Raiding: Loot Distribution Systems Debate

[Thickasabrick31]

We run loot council in my guild. People who don't have good attendance and who frequently fail (extra dmg, missed interrupts, poor dps) get geared up last. Carrying some things over from the hijacked thread, there is a lot of animosity towards loot council. Some people seem to think that all councils are biased, but this is far from the truth.

On my loot council, we explain with reasoning whenever there is a conflict between who should get loot. We take into account performance (very important), attitude, effort, and attendance. If you doubt that officers don't pay attention to these things, then you are mistaken or have been in awful guilds. Although I'm just a LC member, and not an actual officer, I do keep track of attendance and understand how to evaluate the meters (class by class; fight by fight).

All of the people on the council all play different classes and roles (I myself play all the healing classes except shaman but I'm working on that as well as few tanking classes), so we understand stat priorities for all of the classes we raid with. If we're hesitant about how well we know these priorities, we check EJ or simply ask the player. For extra credibility, we're all very good players (not tooting my own horn) and understand intimately how all of the stats work.

To say that the members of our LC are uninformed about any aspect of the game is a mistake, we know what's going on. We know who is grinding the BiS arch trinkets, we know who can pick up their dps, we know who can't jump out of the goddamn lava for their lives. We're all intimately involved in this game and our guild (I honestly can't say I haven't personally talked to anyone on our raiding roster). We're friends with everyone, there are no cliques that run LC, and we know what the hell is going on in our raids. LC is the only way to distribute loot fairly to those that actually earn it. There are no arbitrary numbers; there are just people who want to see the guild progress and will do anything to help us in doing so.

[Angusm]

I currently am in a guild that uses a Need/Greed open roll system and I despise it. It screws some people who have bad luck on rolls and gives them zero rewards for contributing to the group's success. We've been raiding for about 5 weeks now (many of us got off to a late start due to RL issues) and I have gotten zero pieces despite us repeatedly downing about half of BWD and BoT each week. Another dps in my same armor class has won 6 pieces now to my zero. We've both killed the same bosses, attended the same # of raids, and rolled on the same items. The other person won every single time and still refuses to pass on anything.

I am actively looking for a different guild as a result.

[pyrobob262]

My guild uses a modified suicide kings.. Its basically Ms roll system, but before the roll you can call suicide. doing so will win you the item if you are the only one suiciding, but will knock you down to the bottom of the list. if two people suicide, then whoever is higher on the list wins it, and only they get knocked down. Otherwise is just MS over OS free rolls if it works for you with just a tad bit of loot council mixed in to make sure no one gets screwed. (sidegrades vs nice upgrades)

the main group sort of runs it differently, where everyone stays negative and suiciding makes you drop down again, but these are both just ten man groups so there is never an issue.

[Solia]

I currently am in a guild that uses a Need/Greed open roll system and I despise it. It screws some people who have bad luck on rolls and gives them zero rewards for contributing to the group's success. We've been raiding for about 5 weeks now (many of us got off to a late start due to RL issues) and I have gotten zero pieces despite us repeatedly downing about half of BWD and BoT each week. Another dps in my same armor class has won 6 pieces now to my zero. We've both killed the same bosses, attended the same # of raids, and rolled on the same items. The other person won every single time and still refuses to pass on anything.

I am actively looking for a different guild as a result.

I am assuming this is for a 10 man group. But yea, generally need/greed (MS/OS) rolls are sufficient for 10's as a more complicated DKP/LC system is generally not needed for such a small group.

[Wekapedia]

Dragon Kill Points (DKP): Cons: Other raid support (buying/farming mats for feasts, cauldrons, etc.) is not taken into account.

Effort Points Group Points (EPGP): Cons: Points can still be exploited through support EP (if a member has a lot of gold, they can buy mats for feasts and such and put it in the GB to inflate their score, thus "buying their EP").

Been in two guilds each with one of these systems, where those that did not contribute monthly fish (one stack of each for the feast) and flasks (3 of each needed for the cauldron, except for the deathblood venom) to the guild bank were put on a "no-loot" list.

In my second Loot Council guild atm. I want to experience a LC though where the whole raid is the Council, not just the GM/Officers/elected members.

[Zuziza]

Been in two guilds each with one of these systems, where those that did not contribute monthly fish (one stack of each for the feast) and flasks (3 of each needed for the cauldron, except for the deathblood venom) to the guild bank were put on a "no-loot" list.

In my second Loot Council guild atm. I want to experience a LC though where the whole raid is the Council, not just the GM/Officers/elected members.

I added a requirements modification, since this is something that can come up in more than just DKP and EPGP. I remember the spam in trade about needing achieves, GS, or minimum DPS to join a PuG, even if it's not as common since Cata's still pretty new.

From what I understand of their histories, DKP was always more focused on raid accomplishments alone, and EPGP was an attempt to include other guild support in the points system in order to reward contributions. Either can use requirements, but most systems that I've seen/read have DKP awarded only at raid time (attendance, kills, performance, etc) and EP can be awarded for any pro-guild support. I included this note in the OP just to help distinguish the mentalities when the systems were originally designed, but also pointed out that it can be changed easily if the creators want to. For example, system creators may want to include DKP awarded for donating feast mats, but may not want to do the EPGP math and instead have one score, so the system is still DKP, but with an EPGP mindset. It's all about tweaking the details.

I did point out that LC was typically composed of officers, but I didn't intend to give the idea that it never includes anyone else. I think a handful of posters have mentioned instances where non-officers were included in loot council. I'll tweak the details a bit in that section to make it clearer.

[Keren]

Add some links and hints for addons and I think we should make this sticky. It gives a good overview and name many ideas about how to maintain a loot distribution system.

I had run a epgp system, too. Anyone on waitlist (ek waitlist linked to epgp) and any in raid got every 15 minutes 50 EP. Also you got 100 start up EP. Decay was set to 7%. Firstkills gave 100 EP, each further kill gave 20 fewer points, so the 6 kill is prevented from gaining EP. Decay where cleared after the end of a raid. EP for bosskills are distributed after the decay. So the decay prevents you from getting above a defined number, your priority doesnt change.
We used the suggested GP values from EPGP Lootmaster with al little configuration, so that offspecc rolls only earning you 10 GP. Statitems like Bows went for 2000 gp to Hunters, for 500 rogues, staff 2000 for druid, 500 for hunter..

[Zuziza]

Add some links and hints for addons and I think we should make this sticky. It gives a good overview and name many ideas about how to maintain a loot distribution system.

I had run a epgp system, too. Anyone on waitlist (ek waitlist linked to epgp) and any in raid got every 15 minutes 50 EP. Also you got 100 start up EP. Decay was set to 7%. Firstkills gave 100 EP, each further kill gave 20 fewer points, so the 6 kill is prevented from gaining EP. Decay where cleared after the end of a raid. EP for bosskills are distributed after the decay. So the decay prevents you from getting above a defined number, your priority doesnt change.
We used the suggested GP values from EPGP Lootmaster with al little configuration, so that offspecc rolls only earning you 10 GP. Statitems like Bows went for 2000 gp to Hunters, for 500 rogues, staff 2000 for druid, 500 for hunter..

I added a couple links, but didn't want to favor any addons or sites over others just because I haven't used them. All the links are within the Curse.com sites, so they should be fine.

You system reminded me that a PuG person in your group would muck up that whole set up. I added another mod to comment on how to handle PuG players in complicated systems.

As for stickying the thread, I'm pretty sure they try to keep that as low as possible on the MMO-Champs forums. They might list it in the helpful threads sticky, but I doubt it'll be stickied itself.

---------- Post added 2011-04-14 at 01:04 PM ----------

There is still the "Favourite item" system. Basically everyone writes down his favourite item for each slot. If it drops, only the people having this item on their list (only 1 item per slot!)
roll 1-100. If nobody has it on his list people who still want it roll for it. Sometimes we also included a priority, so that people who had got "less than x items in this tier" got priority
on their favourite items. Only items suitable for the class are allowed for the list.

I'm still trying to figure out how to add this in and exactly how to describe it. Is there a particular site where your guild got this idea, or was it a twist off another system you had been using?

[Sunseeker]

There is still the "Favourite item" system. Basically everyone writes down his favourite item for each slot. If it drops, only the people having this item on their list (only 1 item per slot!)
roll 1-100. If nobody has it on his list people who still want it roll for it. Sometimes we also included a priority, so that people who had got "less than x items in this tier" got priority
on their favourite items. Only items suitable for the class are allowed for the list.

I did this once, and I have to say that overall it's a good system. First and foremost, it gets people to LEARN what they need. Too often people just take gear because it says "plate" and it's purple. Second, it encourages a lot of people to stop, sit down, and figure out what gear they want, and what combination of gear is best for them. Also, it allows for people to have a favored "look", some people care about looking cool as much as being good, sometimes the two go hand-in-hand, sometimes they don't. And finally, my fav part is that it helps guild bonding. Why? Because when I tired it, guildies sat down and said "Okay, I need X, Y, Z." then someone else said, well I need W, X, Y." and then the two, or three talked it out on how important each item was and then agreed not to compete over X or Y until one or the other got it.

Honestly, it was one of my fav ways to distribute loot because there was almost NEVER any butthurt. The only people who'd ever get upset are people who really didn't take the time to figure out what they needed/wanted. And people who couldn't figure that out tended to get dropped from the raiding roster because they performed poorly and caused trouble.

[Raleik]

I personally prefer EPGP, I've been in groups where that worked very well and fairly. My current raid group uses a need/greed roll system with a loot master. We're all guildies and get along well, so there haven't been any problems with it so far.

[Zuziza]

I did this once, and I have to say that overall it's a good system. First and foremost, it gets people to LEARN what they need. Too often people just take gear because it says "plate" and it's purple. Second, it encourages a lot of people to stop, sit down, and figure out what gear they want, and what combination of gear is best for them. Also, it allows for people to have a favored "look", some people care about looking cool as much as being good, sometimes the two go hand-in-hand, sometimes they don't. And finally, my fav part is that it helps guild bonding. Why? Because when I tired it, guildies sat down and said "Okay, I need X, Y, Z." then someone else said, well I need W, X, Y." and then the two, or three talked it out on how important each item was and then agreed not to compete over X or Y until one or the other got it.

Honestly, it was one of my fav ways to distribute loot because there was almost NEVER any butthurt. The only people who'd ever get upset are people who really didn't take the time to figure out what they needed/wanted. And people who couldn't figure that out tended to get dropped from the raiding roster because they performed poorly and caused trouble.

Just added this type in, and tried to make it as general as possible while listing what tweaks could be made. Hopefully the meaning gets across; I've never used this type of system myself, but it seems pretty interesting. =)

The only downside to it would be if it devolved into paying each other off to put gear at a lower priority. I can see it working for GDKP in PuGs, but it seems weird for it to be used in a guild so others will let you have an item first. It's like a bribe, but less corrupt? Just seems odd.

[seam]

Different systems work for different guilds.

I've used GDKP, DKP, Zero-sum DKP, Loot Council(In 3 guilds), and Need before Greed.

They can all work fine. Some systems won't work with some guilds(Loot council wont work if there is bias), and some just work better than others for their guild.

Not much else to debate.

My guild currently use Need before Greed, but we are actually really good about making sure the upgrade goes to the person it would benefit most(Assuming they are part of the main group)...so we don't have the Ret Pally in full epics, but the DK in full blues, for example. Usually it's split 50/50.(That and people make deals with eachother..."Hey, would you pass on X if I pass on Y?")

[Shamanberry]

Loot council is easily the most fair and best system for distribution -- as long as the council members are honest. The only real problem with it is that the loot council members have a lot of work they have to do in order to keep it that way. You can't just casually pick who you want an item to go to when it drops - you have to keep track of things behind the scenes, as well as know a lot about the classes that you're assigning things to.

Most successful loot councils have their own tracking tools, and may use a DKP-type system privately to keep tabs on who's gotten what, as well as have people divided up to talk to guild members, or threads on the forums to supplement things with BiS lists and so on for each tier. If your officers (or whoever makes up the council) doesn't want to go to that level to keep things running, it's best to run another system -- but with the understanding that it will never be as perfect as LC could be.


The second best system depends on the group and how you like to organize it, but for any consistent group, BiS lists will help the distribution regardless of what system you're using behind it. If everybody posts BiS for each tier and you always give BiS items to people they are BiS for, you remove all possible problems with the system - like deciding what to do if a tank and DPS both want an item (or healer and DPS), or the common DKP problem of people skipping on upgrades because they have to game the system in order to get BiS stuff later.

Since people know that BiS is taken care of, they bid (or suicide, or whatever your system calls for) on upgrades whenever they pop up, and the system just exists to make sure that items get spread around.


In general, there should be some sort of Loot Council backing for any system, though - there are times when some things have to be set up for the good of the raid (for instance, you don't want to assign legendary items based on DKP, or there could be a situation where the next boss you're going to be working on would be made much easier if some raid member had their 4pc bonus, so you skip the DKP check on those for a week, etc, etc).

[Eisaderfrau]

I've been in a raiding group that did zero-sum DKP to start. Long-time raiders got inflated fast and people leaving required annoying re-balancing.

Switched to a combination of DKP and Suicide Kings (DKP for normal loot, Kings for tier tokens). Very annoying. It hurt progress getting EVERYONE 1 tier token before people got their 2p, then again for 4p. It honestly may have been better to go with kings for normal stuff and DKP for tier.. at least we would have gotten the benefit of some 4p bonuses quickly while lower people would have had free reign for off-set items since the high DKPers would have known they didn't have a 3 month wait for their tier or whatever.

These were back in BC / Early wrath in a 25 man

Then I switched to a more progress-based 10 man. Still with them today. Our loot system is basically "Don't be an ass". Technically, it is a free-roll to whatever the RL picks as the number for any item. What actually happens is more of a communal loot council. People roll on a piece, then all the interested parties end up inspecting each other and it almost always ends up with the person who it is the biggest upgrade for. If you REALLY need x item and you roll a 1 on it in our raid, odds say the other 2 people who rolled higher will pass unless they are in as bad a shape as you are. Generally 1 epic per person, but no one bats an eye if someone passes to a person who has gotten more. Very drama-free and if we pick up someone outside the guild to take a spot, loot rolls don't take a year to explain. It's just random rolls.

[Harpocrates]

ive been in guilds that do dkp, epgp, loot council etc. the best so far is...



Group Loot

12/12 5/13H and no complaints, other then no pally/priest/lock tokens ever dropping D=

90% of the time we have 1 pug as well, even for the heroics. and we let them free roll because if they weren't there then we wouldnt have killed the boss.

if you have immature and/or ignorant people then these other systems can and will work.(or i guess a large guild full of people you dont know)

[Deleted]

We use Master Looter and the members just /roll.

If any obvious silliness kicks in; the Master Looter just says "No." .. hasn't happened to us yet in two expansions though. Benefits of being in a smallish friendly guild comprised mainly of people who've played WoW together for ~5 years.

[Deleted]

Great Post.

I implemented Wish List for a while for our 25 man raiding guild during Ulduar. It was a very fair system but a little cumbersum in practice without any in-game addons to assist. It's true that it encourages people to work on their sets and think about what's BiS.

[Wengel]

We run with a mix of Priority List with Zero Sum DKP.

Every raider has made a list of their BiS items from each tier (i.e. T11 Normal and T11 Heroic... two seperate lists). These items are then approved by a guild officer and then uploaded to our 'Master Loot List', which contains all items, and then lists the names of those raiders, whom has item x as BiS.
When an item drops, ML checks the list and only those who has the item on the BiS list are allowed to bid for it.
As it's matched with a Zero Sum DKP system, all items has a fixed costs (i.e. 359 and 372) and those that has the item on BiS list, simply posts their current DKP in raidchat. Highest DKP person wins the item, and the cost is then withdrawn from his DKP account and split over the other raiders.

If an item isn't on anybody's prioritylist, the item is then offered out for 'Upgrade'. Any person, whom consider the item an upgrade, but is not their BiS item can bid "upgrade" in raid. Upgrade items has NO dkp cost. If multiple raiders states upgrade, winner is determined by a simple /roll.
After 'Upgrade' comes Offspec - same details as upgrade applies, No dkp cost etc.

This way you ensure that every item ends up on a raider, no matter how big or small the upgrade is. Everyone will eventually get their BiS items and don't have to stack dkp in order to win. By not having any cost for upgrades or offspec items, once nobody has it on BiS, you eliminate any sort of DKP hording and minimizes disenchanting of items that would be an upgrade to someone.

The order of the items when looting is simply top to bottom and RL posts item in raidchat. You can't "not" bid on a BiS item, if you have multiple BiS items drop from the same boss at once. Again to eliminate people avoiding taking items in order to get "that" item.

system works flawlessly in our 25-man guild, and we only disenchant items that absolutely nobody can use in any way, or when everyone already has said item.

[Sunseeker]

The only downside to it would be if it devolved into paying each other off to put gear at a lower priority. I can see it working for GDKP in PuGs, but it seems weird for it to be used in a guild so others will let you have an item first. It's like a bribe, but less corrupt? Just seems odd.

My current guild doesn't allow loot buying, but others had no issue with it. Some people are good at farming. Some people are lucky in rolls, some people just raid more often. If someone wanted to offer me 6k for that trinket I just got(a common sight back around Deathbringer's Will), as long as the raid was OK with it, so was I. Two people win instead of one, so long as people don't fight over "no it's work 9k!" "Hey now it's worth 12k!" it isn't a problem.

[Zuziza]

My current guild doesn't allow loot buying, but others had no issue with it. Some people are good at farming. Some people are lucky in rolls, some people just raid more often. If someone wanted to offer me 6k for that trinket I just got(a common sight back around Deathbringer's Will), as long as the raid was OK with it, so was I. Two people win instead of one, so long as people don't fight over "no it's work 9k!" "Hey now it's worth 12k!" it isn't a problem.

My only question is how common is it to pay someone off with gold in a guild that doesn't prohibit it? I can see it easily turning into GDKP within a guild rather than "I'll put Twilight's Hammer as #2 if you put Book at Binding will at #3" sort of deals. In your experience, did it stay at a bartering level, or was a majority of it paying others off with gold?