calls for them to roll, highest roll wins. If no one wants a piece, it is linked in raid chat for open roll as OS. This process should take no more than 45 sec-1 min, occurring simultaneously in each of the different chat channels. Once trash is cleared, while setting up for the next boss, people getting loot open trade with the looter and link the piece. He/She places it in the trade window. Any pieces not claimed would be relinked one more time mid-way through raid and again at end of raid, and if still no takers, DE'D.

    *There is a loot chat channel for each amour/primary stat group, for each tier token group, for each weapon type group, and for each primary stat ring/neck/trinket group. Each channel has one officer assigned as the arbiter for that channel. Other than officers, raiders belong only to the channels that involve main spec gear, and OS gear would be handled in main raid channel. So even though there is forest of chat channels, most people would be in only 4 channels. A team of 5 Officers would each be in about 7-8 channels the way I have it set up.

    -Cloth/Int
    -Cloth/Int/Spirit
    -Leather/Agi
    -Leather/Int
    -Mail/Agi
    -Mail/Int
    -Plate/Str
    -Plate/Int
    -Protector
    -Vanquisher
    -Conquer
    -Healer Weapons
    -Caster DPS Weapons
    -Ranged DPS Weapons
    -Melee DPS Weapons (Auyen, Kristoo, Alcar, Reigning, Vivell, Nasty, Xrage, Jabbers)
    -Tank Weapons
    -Agi Rings/Trinkets/Neck (includes both tank and dps trinkets for agi based classes)
    -Int Rings/Trinkets/Neck/Offhands (includes both healing and dps trinkets for int based classes
    -Str Rings/Trinkets/Neck (includes both dps and tank trinkets for str based classes)

    **Things that might prioritize loot distribution could include: biggest upgrade, making sure there is some equality in rate of people getting upgrades, raider/initiate, role (tank,healer/dps) priority for efficient progression, gearing top performers first, whatever. These would be established by the officers.

    Reasons I like this idea

    1. I really like the idea of everyone in the raid actively participating in loot assigning. It provides a way to create a guild-wide ethos of everyone thinking about "the greater good" by creating small groups making decisions with full visibility. This is an active structure that provides an easy way to push back against selfish impulses and requires a level of participation and thinking about fellow raiders that I think would help naturally foster good group dynamics and low drama.

    2. It is potentially very fast with very low impact on the pace of raiding

    3. It is a fully transparent process and very democratic

    4. It doesn't get bogged down with hair splitting. Using the roll if there is not a clear consensus or obvious recipient keeps controversy low and time spent haggling low.

    Things it would require to work well

    -Needs everyone to be involved and actively engaged in loot distribution. Even people not interested in a piece would need to be thoughtful about who gets the piece.
    -Would need a clear and well communicated set of loot distribution priorities
    -Some kind of loot award tracking. Having a public spreadsheet showing who has gotten what to supplement memory.

    Possible Cons

    -Assuming that stamping out of any kind of mini-factions crap would be a top priority of the officers, the only major con I can really think of it that it really requires people to pay attention and reduces chance to tune out in between intense fights. It might require actually having people stop controlling their toons and just focus fully on the loot discussions to work well. This would reduce the proposed efficiency a bit, but it would still be more efficient than any one item at a time method.

    Thoughts/experiences?
    this is what is called a loot cousel.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by MisterMine View Post
    if you think that could work i dont think you ever ran 25 man.

    there is 7 pieces of loot per boss, you have 25 people that need to vote for each. thats 175 votes to keep track of for each boss. 175 votes during which everyone needs to pay attention. the amount of time wasted is gonna be huge. and thats not even counting the os rolls that are gonna happen. literally 10+ mins for each boss just distributing loot...

    also, that does not prevent AT ALL the kind of favoritism that you might see with loot council. if anything, it only makes it worse. if i can vote for my friend to get an upgrade over someone i dont know/dont like, i will do it 100% guaranteed. and if u tell me its not fair and i should vote for the biggest upgrade, then im gonna tell you your fuckin system is stupid and dont ask me to vote if ur not gonna take my vote.
    You didn't understand the system described. For most pieces of loot (eg agi mail) there might be 3-4 people voting. For tier, rings, trinkets, would be about 1/3 raid per piece. The goal of the system is not to get away from favoritism, but to have a mechanism that encourages non-selfish behavior.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Bloodjunky22 View Post
    this is what is called a loot cousel.
    A loot council doesn't involve every player. A loot council doesn't by default use a roll if there is no clearly more beneficial reciepient.

  15. #15
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    It's effectively loot council it's just that you're involving the entire raid and adding a roll component. And as we've pretty much all said, this is way too cumbersome. Honestly, there are several fair loot systems out there that are pretty efficient. I highly doubt your raid is so special that none of those will work, so my take is this - why is loot distribution such a big deal to your raid? If you raid with pretty much the same group week in and week out and you raid every week then eventually people will get geared. If you have any significant substituting, EPGP is good since it rewards people who show up and raid regularly over the once in awhile folks.

    If it were me leading that guild or raid I'd first make sure everyone is on the same page about why they're raiding and goals, i.e that people understand that the purpose of gear is to improve the raid so that you'll favor people who show up consistently, that you won't be gearing alts until you're farming stuff, etc.

  16. #16
    This idea popped into my head when trying to think about how to do loot distribution in way that encourages the people interested in a particular piece of loot to look beyond their own needs and take into account the needs of their teammates, and to do in small enough groups that you can meaningfully keep a lookout for loot whorish behavior and instead encourage consistently thinking about the greater good of the raid. I also like the idea of something more democratic than pure loot council as an additional way of squashing concerns about favoritism, but agree this particular solution is overly cumbersome. Even though the reality is that no one would be in more than 4 loot channels and the groups would be small, it is still too many simulatneous conversations going on at once to be efficient.

    My guild currently uses a pure roll system, which I find pretty unsatisfactory, but has the advantage of being fast and impartial. The guild has a pretty solid ethos and people do seem to be on the same page, so this method is probably solving a problem that really isn't a problem.

  17. #17
    The Patient Jaceo's Avatar
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    For 25m we just use EPGP with buttons setup for Major 8+il (100% cost), Minor <8il (50% cost), Offspec (10% cost). We ask all raiders to put in a note it is a BiS item for them. Priority is BiS > Major > Minor > Offspec and PR determines who gets the item when more than one raider want it at the same priority. Haven’t had any loot QQ or slow loot distribution since implementing this.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hel View Post
    I get the idea and it's good, but what if I have something which is HC WF, but it has terrible stats (puts me, lets say, 2% over hitcap but was better than the timeless/whatever version I had before) and a HC version of the item which I ACTUALLY need drops. Since it's not HC WF, it's not my BiS yet, but it would definitely be better than the HC WF piece with terrible stats I got now. Which button should I press then?
    I forgot a button on EPGP we have setup named Mainspec 0il (0 cost). In this instance you would hit this button with a note saying it's your bis. If someone else had Bis note with a 8+il mainspec they would get it over you. If you and another raider posted mainspec 0il with bis note then the guy with the highest PR would get the item. The main thing is we have raiders taking items which are upgrades for them even if poorly itemised for progression and when their bis does drop it wouldn't cost them much if anything.

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