is personal loot the least of all evils?

[Kreeshak]

i have yet to see a loot drama free guild 11 years of playing wow. i am referring to fun guilds that by todays standards clear a few mythic bosses only. do such drama free guilds exist or should we suck it up and use personal loot as the least of all evils?

[IxilaFA]

Loot should never be a cause of drama, and if it is you are recruiting the wrong types of players.

I've been in my guild for two years and never seen anybody cause drama over loot. Of course there's the playful ribbing when someone out bids you unexpectedly, or the bitching when conq pants NEVER DROP (mostly from me) but we have never needed an officer intervention to take care of any issues.

[TheDestinatus]

I think it could be better if you could trade loot with people involved in the same kill. No other downsides that I can see.

[glowpipe]

I think it could be better if you could trade loot with people involved in the same kill. No other downsides that I can see.

You can in legion.

[TheDestinatus]

You can in legion.

Thats awesome, I don't actually do that much with personal loot but when I do its almost always a waste. Good improvement.

[Zindai]

I think it could be better if you could trade loot with people involved in the same kill. No other downsides that I can see.

The reason you can't (up until now apparently) is to avoid drama. LFR gave birth to personal loot, and I do remember all the arguments that came from people trying to trade or sell items they won in Dragon Soul before they got rid of LFR group loot. If there's an option to trade an item you got through personal loot, there's also pressure to share with the group when they feel that an item might just be better for someone else. And if your goal is to have the least amount of drama, then you might as well use master loot (with a fair loot master), because not everyone is into sharing with the group. That's my opinion at least.

On topic:
I haven't been in any 20/25 man guild without some loot drama, but I don't think it's reason enough to go with personal loot unless you can't calm or replace the people who are ruining the atmosphere. In a 10 man group with very little replacement, it felt like everyone was the loot council, and people were okay with passing items to others. So I do believe that it's possible to have a large roster without loot drama, as long as there's a strong sense of community and loyalty to the group.

[Ahovv]

Loot council or DKP can work but have possible issues.

For example, if you run a DKP system which rewards attendance equally, you don't want to keep bringing in underperformers who shouldn't deserve items. DKP systems fail when these lesser players are not replaced, and by default get loot.

Loot councils fail when the distribution choices are poor. A good loot council should prioritize the best performers but also grant recruits (who are also performing well) items as recognition that good gameplay is what is important, not seniority. I've heard of loot councils who simply prefer officers. This isn't inherently bad as long as the officers are the best players in the guild. But if the officers are mediocre (as is the case in most guilds, I would say), it wouldn't make sense to give loot to them.

As someone who has been an officer for most of my MMO raiding, I prefer loot council because of the ability to reward recruits if they are outperforming existing members.

As a final note, I think personal loot is a horrible approach if you are in a scheduled raiding guild. It is far too random and doesn't care about performance. I mean, I guess if you're an underperformer you would prefer personal loot.

[Kreeshak]

I haven't been in any 20/25 man guild without some loot drama, but I don't think it's reason enough to go with personal loot unless you can't calm or replace the people who are ruining the atmosphere.

The main problem with loot distribution is that there never is a crystal clear fair way to distribute it. Besides that when progression halts people that need less loot are more inclined to: a) take a break b) move to a better guild c) contribute to negativity by whining to people that perform badly due to needing more loot.

I've been on both ends of being favored and not in loot distribution. I have both quit and being quit on when we reached an halt on progression.

Perhaps drama would be smoother, if we sucked up the negatives of personal loot and focused on it's positives. We are not going for world first either way.

[Zindai]

The main problem with loot distribution is that there never is a crystal clear fair way to distribute it. Besides that when progression halts people that need less loot are more inclined to: a) take a break b) move to a better guild c) contribute to negativity by whining to people that perform badly due to needing more loot.

I've been on both ends of being favored and not in loot distribution. I have both quit and being quit on when we reached an halt on progression.

Perhaps drama would be smoother, if we sucked up the negatives of personal loot and focused on it's positives. We are not going for world first either way.

The positive is that people will be mad at the game rather than at each other. One positive thing about being able to trade personal loot items in the future is that some will choose to see it as a glass half full kind of thing. As in they aren't expecting people to do it, they are just happy when someone gives them an item that they didn't have to give away, and that's definitely a boost to the sense of community. My gut feeling just tells me that there will be plenty of glass half empty people too!

[IxilaFA]

As someone who has been an officer for most of my MMO raiding, I prefer loot council because of the ability to reward recruits if they are outperforming existing members.

As a final note, I think personal loot is a horrible approach if you are in a scheduled raiding guild. It is far too random and doesn't care about performance. I mean, I guess if you're an underperformer you would prefer personal loot.

I think it's not a good idea to give applicants loot when members need it, and that's a good way to get your members pissed off at you. Applicants have no proven loyalty to the guild, and if you reward them with loot over people who have proven their loyalty you are basically saying that you don't care about your members and only see them as numbers on a chart. Besides that, how do you rank performance? Is it pure DPS? Cause some classes are worse at some fights than others. Is it survivability? Well some people have a bad night or two. Not everyone is dealing with the fight the same way you are and it's not right to punish someone for dying a lot on a fight if their role is more difficult than yours (ie, hunters on Socrethar who are at a high risk of dying compared to anybody else).

As for your example of a DKP system negative, that's only a problem if you are an elitist. Anyone who is good enough to be in your guild and contribute regularly should be rewarded. We have a member in our guild who isn't so great and is pretty much permanent bench status, and he always has the most DKP. But he's there every single raid, even during our transition when we didn't have enough to even raid mythics, and always shows up on time, flasked and fed and ready to go. Should we punish him because he is not as good as the top DPSer in guild, even though he's clearly still good enough to have a spot in our guild and not be replaced?

[Jackelyn]

I play and raid in 2 guilds both on completely different levels to each other, one happy to clear heroic and the other currently 12/13 mythic, neither guild has ever seen loot drama once in the the last 4 tier's I've been around them one uses loot council and the other just use simple "Group loot" with obviously using brains to who will actually benefit the progress more.

Not seen guild loot drama since at least TBC/ perhaps Wrath?

[Ahovv]

I think it's not a good idea to give applicants loot when members need it, and that's a good way to get your members pissed off at you. Applicants have no proven loyalty to the guild, and if you reward them with loot over people who have proven their loyalty you are basically saying that you don't care about your members and only see them as numbers on a chart. Besides that, how do you rank performance? Is it pure DPS? Cause some classes are worse at some fights than others. Is it survivability? Well some people have a bad night or two. Not everyone is dealing with the fight the same way you are and it's not right to punish someone for dying a lot on a fight if their role is more difficult than yours (ie, hunters on Socrethar who are at a high risk of dying compared to anybody else).

As for your example of a DKP system negative, that's only a problem if you are an elitist. Anyone who is good enough to be in your guild and contribute regularly should be rewarded. We have a member in our guild who isn't so great and is pretty much permanent bench status, and he always has the most DKP. But he's there every single raid, even during our transition when we didn't have enough to even raid mythics, and always shows up on time, flasked and fed and ready to go. Should we punish him because he is not as good as the top DPSer in guild, even though he's clearly still good enough to have a spot in our guild and not be replaced?

1) If a regular member is consistently underperforming compared to the recruit, the recruit deserves the loot. If the member gets pissed off, he's essentially claiming his "loyalty" matters more than the principle of performing well. This sort of mentality results in complacency and little competition among your members to play better. Applicants do not need proven loyalty before getting items; they need to show they can play better than your existing members. In fact, giving them an early item as recognition for their performance makes them extremely more likely to remain. While this next example is certainly anecdotal evidence, I think it's worth mentioning. The policies I've mentioned were implemented in a guild where we kept our core raiders for over a year before any issues. The only people who left were those we directly replaced with better options.

2) You rank performance by considering all of those factors. Good officers understand the various nuances which affect performance. If you are an officer in a competitive guild you are meant to analyze logs and understand how classes may handle mechanics different ways, prioritize different targets depending on specialization, etc. Not everyone is qualified to make such assertions on performance, but that doesn't make the goal less admirable. In most cases the distinctions are fairly clear-cut; for example, there was a hunter who got hit by Volatile Voidstep on Xhul'horac 13 times in one night. It's fair for me to view this information and compare to other Hunters who got hit once or not at all, when they are performing the same duties required for the encounter. You are essentially implying that nobody is qualified to judge players, which is utter nonsense. Being a good officer involves setting standards for your players and making sure everyone follows them. You replace the players who are consistently less reliable.

3) I don't think you understand what elitism is. Most defining factors of elitism involve the idea that certain individuals deserve higher authority or privileges based on different factors. In the case of guilds, I feel the best players should typically be the officers as that not only sets a good standard for what constitutes an officer, but the best players are also the most likely to understand all the nuances of class/fight mechanics to teach others. So, in that sense I am elitist. My belief that bad players in the process of being replaced do not deserve loot is one which would most likely be shared by the other good players in a guild.

4) I'm not convinced you actually read my stance on DKP. I specifically stated that DKP systems explicitly fail when bad players are not replaced, and as a result get loot at an equal rate as better players. If you run a DKP system and actively replace the underperformers, the issues with the system become minimal.

If you aren't willing to constantly recruit and improve your roster, then all loot systems will have their injustices.

[SimonVonLagMaat]

i have yet to see a loot drama free guild 11 years of playing wow. i am referring to fun guilds that by todays standards clear a few mythic bosses only. do such drama free guilds exist or should we suck it up and use personal loot as the least of all evils?

My guild was founded by a core of officers that all know one another in real life. We know one another in real life and have slowly formed a guild that's not ridiculously good or anything but we're getting some mythic kills and it's hard not to brag. Because of our slow form and sense of community among the raiders we've only seen one instance were people were butthurt about loot and it was because the GM decided MTier should be loot counciled where everything else had been open roll up to that point. So my suggestion is don't change the rules for any reason, once they've been established.

- - - Updated - - -

1) If a regular member is consistently underperforming compared to the recruit, the recruit deserves the loot. If the member gets pissed off, he's essentially claiming his "loyalty" matters more than the principle of performing well. This sort of mentality results in complacency and little competition among your members to play better. Applicants do not need proven loyalty before getting items; they need to show they can play better than your existing members. In fact, giving them an early item as recognition for their performance makes them extremely more likely to remain. While this next example is certainly anecdotal evidence, I think it's worth mentioning. The policies I've mentioned were implemented in a guild where we kept our core raiders for over a year before any issues. The only people who left were those we directly replaced with better options.

There are certainly good and bad sides to taking this route. Loyalty is pretty powerful while doing hard progression where others move past the boss you're attempting. It's good for making sure you have a roaster that stays consistent and your members are ready and willing to do their best when it comes to raiding.

Conversely this tactic has obvious parallels to the corporate world. Anyone who not only under preforms but CLEARLY under preforms, in front of their direct bosses consistently, while there are easily obtainable metrics to prove that lack of performance isn't going to be staying in that position for very long.

[Adoxe]

Never had loot drama in 11 years of playing WoW.

[IxilaFA]

1) If a regular member is consistently underperforming compared to the recruit, the recruit deserves the loot. If the member gets pissed off, he's essentially claiming his "loyalty" matters more than the principle of performing well. This sort of mentality results in complacency and little competition among your members to play better. Applicants do not need proven loyalty before getting items; they need to show they can play better than your existing members. In fact, giving them an early item as recognition for their performance makes them extremely more likely to remain. While this next example is certainly anecdotal evidence, I think it's worth mentioning. The policies I've mentioned were implemented in a guild where we kept our core raiders for over a year before any issues. The only people who left were those we directly replaced with better options.

The point about underperforming is that if someone within your guild is underperforming to the point where you consider passing gear onto an applicant over them, then that person should be replaced. Either grow a pair and kick / bench the person doing poorly, or recognize they are an essential part of the team and you wouldn't kill the boss without them. This is where my loyalty argument comes in. We are not debating the hypothetical scenario of a guildie who is really bad versus an app who is really good. We are debating an actually likely scenario where a guildie is good and an app is better. In those cases you should still reward loot to the guildie because the app is an unknown quantity. I've been in several progression raiding guilds in my career and the number of apps I've seen flame out right on the edge of their trial period is a decent enough sample that I would never feel comfortable giving loot to one over a guildie who needed it.

As for your anecdotal example, most of my experience comes from the guild I'm currently in where much of the core has been here for 3+ years. So I think there is value in rewarding loyalty. And as I said, if you don't reward loyalty and make sheer performance the only metric by which you judge people, you might do better on progression but you've set up a terrible raiding atmoshpere. That's not to say you should keep around people who are bad and continue to be bad, but more that loyalty and effort spent towards the guild should at least make up the difference between good and great.

2) You rank performance by considering all of those factors. Good officers understand the various nuances which affect performance. If you are an officer in a competitive guild you are meant to analyze logs and understand how classes may handle mechanics different ways, prioritize different targets depending on specialization, etc. Not everyone is qualified to make such assertions on performance, but that doesn't make the goal less admirable. In most cases the distinctions are fairly clear-cut; for example, there was a hunter who got hit by Volatile Voidstep on Xhul'horac 13 times in one night. It's fair for me to view this information and compare to other Hunters who got hit once or not at all, when they are performing the same duties required for the encounter. You are essentially implying that nobody is qualified to judge players, which is utter nonsense. Being a good officer involves setting standards for your players and making sure everyone follows them. You replace the players who are consistently less reliable.

Speaking as an officer myself, I think I have a good idea of what officers judge players by. And the example you listed is what I was referring to above: that hunter should have been benched long before he had the chance to get hit 13 times by one ability which is easy to avoid. I'd be surprised if we had 13 accidental hits from void steps for our entire raid over the course of progression. Again, I'm not debating how to tell the difference between a bad player and a good player. I'm debating how to tell the difference between a good player and a great player, and most of those metrics are hard to define exactly. And if you cant define your DKP rules, you're going to run into more problems down the road.

3) I don't think you understand what elitism is. Most defining factors of elitism involve the idea that certain individuals deserve higher authority or privileges based on different factors. In the case of guilds, I feel the best players should typically be the officers as that not only sets a good standard for what constitutes an officer, but the best players are also the most likely to understand all the nuances of class/fight mechanics to teach others. So, in that sense I am elitist. My belief that bad players in the process of being replaced do not deserve loot is one which would most likely be shared by the other good players in a guild.

See now you're moving the goalposts on me. Your initial argument was that if an app performs better than a guild member you give them loot. Now you are saying if they do better than a guild member who is in the process of being replaced, which means they have messed up multiple times. That means the player should be benched until they can demonstrate they have improved. Like I said, being an officer requires some guts and the ability to say "you arent up to standards and we are benching you." Either say that, or recognize that the person in the group is at least contributing to your success. If you can't kill a boss without someone, and then that person is doing poorly, you shouldn't just say "well you suck, no loot for you." You couldn't kill the boss without them, right?

As for your argument about elitism, don't act like the definition isn't clear. You think you are deserving of something over someone else strictly because you are a better player. Unfortunately, in my mind, more goes into the game than just being the best player around. Your officers should not be your best players, they should be your best leaders and best judges of characters. If we are talking about a competitive guild here, we can fairly assume everyone is pretty well skilled. Therefore, officer wise I'd rather have the outspoken player who can call raid cool downs on the drop of a hat, but can't do as much raw HPS for my healing officer than the guy who can't say a single word during an attempt but is constantly in the 98th percentile.

4) I'm not convinced you actually read my stance on DKP. I specifically stated that DKP systems explicitly fail when bad players are not replaced, and as a result get loot at an equal rate as better players. If you run a DKP system and actively replace the underperformers, the issues with the system become minimal.

And your argument is presenting a false dichotomy. If we are truly talking about a competitive raiding guild, there should be no bad players. Some are better than others, but if you are legitimately looking and getting annoyed that an underperforming player is getting more loot, there is bigger issues than your DKP system.

Basically I'm saying that your favoritism for loot council is correct but for all the wrong reasons. Hardcore guilds prefer loot council because it funnels the gear towards the DPS which are necessary for progression. They don't choose it so that they can reward players for being good.

[mysticx]

I think it could be better if you could trade loot with people involved in the same kill. No other downsides that I can see.

Great, then we can get complaints about "A guy won loot with personal loot that he didn't want to trade off to a more deserving player", or its close sibling "I got kicked because i wouldn't trade my loot away when i was told to", i like the finality of personal loot, just RNG and then you either win something or not, no player involvement at all, drama inevitably ensues when players get a hand in loot distribution...

[Yuyuli]

In Legion there is a new log event to get all kinds of fancy data on combat, someone could build a pretty fantastic addon with that for "fair" loot distribution, but will someone do that?

[Julmara]

cross realm zones are the worst ... sharing with people you will never gonna see again !

[Ahovv]

snip

You seem to hold this bizarre belief that you can always bench someone on the spot. I'm not opposed to the concept, but what matters is your intentions. If you only have 20 people online, you normally wouldn't bench the 20th unless your chance for success increases without them. Simply having them in the raid doesn't warrant giving them loot, especially if you plan on replacing them as better recruits come in.

See now you're moving the goalposts on me. Your initial argument was that if an app performs better than a guild member you give them loot. Now you are saying if they do better than a guild member who is in the process of being replaced, which means they have messed up multiple times. That means the player should be benched until they can demonstrate they have improved. Like I said, being an officer requires some guts and the ability to say "you arent up to standards and we are benching you." Either say that, or recognize that the person in the group is at least contributing to your success. If you can't kill a boss without someone, and then that person is doing poorly, you shouldn't just say "well you suck, no loot for you." You couldn't kill the boss without them, right?

A blatant lie or absurd misinterpretation. The better player should get more loot, except in extreme circumstance (like if your previous tank left and you need to gear up a new one as soon as possible). Me listing an example which includes A) the player is bad, and B) the player is being replaced by the officers as soon as possible, does not suddenly make the criteria for loot removal include all of those factors. I am simply making it clear that the officers KNOW the player is bad and are trying to recruit in order to replace them. Once again, it's not always possible to just bench people on the spot. It's the best option, but not always available. I can plan to recruit a specific class in order to replace a specific player of that class; this doesn't mean the player deserves loot just for showing up. I mean, you're free to believe that, but once again I doubt the good players would be happy with loot going to players they are aware are the worst in the guild when it could have gone to someone expected to remain in the long run.

As for your argument about elitism, don't act like the definition isn't clear. You think you are deserving of something over someone else strictly because you are a better player. Unfortunately, in my mind, more goes into the game than just being the best player around.

I don't quite understand your stance. You apparently think it's acceptable to say you deserve your raid spot based on performance, but loot isn't about performance? It's about showing up only? In your eyes everyone is the same, which is not the reality. I mean, if you honestly believe everyone in your raid deserves equal loot based on just showing up, then I could review your logs and point out players who blatantly suck. Explain to me why they aren't benched.

Hint: there are reasons your guild is only 11/13M, and it's not because you only raid 12 hours a week. Replacing players is a long-term, neverending process. It's not something you just snap your fingers at to magically occur overnight.

They don't choose it so that they can reward players for being good

You can back this up by evidence and quotes from top guilds? Show me where they explicitly state they don't enjoy the fact they can reward their top players. I was a part of the most hardcore guilds in Rift, for some tiers raiding 60 hours on launch week. Every loot council I was a part of had similar goals, and rewarding the top performers was always one of them. I'm not denying it can be useful to gear up specific classes or players in assigned roles, but to claim that is the sole reason is downright ignorant.

[IxilaFA]

You seem to hold this bizarre belief that you can always bench someone on the spot. I'm not opposed to the concept, but what matters is your intentions. If you only have 20 people online, you normally wouldn't bench the 20th unless your chance for success increases without them. Simply having them in the raid doesn't warrant giving them loot, especially if you plan on replacing them as better recruits come in.

That's EXACTLY my point. If you cannot bench the person because they are necessary to killing the boss, why do they not deserve loot? They were there for a kill, and whether they sucked or not, you killed the boss with them in the group. Do you think it's fair to then turn around and tell them "thanks for helping us kill the boss, now you don't get loot."

A blatant lie or absurd misinterpretation. The better player should get more loot, except in extreme circumstance (like if your previous tank left and you need to gear up a new one as soon as possible).

This isn't anywhere near true. If you're arguing between a good player and a great player, it shouldn't matter who gets loot unless it's from a progression mindset.

Me listing an example which includes A) the player is bad, and B) the player is being replaced by the officers as soon as possible, does not suddenly make the criteria for loot removal include all of those factors. I am simply making it clear that the officers KNOW the player is bad and are trying to recruit in order to replace them. Once again, it's not always possible to just bench people on the spot. It's the best option, but not always available. I can plan to recruit a specific class in order to replace a specific player of that class; this doesn't mean the player deserves loot just for showing up. I mean, you're free to believe that, but once again I doubt the good players would be happy with loot going to players they are aware are the worst in the guild when it could have gone to someone expected to remain in the long run.

Again, why is this person still in the guild? Do you not see the blatant elitism and hypocrisy in your statement? You need the player to kill the boss but you don't think they deserve gear. Do you tell these players they are going to be replaced? If they leave before you find a replacement, you'd be up shit creek without a paddle.

I don't quite understand your stance. You apparently think it's acceptable to say you deserve your raid spot based on performance, but loot isn't about performance? It's about showing up only? In your eyes everyone is the same, which is not the reality.

I never said everyone is the same, but thanks for putting words in my mouth and constructing strawmen to argue with. There are differences in skill between players all the time. But I'm of the belief that if someone is good enough to be in your raid group then they are good enough to get gear. If they aren't good enough to be in your raid group, bench or kick them. If you can't continue to raid without them, then stop being an elitist hypocrite and let them compete for loot if they help you kill the boss.

Let me ask you a question: do you think it's fair for guilds who cant make a full 20 man mythic roster to PUG the remaining spots and then reserve all the loot for themselves?

I mean, if you honestly believe everyone in your raid deserves equal loot based on just showing up, then I could review your logs and point out players who blatantly suck. Explain to me why they aren't benched.

I don't see what that would prove considering my guild uses DKP. Also you don't know what rules my guild has for performance, so you can't make that call based from an outside point of view.

Hint: there are reasons your guild is only 11/13M, and it's not because you only raid 12 hours a week. Replacing players is a long-term, neverending process. It's not something you just snap your fingers at to magically occur overnight.

And there it is. Proof you cannot win your argument on points alone so you have to turn to attacking my guild and it's progression. Coincidentally you don't list your guild in your signature.

I don't pretend my guild is hardcore, top tier, or even amazing. If you really must know why our progression is poor, perhaps you can look at the fact we didn't start mythic progression until September due to roster churn and having to replace nearly half our mythic roster. Notably, none of that was due to people leaving over frustrations with the guild or people not playing well. Furthermore, the fact we went from having 16 raiders on the roster to 30 shows that loyalty is important to guilds. When you base your treatment of players on them as people rather than just based on the numbers, they will stick with you through the difficult times.

You can back this up by evidence and quotes from top guilds? Show me where they explicitly state they don't enjoy the fact they can reward their top players. I was a part of the most hardcore guilds in Rift, for some tiers raiding 60 hours on launch week. Every loot council I was a part of had similar goals, and rewarding the top performers was always one of them. I'm not denying it can be useful to gear up specific classes or players in assigned roles, but to claim that is the sole reason is downright ignorant.

Yup let me go through my four years of experience and everything I've read and watched with top guilds and pull every quote from them for you. The aim of a top guild is to have all good players. As I've said a thousand times, if the issue you have with a player is them getting loot and not deserving it, then there are bigger problems than who is and isn't getting loot.

For what it's worth, your Rift experience doesn't mean jack shit here. Rift doesn't have anywhere near the community that WoW has when it comes to raiding. What are your WoW accomplishments?