Gragorie said:The way we did loot in VG was the best I have ever seen. Earned DKP was only good for a set number of days then it would drop off. If you spent DKP, the item would cost a set amount, and you would recover a percentage of the spent DKP over a set number of day duration. You could go negative. So if an item cost 100 DKP and you had 100 days as the duration, you would recover 1 DKP a day for 100 days.
This motivated people to show up constantly. Even 1 missed raid could cost you the item you wanted 3 weeks later. I think 3/4 of the guild had over an 80% attendance rate. Also, before the fight even started, people knew exactly who the "good" loot was going to. Loot could be done in a couple minutes.
That sounds unnecessarily convoluted, to me.
Liav said:oneADseven said:How about a blended approach? My guild always used a standard DKP system that also had a main-tank loot policy. The main tank was extremely dependable, having 99%+ raid attendance over the stretch of years and years. He was also the guild leader, creator, raid leader, and guild banker ... aka, heart and soul of the entire guild. Our guild only had 3 plate tanks in general and neither of the off-tanks had any issue with the loot policy. It seemed to work extremely well though because our guild was always at the forefront of beating new content. I suppose one could argue "why not have a main healer, melee dps, caster dps, etc?" and to that I would say it obviously becomes too much of a barrier for the rest of the guild. I would be perfectly fine with seeing a guild implement a standard dkp system with the main tank loot policy caveat.
If it works for you, great. I don't think it's necessarily universally applicable. If your guild's tanks decide, collectively, to bid non-competitively in favor of a main tank, go for it. As a hard coded rule? Not in my opinion.
Also, if this specific guy shows up to 99.9% of raids, he's already earning more DKP than the other tanks unless they also show up to 99.9% of raids, in which case whether he shows up to 99.9% of raids or not isn't a valid consideration, anyway.
Ahh yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that this concept would be universally applicable. Not every guild is going to have a main tank capable of being that dependable, nor a group of tanks that have the trust in place to let something like this exist. It worked great for our guild though and we never had any issues with it. There were only 2 off-tanks that wore plate (1 was the main tanks brother and the other was an officer) so it's not like there was a huge disparity. At the end of the day, ALL of our players had the best gear in game, and by far the highest equipped toons on our server. By implementing the main tank loot policy though, we achieved success at an even more rapid rate than our competitors.
The philosophy was simple; by gearing the main tank as fast as possible, we'd be able to beat more content and thus add more bosses into our weekly loot rotation. So while the other tanks had a disadvantage in the beginning, it was more than made up for in the long run because of all the extra content that we were able to clear. And it's not like the main tank looted EVERY tiny upgrade. He had it worked out with the other tanks so that if an item was a more marginal upgrade for them than himself, he would pass on it and they could bid on it themselves. Even then they were still able to gear very fast because they only had to bid against each other, something they didn't do very often.
Personally, I don't think a universal system is feasible. Each guild leader is going to have a different system that they want to implement based on the focus and priorities of their guild. We rewarded people for showing up on time, and also rewarded people for "spotting" contested. We also rewarded bonus dkp for first time kills and even some DKP on failures. There were encounters that took weeks or months of trying before they were finally downed. If you just give DKP for "kills" that deincentivizes learning new encounters. I remember some of the bosses seeming impossible but because DKP was rewarded every single night we attempted to beat it, people continued to show up.
We never gave DKP for crafting or anything group related as DKP was a system strictly for raiding. That was the end-all be-all. If someone consistently showed up for raids 5 minutes prior to start time, as long as they were pulling their weight for their role, they were an ideal raid member. We didn't care what they did in their off time. Of course there were some members who helped grind the lowbies up and whatnot but that was just them being a nice guildy, not something that was rewarded with DKP. When it came to helping a cleric on their epic quest ... it would be a guild-wide effort when they got to that point. The word "epic" to me means raid. Meaning it was on that cleric to get to the point in his quest where he needed a raid to advance. The guild leader would then schedule a raid to get it done, and the raid would be rewarded DKP for helping.
What game are you talking about, by the way? That few plate tanks sounds abysmally low. Was it EQ2? That would make sense.
In EQ, you have to have enough tanks at your disposal with good gear that it makes no sense to prioritize gear to a specific one, at least in the early game. In EQ2, a tank death usually means a wipe so it'd make sense to gear your token Guardian.
I have no idea what kind of game Pantheon will be, but I imagine it will be somewhere in between there. You shouldn't need 10 tanks to succeed, but also not merely 1. If things are ideal then I would hope that distributing tank loot equally among tanks would be the most logical way to go.
Edit: I'm also still going to echo Youmu here and say damn son, that still sounds shady. I don't like that kind of prioritization at all even with the above facts considered just due to the can of worms it opens.
/vanity on
When I'm inevitability the highest parsing player in my guild, I'm not going to demand loot over the other DPS.
/vanity off
Liav said:What game are you talking about, by the way? That few plate tanks sounds abysmally low. Was it EQ2? That would make sense.
In EQ, you have to have enough tanks at your disposal with good gear that it makes no sense to prioritize gear to a specific one, at least in the early game. In EQ2, a tank death usually means a wipe so it'd make sense to gear your token Guardian.
I have no idea what kind of game Pantheon will be, but I imagine it will be somewhere in between there. You shouldn't need 10 tanks to succeed, but also not merely 1. If things are ideal then I would hope that distributing tank loot equally among tanks would be the most logical way to go.
Edit: I'm also still going to echo Youmu here and say damn son, that still sounds shady. I don't like that kind of prioritization at all even with the above facts considered just due to the can of worms it opens.
/vanity on
When I'm inevitability the highest parsing player in my guild, I'm not going to demand loot over the other DPS.
/vanity off
Was both EQOA and EQ2 that this system was implemented. For EQOA it was our warrior (juggernaut in frontiers I think?) and in EQ2 it was our Guardian. And I can understand how some people would see it as "shady" but I guess you would have to have been a part of the experience to see how great it worked. The tank continued to main tank for the guild even after he had every single piece of gear from a given tier. He was the lifeblood of the guild.
At the end of the day just like a business, raiding is results oriented when dealing with consumers (members of the guild) -- and this priority system was a means to that end. Much like an NFL team that invests in their Star QB, and the offensive line to protect him. It was kind of like that. He devised all raid strategies, had insane play time ... (was the "nice guildy" that helped every single member with advancing tough quest lines during non-raid hours) and was also one hell of a tank.
You mentioned having great memories of EQOA ... one of my fondest memories of that game was how our guild was the FIRST guild worldwide to actually main tank avatar of fear. Several other guilds killed it before ours but they used some sort of necro pet glitch zerging strategy. I remember people from all the other servers logging into ours to see how it was done.
Haha, I was right! Yeah, I can see that being the case due to the raid configuration. If your MT dies in EQ2, it was a wipe 99.9% of the time in my experience. A lot of the hard raids in EQ2 don't allow for any wiggle room.
The guild I'm currently in on Phinigel has a system where certain items are preferred to certain classes just because of the disproportional benefit. However, it's not limited to specific players.
The problem with a game like EQ2 is that a guild with two Guardians is just.. lol. Doing it wrong. In that specific case where this one specific guy is the only person who can fill that role, I can see it.
Additionally, as embarrassing as it sounds, I never raided in EQOA so I can't really comment. My experience in EQOA was when I was a super aimless, casual player. Also I was a 12 years old.
Liav said:I don't really think that could be considered unfair, for all practical purposes.
I am completely baffeled by this comment. One player raids for 4hrs and gets squat and another player raids for only 3hrs and gets rewarded far more. I really don't grasp how that could not be seen as unfair.
Liav said:At the end of the day, what matters is awarding people equally for meeting the same reasonable standard.
This I agree 100% with of course and believe everyone would. But thats the catch. DKP is points awarded and points spent, but how they are awareded and how they are spent come in a billion different flavors. I'd imagine if you looked at 10 different guilds that they'd handle DKP 10 different ways. I've seen it done in unfair ways in my past and very fair ways in my recent guilds so I don't doubt others have had bad experiences with DKP.
I say read the rules before you join a guild and decide for yourself. If the rules are clear and upfront and you join that guild then there should be nothing to complain abo
There's two different types of fairness you're talking about. Fairness within the rules, and fairness of the rules themselves.
If a DKP system is not being maliciously tampered with, it is necessarily fair within the rules. However, the fairness of the rules themselves can be as unfair as loot council.
streeg said:I am completely baffeled by this comment. One player raids for 4hrs and gets squat and another player raids for only 3hrs and gets rewarded far more. I really don't grasp how that could not be seen as unfair.
This example is fair within the rules, with relatively unfair rules being used. I personally have never seen a guild that didn't reward players DKP for participating in downing new content, even on failed attempts. If that's their policy, the leadership are assholes and they deserve criticism for it.
It's unfair to players to not be compensated for attempting to down new content. It's also terrible for morale.
Most guilds use hourly DKP anyway, for better or for worse, so the above scenario wouldn't really happen anyway.
streeg said:This I agree 100% with of course and believe everyone would. But thats the catch. DKP is points awarded and points spent, but how they are awareded and how they are spent come in a billion different flavors. I'd imagine if you looked at 10 different guilds that they'd handle DKP 10 different ways. I've seen it done in unfair ways in my past and very fair ways in my recent guilds so I don't doubt others have had bad experiences with DKP.
I say read the rules before you join a guild and decide for yourself. If the rules are clear and upfront and you join that guild then there should be nothing to complain abo
I concur.
I'm only here to express that DKP is the most perfect imperfect system that I've personally seen for loot distribution.
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.
General reminder, if someone disagrees with you, it is not a personal attack or the end of the world or a reason to continue arguing back, no one will win those arguments, have your say and then move on, it is pointless retaliating in this environment and only serves to cause unrest and ends in warnings or moderation, which is not pleasant for anyone nor is it something I like doing, so please abide by the forum guidelines if you are thinking about continuing this/or any other discussion.
Most players tend to focus on loot. Perhaps that is just human nature. I tend to look at things in reverse.
Issues over who gets what item, and for how many DKP are simple.
The player with the most DKP gets the item if they want it.
No schedules of join dates are necessary.
If they spend a bunch of DKP, they won't have the most any more, will they?
If they raid a lot more, then they will probably complete their gear needs, and then the people who raid less will then have a smorgasboard of leftovers, and for probably less DKP. Still all good.
What is more complex, and the area where real "fairness" is provided, is in the assigning of DKP values.
How many DKP for that item? Should we increase it? Decrease it?
Who gets DKP for non-raid activity?
In essence, if loot is truly being distributed unfairly, it probably happened before the raid even started.
I was the crafting officer for the last few guilds I was in. There, i would check the harvesting depots weekly and determine what we were low on. Then, I would offer DKP to anyone that brought 1000 of those mats, up to two per week.
This enabled those that missed a raid to gain DKP and ensured we always had enough crafting mats to supply the entire guild.
We usually strived to allow all play styles a chance to earn DKP by doing actions that benefitted the guild, not just raiding. Of course, those options were open to everyone, even the top raiders could earn extra by doing them.
Xxar said:Zeroed out dkp system based on content releases ie new expansions. I am a believer in what you did last expansion has no bearing on current content.
This is the way to go :)
I kinda both agree and disagree with this. In one sense, if the level cap is increased when an expansion hits, most of the content from the prior expansion is considered irrelelvant and a fresh start could be welcomed by many. In another sense though, this mentality would discourage people from showing up to raids after they have what they want. If they know that an expansion is coming out in X amount of months, they may decide to just take a break from the game because there is nothing they want to spend their DKP on, and they know they're going to have it all wiped anyway. I think a better alternative is to transfer a portion of the DKP over, if not all of it. Could you imagine having to have all of your bank account wiped out every New Year? That's also going to invite people to splurge DKP on things they would never otherwise spend it on, taking loot away from other players that it may have been more useful on. In the end I think something like that does more bad than good. Just my opinion.
Liav said:Gragorie said:The way we did loot in VG was the best I have ever seen. Earned DKP was only good for a set number of days then it would drop off. If you spent DKP, the item would cost a set amount, and you would recover a percentage of the spent DKP over a set number of day duration. You could go negative. So if an item cost 100 DKP and you had 100 days as the duration, you would recover 1 DKP a day for 100 days.
This motivated people to show up constantly. Even 1 missed raid could cost you the item you wanted 3 weeks later. I think 3/4 of the guild had over an 80% attendance rate. Also, before the fight even started, people knew exactly who the "good" loot was going to. Loot could be done in a couple minutes.
That sounds unnecessarily convoluted, to me.
It was all done on excel, so it wasnt hard to maintain. You just had to put the spent DKP amount on the date column and earned DKP in a different one. Whomever wrote it initially probably put some effort into it, I have no doubt. But in a game that was as poorly maintained as VG, where you were killing the same mobs every week for years, you needed to keep people showing up. And this worked.
oneADseven said:Xxar said:Zeroed out dkp system based on content releases ie new expansions. I am a believer in what you did last expansion has no bearing on current content.
This is the way to go :)
I kinda both agree and disagree with this. In one sense, if the level cap is increased when an expansion hits, most of the content from the prior expansion is considered irrelelvant and a fresh start could be welcomed by many. In another sense though, this mentality would discourage people from showing up to raids after they have what they want. If they know that an expansion is coming out in X amount of months, they may decide to just take a break from the game because there is nothing they want to spend their DKP on, and they know they're going to have it all wiped anyway. I think a better alternative is to transfer a portion of the DKP over, if not all of it. Could you imagine having to have all of your bank account wiped out every New Year? That's also going to invite people to splurge DKP on things they would never otherwise spend it on, taking loot away from other players that it may have been more useful on. In the end I think something like that does more bad than good. Just my opinion.
Retention is always a factor in progression guilds.
The people that leave or take a break are replaced or lose there guarranteed raid slot regardless.
This also forces people to spend dkp instead of hoarding another positive aspect is a new recruit that is helping you break content is not a expansion behind someone that simply hoarded dkp.
In my experience the only system that is well balanced is a zero sum point system.
...and I have been on the end of an unbalanced system that let me benefit from it. Yes I raided a lot, but the item cost to points awarded ratio was not balanced well so I ended up getting way more raid loot than I should have over a period of a couple years.
If it isn't a zero sum system it isn't balanced over the long run.
I'm hoping/expecting that VR will give us the tools to track a system like this in game...basically an in game excel sheet.
philo said:...and I have been on the end of an unbalanced system that let me benefit from it. Yes I raided a lot, but the item cost to points awarded ratio was not balanced well so I ended up getting way more raid loot than I should have over a period of a couple years.
Items having an assigned cost is only one possible iteration. Also, over a couple years? I would expect anyone who raided with high attendance for two years to have an abundance of loot.
We have been debating on what loot system we want to use for our guild. Some are in favor of DKP, others for Loot Council. I think most people lean towards DKP. I would like to ask ... are there people out there that would embrace a loot council system? If you were considering joining a guild, how important is the loot system to you? I fully understand the argument for DKP systems. I have used them in every game I have ever played. Right now though, I am trying to make a case for loot council. I think the key is finding the right combination of players that are onboard with it. I know the system has its cons. I would appreciate if anybody could chime in on this conversation and share their experience with a loot council system -- have you seen it work? Have you seen people quit the guild over it, due to obvious favortism? Is it possible to get 30 people together that all have enough faith in the council to "play through" the cons of the system, hoping that there is a bigger picture where the pros will flourish in the long run?
Although not currently part of your guild, I would not be open to it. I think it leads to drama and a PERCEPTION of favoritism, even if not actually there.
I like objective measures were people can plan for future bids and have some certainty in whether or not they will get something.
Beefcake said:Although not currently part of your guild, I would not be open to it. I think it leads to drama and a PERCEPTION of favoritism, even if not actually there.
I like objective measures were people can plan for future bids and have some certainty in whether or not they will get something.
Thank you for your response. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Would appreciate if more people could chime in as well.
As I said earlier in the thread, Im not really a fan of DKP or Loot Council. But I I had to chose one over the other then Id go with Loot council assuming things are kept fair in the sense of the greater good. That would mean leaders wouldnt necessarily get loots first, and Mains before Alts, and assesements made on the basis of what is best for the guild. If a badass tank chest piece drops it goes to the Main tank. That main tank, not best tank. Whichever Tank most faithfully and adequately fills that role (which will likely be the best tank anyways but just saying). In the case that there is no best option like say a good DPS piece that rogues can wear and you have 2 equally skilled and faithfully attending rogues. Have them /random. Maybe have a rule so that the same person cant get back to back drops to throw a bone out to the other players of the same class.
I guess basically the main thing is that the judgements from loot council are overall fair wih the guiding principal being to mostly do things for the benefit of the Guild. If set up like this and I felt the loot council were acting trustworthy then I would be okay with it. At any point if I see unfair, frivolous or freind favoring loot distributions, Id likely leave. Maybe not at first but if its a pattern then definitely time to go.
I prefer loot councils if merit based personally.
I also agree with the person who said what you did last expansion is irrelevant. What have you done for me lately is a very important question IMO for loot distribution.
In a guild I was in awhile ago, we had an app come in and on day one was making a joke out of everyone in his defined role. (GGranted some of them were lacking in skill and forethought), by the end of his app he got more gear then the others in his role faster. That seemed fair to me, however there was dissenting opinions. You cannot please everyone.
But liking a good loot council doesn't mean I would go out of my way or pass over apping to a DKP based guild. I just want to goto new places and kill new things... and take their stuff.
Either system if managed improperly has equal chance of failure and drama in my experience, and someone is always going to find something to cry about if they are that type of person.
I like loot councils because I feel like if you are starting a raid force from the ground up as in your raid force is just beginning raid content for an MMO for the first time then I feel they are easier to help your guild progress than most other forms of loot systems. I like them because you can place emphasis on certain players that you feel will help your guild progress quicker and more efficiently.
BUT, you have to be strict about your rules. No conflicts of interest meaning if you prioritize a certain player and they are going to be getting items before others make sure they are not part of the loot council and if possible they are not part of the raid leaders and/or guild leaders. You have to be transparent with how you are running things. People need to know if you are prioritizing certain players and/or items.
And in the case that things are not working out then it might be time to change things up. If you are using a loot council because you believe it will help you progress quicker and more effectively but you are not progressing then maybe it's time to hang it up and try a different loot system.
I will go ahead and echo the idea of Loot Council with strict rules. It's the better option if you have clear heads making decisions, but even the slightest hint of favoritism will send your ranks into mutiny. You would really need to scout out the logical/statistical thinkers and BiS obsessors, who aren't your social butterflies in the upper ranks.
Appreciate everybodies input! I know we are still a looooong time away from getting into the game, but we're trying to plan ahead and I felt it would be wise to also gauge the perception of our fellow community. Even if we had 20 people that could work with loot council today ... if it's something that is generally frowned upon, we could have a hard time replacing someone down the road if something came up and they had to quit the game. I am happy with what I am seeing so far as I personally was leaning toward loot council but I know that such a system also presents it's own set of challenges. Going to wait at least a week before we take any sort of official stance on it.