Beefcake said:My wife always got screwed when I was on loot councils. Although she was important, I never wanted to push for her to get gear, although she should have, because I needed to seem impartial. This always pissed her off.
I plan on playing with my wife, too. =/
omg... DKP... the bane of my life back in Vanilla WOW when I was running a guild with 40 man raids. The man-weeks I spent agonising over this.... I experimented with lots of options and variants and still there was the unhappy crowd.
No matter what system you implement you will piss off a group of people, because no system can cater for the 'raid only showups', the awesome new joiners, the busy new parents, the kids with nothing else to do except play, the good, the bad, the ugly, the explorers always at the cutting edge wiping all night, the 'ride on everyone's coat tails' farmers etc.
I had many many discussions over voice and on forums with my guild on this topic, and over time everyone level set on the complexity of the exercise. This process of discussion eventually evolved the system we ended up with. DKP evolved into DKP + bonuses for new bosses, raid leading, making pots and scrolls etc; evolved into regularly re-setting DKP; evolved into time adjusted DKP; evolved into DKP moderated by class specific loot councils involving all of that class present; evolved into getting rid of DKP and just having a grown up conversation based on what was important for progression and what was important for individuals, who had recently had new kit etc - with a /RND roll if there were two or three who everyone agreed merited equally for different reasons - and even then whoever won that roll fairly often gave it away to a competitor. This worked very well for us - I got great personal satisfaction out of fostering a gerenal attitude of goodwill, the guild left raids feeling pleased that the 'right' people got the loot, rather than resentful of the system, and the guild got a reputation on the server of being competent and fair. We were relatively late developing so we weren't farthest along by any means, so it still warms my heart to this day remembering some random from a newer struggling guild sending me a whisper saying how awesome it was an how honoured they felt having a couple of my guys bolster their numbers to make up a raid, and how kind, helpful, patient and selfless they were.
Typically I find, as in most things in life, the more everyone invests in other people the happier everyone is. Straight DKP I've found incentivises the exact opposite behaviours. Different guilds though, different rappot, different dynamics. As a GM, to do a quality job, you can't get around having to invest the hard time poring over this topic and developing a system that is least imperfect for that group. Don't just slap on a system, instead CARE for people.
Given the prospective maturity of the players in this game (by which I mean age; and time served with various systems across MMOs; and team attitude) I would hope that more guilds than not would invest time and sacrifice time and loot for each other. Because at the end of the day it's not the loot that's important, it's how much fun you have together.
Kilsin said:I have mentioned this in other threads but I will repeat it here.
Loot management within a guild is a personal thing and it is handled differently by each guild, therefore we will not be playing any part in managing this system, we will provide enough tools to help guilds manage their members but the loot system will have to be managed by the guild themselves so they can implement what suits them best, whether it be DKP, Loot Council or SKS or something else entirely, it is all personal preference and we won't be implementing one of the other, you will be free to choose how to handle it yourselves and we think that is the best stance to have on this matter.
We don't have any information on guilds or guild management tools at this stage, as they will be worked on further down the road in testing.
Kilsin said:Folks, if you continue to argue over opinions the thread will be closed, this is completely personal preference, many loot distribution systems are used to manage loot within guilds, not all guilds are the same, not all systems best fit all guilds, there is no best or correct answer here, guild leaders will pick and use the best loot system to manage their guilds needs no matter what your opinion is on the matter, all systems serve a purpose and can work well, we have several pages of mixed opinions and stories of each system working for those guilds which should be an indication that they all work whether you personally like them or not.
We will not provide a system for you to manage loot distribution in-game due to the fact that not everyone uses one system, it will be up to the guilds and their leadership to manage the guild loot distribution, not Visionary Realms, there are too many variables and preferences for us to make a system that many would be happy with, we have comprehensive feedback from a guild thread and with our own experiences and we will provide as many tools and freedom to manage as we can using them but in the end, guild leaders will need to manage how they distribute loot to the guild members, if you have an issue with your guild using a system you will need to take it up with them or find a guild with a better-suited system to your liking.
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With the above in mind, I wanted to offer some personal insight into raid looting for the past 6 months in TLP EQ1; It's an annoyance. No-Trade items are just an annoyance.
However, this is a modern reality. In a shared competitive loot system (bring 71 friends, get 3 items), like the one that Pantheon has stated is it's public design goal, for the moment, along with content that requires multiple groups (Raids) and No-Trade drops from these targets, a means to deal with No-Trade loot is required. DKP, Loot Council, wish lists, suicide kings, whatever, all those things are mitigations around the fact that No-Trade is a problem when you're raiding. Often, the last thing people want to deal with is loot, yet it must be dealt with because timers run and if you don't the loot will rot.
---Here's my opinion on a helpful convenience that will reduce the stress of looting while raiding.
When raiding, all the (or just No-Trade) loot goes into the guild bank. When in a raid, the raid leader would simply set this as a parameter of the raid, similar to a group looting scheme like Need Before Greed, or Random Roll, or Round Robin. This option would be "Loot to Guild Bank"
Then, after the raiding is done, If the appropriate officer (guild permissions, yo!) is at a bank, and the target player is in the same zone, then any item can be given to that player directly from the guild bank. It's not handed to him, it appears in his loot interface or in his mailbox/parcel inbox, or in his inventory directly.
So, Kilsin, while I understand you've said "there are too many variables and preferences for us to make a system that many would be happy with", having a "Loot to Guild Bank" option would be an innovative feature for the game, and likely provide an additional attractant to your target demographic. It would still be entirely up to each guild to have their own loot distribution system as far as who merits what reward for participation AFTER the raid, but at the very least, Visionary Realms could take a step ahead to help guild leaders focus on the FUN, rather than the adminstration, while raiding.
Such a feature would also permit the design of encounters that ignored the need for dealing with No Trade loot before the next phase, script, story or event. Likely, designers would appreciate this flexibility.
I have to say my idea of the perfect loot system would be one where there are no actual gear drops. I mean, who wants that battered helm that's already taken a huge pounding during the hour or so it took to take it from its deceased previous owner's head, right? In this case, drops would be the usual gold, utility items and various tiers of materials used in crafting. Gear differentiation would come from the crafting system itself, as well as possible improvement and enchanting systems. You would still need to decide who gets the Ogre's Nose Ring that can be used to craft a number of powerful items, but then again others would be getting Ogre's Nose Rings as well and selling them if they didn't need them. A rare drop would fetch a hefty price with which to fund perhaps a different rare drop that you didn't get; a more common drop would go for less.
Regardless of whether we get gear drops or crafting material drops, the issue of who gets them is... complicated. I've played games that offered several options at the group leader's choice, such as leader gets to decide, or need/greed dice rolls. I kind of preferred the dice rolls because it didn't raise issues of favouritism that can breed very toxic arguments, but even those aren't perfect because absent some rules, everybody would naturally click "need", and if not everyone is meant to click "need" you may have problems with people breaking the rule. That could be mitigated if players could be barred from "needing" an item they can't use or that doesn't fit their role in the group.
Another system that's already been mentioned is personal loot. Each person gets to loot separately and their drops don't affect anyone else's. This is free of any issues regarding loot distribution rules, but honestly I find it kind of immersion-breaking.
In the end, I suppose I would prefer a system where the group leader could choose from a number of different methods, such as dice rolls, player votes, leader's choice, etc. The more customizable these methods, e.g. with options to restrict dice rolls to players meeting certain class/role requirements, the better. And of course none of this will matter as much if the vast majority of loot is tradeable.
Probably too early to have firm opinions on how we should loot - we don't know enough about what will be bound and what won't be.
In a guild group it normally won't matter much but in a PUG you don't want the greedy people and especially the greedy leader wrecking it for everyone.
Individual loot is one solution and this can be done in various ways. One is having each person get an item automatically with no competition or roll. One is having everyone get a token which can be traded in for whatever the person happens to want from the token vendor.
If bind-on-acquire drops are rolled for it seems obvious that unless they have a very high merchant value the system should allow priority for those that can use them over those that could only sell them for 5 copper pieces. In other words the standard need/greed roll with ONLY those that can actually use the item allowed to select need. No mages rolling need on plate armor please.
If they are bind-on-equip there is an argument that since everyone spent the same time and effort anyone should be able to roll "need" and be able to give it to an alt or sell the item. But I am a traditionalist - I grew up (in the MMO sense) with games where "need" meant that the character actually rolling could use the item as an upgrade - and would prefer the same need/greed system as above where a mage could not "need" an item he or she couldn't even USE.
Retsof said:@Kilsin
This is a civil and informative thread. It might be more appropriate in the guilds section, though. I think everyone understands (for this thread) is an open discussion on ideas for guild raid management, and not a game mechanic/ UI discussion.
I disagree. Looting and guilds may overlap, but not necessarily. While I think Pantheon players will benefit immensely from joining a guild, I don't believe it's the developers' goal to ban PUGs, or buddy groups that don't correspond to a given guild. So it's not really a guild issue, it's a raid issue, although it does affect guilds in the sense that they will have to set up different kinds of rules depending on the actual looting system that is implemented.
In other words, looting is a game mechanic. Guilds are a social aspect of the game, which of course interact with the game mechanics. But the issues aren't interchangeable.
daemonios said:Retsof said:@Kilsin
This is a civil and informative thread. It might be more appropriate in the guilds section, though. I think everyone understands (for this thread) is an open discussion on ideas for guild raid management, and not a game mechanic/ UI discussion.
I disagree. Looting and guilds may overlap, but not necessarily. While I think Pantheon players will benefit immensely from joining a guild, I don't believe it's the developers' goal to ban PUGs, or buddy groups that don't correspond to a given guild. So it's not really a guild issue, it's a raid issue, although it does affect guilds in the sense that they will have to set up different kinds of rules depending on the actual looting system that is implemented.
In other words, looting is a game mechanic. Guilds are a social aspect of the game, which of course interact with the game mechanics. But the issues aren't interchangeable.
You're right. I didn't mean exclude anyone. I also do not want to derail this thread. Carry on :)