I think a big advantage of random loot distribution, along with being easy to implement, is that it's basically immune to corruption (and even the perception of corruption). Loot councils, on the other hand, are only as trustworthy as the people who run them. On Live I was in a DKP-backed loot council guild where one officer would deliberately assign high-DKP, marginal upgrades to players of his class, so that he'd have less competition for best-in-slot drops. The officers also looted all no-drop rot loot on a 'dumpster' character, then later used a client hack to transfer the items to their own alts. Droppable loot vanished into the guild bank. When the guild (surprise!) eventually imploded, said alts and guild bank were RMT'd for the equivalent of a down payment on a nice house. Straight DKP is a lot less susceptible to corruption, though the system rules (e.g. item values, point decay rates, bonuses, alt policies) can be set up to preferentially reward certain styles of raiding. My point is that loot councils, and to a lesser extent DKP systems, rely on the honesty and competence of the officers. A /random system could be run by morons and Lrons and still be undeniably fair.
This is exactly where I feel random breaks down. There is no filter or consideration of what that item means specifically to you versus another person, you put your name down for everything that is an upgrade for you. Obviously that isn't best for the guild or its progression, but that's just what happens. A lot of 'regulars' are typically the type of player that are also putting a lot of time and effort outside of raiding to their characters, so they're only after certain things. Random is a numbers game and if you don't play the numbers as much, then you're not getting as much. We've all seen the effects of RNG and that can be very punishing to people on the low-end of the odds spectrum.
That's a good point, Throy. I, too, would tend to call that kind of stratification a feature rather than a bug of point-based systems. In Tem, we definitely got players from time to time who got upset that they wouldn't be competitive on most "server-first" drops until they'd been raiding a while; on the other hand, I think the fact that these new raiders were on average winning non-server-first drops at a rate much higher than veteran players (who were often stuck waiting on only a handful of rare or new-ish items, having gotten everything else they wanted months or years ago) softened the blow. It's also worth pointing out that a system like DC's, with full point loss, solves this problem. A smart new player, IMO, is going to take advantage of the fact that there's little competition for the low-hanging fruit and ignore the hyper-competitive stuff or a while, opting instead to win a lot of solid upgrades on the cheap before saving up to compete for the most popular items. But one still has the option of saving up for those highly competitive items right off the bat. DC's system also solved the problem of new player "sticker shock" Thucy points out: there's rapid turnover at the top of the point list as every item drops its winner back to the bottom. Even if one or two people in the system do have absolutely insane point totals that'd take months and months of raiding without a win to overtake, those vast point totals only represent one item each.
I was in a guild on EQ2 that used a decaying points system. Every time someone hit 200 dkp, everyone in the guilds' DKP was cut in half. We earned 1 dkp an hour, and double dkp during cutting edge progression raiding. Sometimes they would give 10 dkp bonuses for doing key/flag raids to promote killing something that no one wanted to do. They also used a silent bidding system. In hindsight, it was actually a pretty good system, they thrived using it for 8+ years. They always stressed though, don't get mad at the person who forces a dkp split. Sometimes there just wasn't upgrades for them dropping and it happens naturally. There was usually a bunch of people close to causing dkp splits too, so any one of them could have forced it.
Huh. That's a pretty cool idea. A major advantage, I think, of bidding and full point loss systems is that they don't require the officers to price every item individually. Tem's system, as Pithy mentions, was very much a centrally-planned economy: we dickered endlessly in the officer forums over individual values, struggling not only to balance items against one another but also to balance content (for example, VT loot is simply too good: if you price AHR's swag "honestly" against elemental drops, the value of those raids is going to be disproportionately high in a way that misrepresents the priorities of a guild focused on the EPs and planar progression). All a bidding or full loss system requires is that the people running it come up with a list of items it's going to govern. It could even be a relatively succint list: a guild could random almost everything and use points only on high-end items from its current point-of-progress, dropping those items off the list as they became less relevant.
Indeed in DC lesser items or things that people weren't bidding on would often go to random. The all in system really encourages frequent spending and stops a player from running off with all of the evening's loot.
Malignant was only around for a short time, but I had no complaints regarding their loot handling. I prefer DKP systems myself even if Malignant was the only guild I've been in that had it. It's easy to create a DKP system that is unfair however; the classic example being Afterlife (who gets credit for 'inventing' it which is silly) where they awarded far more points than they spent, resulting in old members getting first choice on every damn thing and new members getting screwed. It's very important that DKP in = DKP out or you'll have problems. I would strongly agree however that some classes should get first pick on certain items regardless of DKP scores. If a ranger got a Blade of War over a warrior, I'd probably guildquit out of disgust. Loot council allows you to gear your MT, but in my old EQ guild, MTs quitting was common. Loot council also allows you to reward the better players more. No matter how well councils award loot, there will always be resentment so long as humans have egos however. Each system has upsides and downsides.
I like that idea. It sounds fair, easy to implement, and low-drama. Along with a simple "X points earned per hour" policy, possibly with occasional bonuses, it would encourage people to show up for meat-and-potatoes raids (backflags, long clears, etc) rather than just logging in to roll on candy from the tastiest loot pinatas. Woah, mixed food metaphor. Now I'm hungry.
The problem with bidding is that it's easy to game: a handful of players could secretly conspire to decide which order who got what and bid low/not bid against each other on items that only they would want/need, leaving them with more points on other items. This isn't as easy to catch as you'd think, simply because people saving points for big ticket items is common. You would also still need some sort of minimum value so that your single necromancer doesn't get his class only loot for free. Even then he'll always get it for minimum. Bidding is probably better suited to very large guilds.
Yeah, I've never actually raided with a bidding system, and it does seem to me like it could turn into a bit of a meta-game. Full point loss is perhaps better, especially for more casual raiding guilds averse to more complicated zero-sum systems - basically just a way of implementing a queue whereby players take turns on highly competitive drops. You work your way to the head of the queue based on attendance, then drop back to the end of the line.
Being from a DKP guild, with 95% raid attendance, only person with more than me was in 98% attendance. It was open bidding. Highest bidder wins. And ur point used were what u bid. Period. I had ppl run me up, when they knew i wanted something. And i would burn them by dropping out. I set out knowing how much i would bid. And soon as it went higher, i would drop out. Even if person had no more points and i could get for 5 more. They learned not to run me up. Cuz they would get burned. DKP with open bidding FTW!
My guild on live from 2009-2012 used an open bidding system. Generally speaking it worked like this: Mains over 40% RA bid in first tier Mains under 40% RA bid in second tier Alts/Recruits bid in third tier There was a 1000 DKP minimum bid on loot, with a 100 minimum up bid. Spells had a 1 DKP minimum with a 25 minimum up bid. Each raid was worth about 150 DKP or so I think? Bids were done in an open channel and after 10 seconds with no up bid the winner was announced. This worked out well for 2-3 expansions. Eventually we added further stipulations. 1HPiercers were rogue only bids, 2H were berserker only bids, bows were ranger only bids and a certain aggro proc 1HS were warrior only bids. After that the only complaints I remember hearing about was at the beginning of expansions, people felt the spells (at this point in EQ raids dropped spell quest turn ins like Glyphed Rune Words, that awarded you a rank 3 spell in a specific order, so you knew what you were buying), should be limited to getting buffers the Aego, KEI, Focus, Haste, etc. versions of spells in Rank3 ASAP so they could be MGB'd. Also some wizards argued the Rank 3 spells were their weapons and they should get priority. But aside from that it was rather happy DKP bids. I liked it personally. It allowed me to save up and spend for what I wanted. The minimum wasn't too absurdly high but it was large enough to prevent people from collecting 200 weapons. I ended up spending 66,666 DKP (at 150/raid) on an item for the raid version of the Underfoot Shawl (Coldain Shawl 4.0). This was the highest bid by far but the item was the most powerful item in game for my class and still is (though an augment version of the quest came in four expansions later), but I was happy to save up and pay that much for it.
I'm probably in the minority, but I genuinely liked Tem's TPS+Loot Council method. Yeah, it wasn't true zero-sum. Yeah, it had it's occasional loot controversy (anyone remember when Fennin's vest went to a certain monk?). Yeah, there were cases where people claimed favoritism/corruption (really only Faite, from what I remember). And the issue of transparency was a guaranteed rant post once every four months. But, over the course of however many years Tem existed, we maintained a very steady group of players and attrition was (anecdotally) less of an issue. Pithy mentions that points were a pretty big determinant in the majority of the officers' decisions, but we also completely ignored points (looking more at attendance, value of upgrade, and recent loot pick ups) way more than I expected while I was a general member. We awarded several items to players who were negative TPS because we knew how valuable it would not only be for them, but for the guild in the long run. I participated in a bid system when I played on Bristlebane way back. It had its good moments, but it was clear there was collusion between certain players. I also felt that in most of those cases, one player was being duped out of drops when it came to deal making. Having point values readily available for everyone to see does provide really smart people the means to game the system to their advantage. Whether this was viewed as a good or a bad thing is up to the officers of the guild, I guess. But the thought of it never appealed to me. I don't know how you guys put up with /random for loot. I would go insane. More power to you, I guess, but holy shit.
Etheral/Spectral parchments and GRWs (which are no drop) give rewards at random (that are droppable). You're thinking of the GoD/OoW runes which had sequential rewards. GoD both the rune and spell were no drop and in OoW the runes (at least the lowest 3 tiers) were droppable but the rewards were no drop.
No, I'm referring to SoD, UF, HoT, VoA, RoF expansions (levels 85-100), which had turn ins similar to Glyphed Rune Words, but with the difference being they were awarded in a specific order. I know the OoW Runes did as well, however I tried to use a comparison that most players who only played Al'Kabor (GRWs) would relate with. GoD's spell runes only returned single spells, there were different ones for each spell, it wasn't sequential you just needed 1 of each different one.
I had to get my face out of a textbook for a couple minutes. I loved that raid. Seeing the pictures you and pithy have makes me wish I had taken more screenshots.
My mistake. When you said "like GRWs" I thought you meant 'for example' instead of 'similar to'. Derp
Well I'm still somewhat new to the randoming system way of life. If i'm being honest, at times it can be tough to watch new members/rare spawns roll against raid leaders or people that you know show up to every raid or are integral to the effort in some way. If it's a top tier item though, its usually mains only that roll, otherwise if alts are included their rolling odds are usually less than those of the mains. The system goes like this, everyone puts in for the item they want, and then get's a number (1 -5 etc.) then the raid leader will "/random 5" and whoever's number comes up obviously wins. So I've definitely seem a couple things go to people where it would probably be suited better with someone else. I've also seen fashion quest win over someone that needs that particular item. So it has it's flaws, and you've just gotta swallow that pill when it happens. I will say that it does somewhat work for the time being, under the current server circumstances. However once Velious/Luclin roll around those rare TOV drops could potentially cause some discouragement. If I could make some changes to the random system, it would be either let people with best raid attendance have better rolling odds. or Have an officers council discretion rule, where Officers can make sure certain things go to your loyal/consistent raiders first over newbies/rare spawns/fashion questers. NBG That would be more fair, in my humble opinion. The nice thing about these 2 tweaks is that they also encourage players to show up regularly to raid. Or of course a completely different system. But I'm not whining just yet, like i said for the time being it works.
Oiwon, Thucydides made the point upthread that under a /random system, regular attenders still get more chances at loot than rare attenders, because they get more opportunities to roll. He's right. He also says that he thinks that people who prefer non-random systems prefer them because they want more loot to go to high attenders. On this point, I think you and he are both wrong. In the big picture, point systems and /random should both end up rewarding attendance at roughly the same rate, on average, over time. Fifty percent more attendance than the next guy means fifty percent more points under DKP, and it also means fifty percent more opportunities to roll under /random. The virtue of a non-random system - almost any non-random system - is not that it takes loot away from casual raiders and gives it to hardcore raiders. I'd also add that if you were going to advocate for some kind of change, the argument about favoring high-attenders, aside from being inaccurate, would be doomed. I haven't been in Destiny long myself, but even I can tell you that it is not a group of people who are going to say, "Yes, by all means, let's gear our hardcore raiders at the expense of casual players so we can progress faster!" So what are the virtues of a non-random system? I'd say they're three, in descending order of importance: 1. /Random rewards people for showing up to raids at which they want things. Points reward people for showing up to raids, period. Under a random system, a hypothetical, purely selfish raider who only showed up to raids that stood to benefit him would do better than a person who made a similar number of raids according to some other criteria (what raids fit into her schedule, what raids would benefit the guild most, etc.). 2. Points allow people to make plans. If RangerDanger needs a new helm, under a point system, the smart thing for him to do is to figure out which helm(s) are best for rangers and to save up for one of those helms, with a reasonable expectation that he'll be able to win it when his turn comes around. Under a /random system, the smart (albeit maybe selfish) thing for him to do is to roll on every single helm that drops, and keep rolling on more helms if they seem better or more class-appropriate than the first one he manages to win. 3. In the short term, points reduce or eliminate the small, personal frustrations of the fickle RNG. In the short term, RangerDanger may win all the helms, or he may lose out on the helm he wants eleven times in a row.
If the topic is going to switch to destiny's loot rules, we should probably move that part of the discussion to our forums. All this input about different loot systems is awesome though, really displays all the good ideas different guilds have had to combat common problems with loot.
Good point! I agree it's been an interesting thread and that Destiny-specific discussion is way off-topic on these forums - mea culpa.
Oiwon I'm pretty geared and it's all been random. If you put in the time you WILL get geared on this server, regardless of loot systems.
I think we've touched on DC and Tem as well. I like that we can focus this conversation through examples we've all seen in action here.
I think it's been a pretty cool and interesting discussion. Hopefully more people share some of their past experiences/opinions.
