Ulduar 25 DKP Policy Brainstorming Thread

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 20th, 2009, 2:59 am

I would like to get some guild feedback and provide some insight into proposed ideas for the upcoming Ulduar 25 DKP policy. Please keep comments constructive. 1) Background - Naxxramas used a golf scoring system instead of DKP because we did not have the DKP framework in place when WotLK came out. It was the best option at the time and was subject to a lot of tweaking along the way; we did the best we could. We will not be using the golf scoring system for Ulduar 25. 2) We will be using a zero sum DKP system to distribute loot. The goal of this system is to distribute loot in a manner that encourages consistent raid participation and progress. There are no perfect DKP systems; each has its strengths and weaknesses. The key elements of the proposed zero system are as follows. 3) Zero is average. Raiders that have acquired a lot of loot will be negative; those who have raided for a while and not received anything will be positive. New raiders will start at zero -- a new raider can gear up on the first night. 4) Loot has a fixed value. The value will be computed using the following formula.
4a) The base value of an item is its iLvl.
4b) For 'useless' PvE items, the value is subjected to a 20% deduction. This is pretty much anything with resilience or spell penetration (i.e., PvP) stats. If we reach the determination that other items are pretty much junk, we can apply a deduction as well to those items.
4c) For weapons, a 10% increase is applied. This is due to the fact that weapons across the board provide larger stat boosts than individual pieces of armor.
4d) For set items, a 20% increase is applied. This is intended to compensate for those players willing to wear a clown suit instead of holding out for their set. Note that raiders are encouraged to obtain their worthwhile set bonuses via Ulduar 10 and/or emblems -- don't just wait for it to drop in Ulduar 25.
4e) For highly desirable items, a 30% increase is applied. Examples would be best in class trinkets that are highly sought after by multiple classes/roles (e.g., the DST from Gruul).
4f) Vanity items (such as mounts) are assigned a fixed price that is significantly higher than other items. The rights to this item will be restricted to a /roll among those whose total earned DKP (not current DKP) is within 20% of the person with the top earned DKP. These are the 'A' and 'B' students in terms of raid participation. Note that this may be adjusted to within 20% of the 2nd or 3rd person if the top earned DKP person is way outside of the bell curve -- we will monitor this to see how it goes. Note that the item stil has a DKP price -- it isn't free and may send you negative. 5) Priority is given to the person who will use the item for their main raiding spec. If more than one person needs the item for their main raiding spec, the person with the highest DKP has first rights to the item. If they pass, the person with the second highest DKP is next, and so forth. Even though dual specs are in place, each character will have a single main raiding spec. 6) Some exceptions will be made for the purpose of raid progress. This usually applies to tank resistance gear, but certain items may be awarded at low or no cost to a specific person (e.g., Blizz designs a fight that requires a caster tank to have maximum nature resistance, we would stack BoP NR gear on that person at little or no cost to them since they probably wouldn't want that gear otherwise). Other items of this nature would be heroic keys (e.g., the Malygos key) where the initial drops of the item will most likely be awarded to a raider that is consistently available. Later drops would be tied to a fixed amount of DKP (e.g., the iLvl of the quest reward) and handled as an ordinary piece of gear. 7) There will be no hoarding of DKP. You can not pass up sensible gear upgrades to amass enough DKP to be the first person in the guild to get the 'Sword of a Thousand Truths'. Compromising your own gear for selfish reason is disrespectful to your fellow raiders; in cases like this, you will be awarded the item and charged DKP for it. If you really want to hoard DKP, the only way to avoid the invocation of this clause is to make sure that 'undesired' loot is a sidegrade -- get geared up outside of Ulduar 25 via 10 man raids, crafted gear, etc. 8) If an item is not needed for a main raiding spec, it will be opened to offspec bids. Interested people will whisper a single bid to the loot master; highest bid wins the item. In the event of a tie, the tying bidders will /roll for the item. The minimum bid for an offspec item is 10 DKP and this bid can be made even if you have less than 10 DKP -- we do not want to disenchant gear that people can put to use, so bid that 10 DKP. 9) Once an item is purchased for the fixed value (main spec) or bid value (off spec), the DKP is divided by 25 and awarded to every member of the raid (including the person who was charged the item DKP) -- hence the 'zero sum'. If there are less than 25 people in the raid, the extra DKP is awarded to a phantom guild member (to be discussed later). By dividing by 25, we should never have to go beyond 2 decimal places. 10) Bonus DKP may be awarded to encourage raid progress (e.g., on time bonus, wipe night bonus, boss first kill bonus, highest DPS bonus, highest decurse bonus). Bonus DKP that is awarded will be subtracted from the phantom guild member to maintain zero sum. 11) When the guild makes a clear transition to new content, the entire DKP system will be depreciated by 50%. This will bring everyone closer to zero, but does give a reduced edge to those who were consistently attending the older content to help gear other raiders up. If older content is still run, at the discretion of the raid leader, DKP can still be used using depreciated item values or loot can be openly rolled (need for main spec, greed for off spec) on a boss by boss basis (e.g., the 'easy' bosses in SSC will be rolled, but Vashj would be DKP). The intent of this rule is to provide some motivation for people to help out their fellow guildmates and run older content, but not penalize them if they're 'burnt out' and tired of an instance we've been farming for some time. 12) Alternate characters may be brought to a raid at the discretion of the raid leader. The DKP for an alt is tied to the main character (single pool). In terms of priority, the raiding spec of an alt has lower priority than the raiding spec of a main. The raiding spec of an alt has equal priority to the off spec of a main. The primary consideration is utility to the raid (e.g., a DPS character with a strong healing set may or may not be better than having a DPS relog onto a healing alt -- use good judgment.) 13) Periodically, the guild may tax awarded DKP to bring the phantom guild member back to parity. For example, if a 200 DKP item is awarded, divide by 25 to get 8 DKP, tax this by 20%, and award the 25 raid members present 6.4 DKP and award 40 DKP to the phantom. There is also a possibility for a progressive DKP tax if raiders are amassing obscene amounts of DKP. This last item is a technicality due to the addon that we plan to use to record item drops (http://www.mlmods.net/de/index). 14) After a boss is killed, the entire raid will move together to be ready for the next pull; only the master looter will stay by the corpse. The addon we use only detects loot if the person receiving the loot is in range of the person with the addon active. I do not want to set a precedent where manual edits of the DKP data are frequently needed because people were milling around the corpse away from the raid. If this becomes a problem, a DKP penalty will be assessed. Note that the Ulduar patch notes state that a single person looting an emblem will loot it for everyone in the raid -- there is no reason to stay behind at the corpse. If you need to go AFK, go AFK at the staging point for the next pull. A lot of this is just a rehash of the DKP policy that was in place for SSC/TK/Hyjal/BT. A lot of the finer tweaks being proposed are to address issues that manifested during TBC (I really hated how the DKP never added to zero and went out to 20 decimal places). If you have ideas or concerns, please respond to this thread. If there were problems with the old DKP system, but you don't have any ideas for a solution, please describe the problem so that people can brainstorm possible solutions. Thanks. -HP

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 20th, 2009, 3:06 am

15) BoE items -- BoE items will first be offered to main specs for the 25 raid members present. If no one in the raid wants the item for a main spec, it will be put in the guild bank. Requests can be made to the bank request thread -- main specs will have priority over off specs. Those who desire the item for off spec should post in the bank request thread to indicate interest and send an in-game mail to the guild leader (we may end up delegating this to a bank officer) with the single bid. -HP

Kaittlynn · Post by **Kaittlynn** » March 20th, 2009, 8:29 am

So, these BoE items...If they are coming from the bank, they still cost DkP right? You say with a single bid, but I just want to clarify if that is a bid of DkP or a bid of gold...

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 20th, 2009, 10:00 am

DKP. The single bid is identical to the way BoP off spec items are bid using a single bid, silent auction during the raid. Note that if it is for a main spec, the DKP cost is the normal DKP cost of the item; bidding only applies for off spec.

-HP

mahonri · Post by **mahonri** » March 20th, 2009, 12:58 pm

I'm diggin it... Things we might need to add/change/my thoughts: We do need something in there about clairifying mains. I have heard from other guilds before where every 6 months their members have to declare their main to the guild, and that will be it until the next declaration time. This has helped them a ton. (Maybe this should be in the guild rules instead of the dkp rules... even though they do kinda go together.) Need something in the policy about people with more than 1 spec being awarded loots. I can see someone getting mad that they were asked to spec healing instead of dps, and then some dps item they need drops. Just a clairifying statement would be good. If im asked to heal and my kickass staff drops I would fo sho want to roll on it ya know. Something about what happens when we are asked to bring a toon that is different than our main in for either specific fights or to fill a different role for the night. I personally think that weapons should be more than a 10% increase because of the competition for them. At least on par with the set gear I would think. Maybe a rule about not getting weapons/set gear on your first 2 weeks in the raid? Newbie comin in and takin set or weapons everyone has been waiting for because they are all under 0 is still crappy. Especially if being forced to take an item or whatnot. All in all though, it is a very good, very thought out list HP - Thanks!

WarmApplePie · Post by **WarmApplePie** » March 20th, 2009, 3:00 pm

handsomo wroteI'm diggin it... Things we might need to add/change/my thoughts: We do need something in there about clairifying mains. I have heard from other guilds before where every 6 months their members have to declare their main to the guild, and that will be it until the next declaration time. This has helped them a ton. (Maybe this should be in the guild rules instead of the dkp rules... even though they do kinda go together.) Need something in the policy about people with more than 1 spec being awarded loots. I can see someone getting mad that they were asked to spec healing instead of dps, and then some dps item they need drops. Just a clairifying statement would be good. If im asked to heal and my kickass staff drops I would fo sho want to roll on it ya know. Something about what happens when we are asked to bring a toon that is different than our main in for either specific fights or to fill a different role for the night. I personally think that weapons should be more than a 10% increase because of the competition for them. At least on par with the set gear I would think. Maybe a rule about not getting weapons/set gear on your first 2 weeks in the raid? Newbie comin in and takin set or weapons everyone has been waiting for because they are all under 0 is still crappy. Especially if being forced to take an item or whatnot. All in all though, it is a very good, very thought out list HP - Thanks!

I agree with all these. Specially number 5.

I need clarification. It pertains to the old mainspec/offspec/alts thing.. Without going to my fancy raid attendance spreadsheet I'm just going to pick two names. Vorahon and Fragen. Vorahon has came and healed on his alt (and resto is even his alts offspec) as many times as Fragen has on his main, is it really fair that Fragen gets priority? How could we adjust this part of the system for more fairness?

Daghi · Post by **Daghi** » March 20th, 2009, 3:18 pm

Responding to Handsomo 1) good point to bring up. I think that's a good idea about locking people into mains for X amount of time, it really makes you think about your choice. I mean we all know this is a game, but your choice effects the other members of the guild so it shouldn't be something you can just change your mind on whenever. 2) as well as picking a main character people should pick main specs as well for loot distribution purposes and be locked into that for a time, however I think it should be a shorter time than main character. That way if I say my main spec is Unholy DPS and I'm asked to tank I can still get dps pieces like I wold if I was DPSing. Also I think we should keep a list of everone's main/off specs once duel spec comes out. That way raid leaders know everything they have access to when filling the raid. This is no way pressure to spec a certain way, if you want to be pve fire and pvp fire as your two specs that's totally fine imo. 3) an idea for this is that if you show up on time and prepared with your main and you are asked by the raid leader to bring an alt that alt should be treated as a main for that time. This doesn't happen if you ask the raid leader if you can bring your alt or even signing on halfway through a raid and being asked to bring a certain character. 4) agree 5) agree

Aezelkvalae · Post by **Aezelkvalae** » March 20th, 2009, 9:34 pm

I would just like to say I think the DKP bonuses for showing up on time should be quite significant, yet not too much to really hurt people who have some RL issue occasionally. I think if you are regularly showing up 1/2 hour late with no prior notification you should really start to feel it in your loot availability. On the other hand if you have kids and you just have to be late sometimes and can't help it, I don't think that should destroy your raiding loot chances. I don't know exactly what to suggest at the moment to implement a fair system at the moment.

Kaittlynn · Post by **Kaittlynn** » March 20th, 2009, 11:55 pm

I think that we should specify when DKP is changed-- I know in the old system it was set up in some peoples minds that nothing changed untl after the run was over-- meaning someone could come in, grab 2 or 3 pieces and it wouldn't matter because DKP wasn't subtracted until the raid was over.

While I don't think that we should be changing the spreadsheet during raids, I think that we should have something set up so that ideally, loot is distributed evenly throughout the night anyways.

Also, do we want to set something up so that people dont hoard their DKP? Or is that ok? I was one to spend DKP to gear up in SSC and Tk-- meaning I never got BT or Hyjal loot because other people had saved their DKP. Dunno just some thoughts...

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 21st, 2009, 4:02 am

handsomo wrote We do need something in there about clairifying mains. I have heard from other guilds before where every 6 months their members have to declare their main to the guild, and that will be it until the next declaration time. This has helped them a ton. (Maybe this should be in the guild rules instead of the dkp rules... even though they do kinda go together.) Need something in the policy about people with more than 1 spec being awarded loots. I can see someone getting mad that they were asked to spec healing instead of dps, and then some dps item they need drops. Just a clairifying statement would be good. If im asked to heal and my kickass staff drops I would fo sho want to roll on it ya know. Something about what happens when we are asked to bring a toon that is different than our main in for either specific fights or to fill a different role for the night. I personally think that weapons should be more than a 10% increase because of the competition for them. At least on par with the set gear I would think. Maybe a rule about not getting weapons/set gear on your first 2 weeks in the raid? Newbie comin in and takin set or weapons everyone has been waiting for because they are all under 0 is still crappy. Especially if being forced to take an item or whatnot.

To clarify, Ulduar will be using a DKP system, not a golf scoring system. 1) It is in the best interests of the raid to have each warm body (person that can control a character) quickly gear up to fill a specific role. It concentrates loot in a manner that allows for strong tanks, strong healers, and strong DPS to be geared quickly. People do need to be happy playing this game and not locked into a single role, but please consider the following factors when changing a spec.
1a) Inertia of loot -- The more loot you have received from Ulduar 25 for a given role, greater care must be taken that raid progress is not harmed by changing spec or main character (e.g., if our most geared tank wants to become a healer, they need to be aware that the loot does not translate well and is in a sense 'wasted').
1b) Difficulty of content -- If content is on farm, the raid has more flexibility to accommodate people that want to change spec or main character.
1c) Roster availability -- If the guild as a whole is short on a given role (tank, healer, DPS), it reduces the flexibility to change spec or main character. 2) Related to 1 above, we want to concentrate loot in a manner that allows for strong role development. Also consider this -- if you are allowed to declare more than one spec your main spec, you will burn through DKP faster because you are always paying full item DKP price -- you won't be getting offspec loot for the minimum 10 DKP bid (or some other low bid). You will actually gear up slower for both specs. 3) Every player has a single DKP pool that is shared amongst their main character and alts. Since an alt character is treated as equivalent to an off spec for a main character, the comment related to 2 above applies. If you wish to invoke 'main spec' priorty for your alt, you will burn through your DKP twice as fast since you're always paying full item DKP price. 4) Suggestion noted. We'll have a better sense of what the % modifier should be once we build the Ulduar loot tables. 5) The scenario for a new person to 'ninja' tier loot is quite limited. Consider the following things that must happen for a 'bad ninja' to take place.
5a) Tier tokens are open to 3 or more classes. For a new person with zero DKP to have main spec priority on the token, every single person in the raid that belongs to those three classes must be negative in DKP. Weapons are also generally open to more than one class.
5b) If the new person with zero DKP gets the item, it is only a ninja if they stop raiding with us. If the person continues to raid with us and help us clear content, they will make good use of that tier token for the benefit of the raid.
5c) If a new person is filling in just to help us out, they would most likely be willing to pass on high value loot if they don't intend to consistently raid with us (see 5b above).
5d) If you're negative and are one piece away from completing your set, a person in category 5c (and possibly 5b) will most likely be kind enough to pass on their own priority. Note that every person above you in DKP must pass on the item before it gets to you. If you're super negative; there's a high likelihood that a consistent raider who is also working on their set will want the item and be less negative in DKP. Also note that in the event this does happen and you are awarded the loot, you will become even more negative. Remember that an item will drop multiple times -- we only run into problems when we fail to get boss kills. There is probably a lot of angst over Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad loot right now because we as a guild have been cancelling raids or failing for one reason or another to get that weekly full clear. The weird rules that were instituted of 'no KT or Sapph loot' during your first two weeks highlights the weakness in the golf scoring system -- your golf score never goes down by consistently raiding and not getting any loot. Zero sum DKP is not subject to this weakness. -HP

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 21st, 2009, 4:19 am

WarmApplePie wrote

I need clarification. It pertains to the old mainspec/offspec/alts thing.. Without going to my fancy raid attendance spreadsheet I'm just going to pick two names. Vorahon and Fragen. Vorahon has came and healed on his alt (and resto is even his alts offspec) as many times as Fragen has on his main, is it really fair that Fragen gets priority? How could we adjust this part of the system for more fairness?

The best case scenario for the raid is that a player (Challah) has a well geared main spec (DPS) and another player (Fragen) has a well geared main spec (healer). Remember that the goal of a DKP system is to distribute loot in a manner that encourages raid progression and success. 'Fairness' in the distribution of loot becomes a factor in the sense that if raiders perceive the system to be unfair, turnover becomes high and raid attendance suffers to the point where raids are cancelled and no one gets any loot. We are a mature guild and I would expect people to be able to temper their notions of fairness against the good of the raid as a whole (sorta like justice without compassion -- you need to temper one with the other). It is a bonus to the raid that Challah has another character available to heal and it makes sense to gear that healer up when the item drops aren't needed by other healers, but in a world of perfect raid attendance, the alt healer would not be needed since Challah would always be fulfilling a role as DPS on his main character's main spec. If Challah is bored with DPS and wants to play a healer more often, that would amount to him changing his main character and main spec which is then subject to the considerations made in one of my previous posts. -HP

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 21st, 2009, 4:26 am

Daghi wrote 1) good point to bring up. I think that's a good idea about locking people into mains for X amount of time, it really makes you think about your choice. I mean we all know this is a game, but your choice effects the other members of the guild so it shouldn't be something you can just change your mind on whenever. 2) as well as picking a main character people should pick main specs as well for loot distribution purposes and be locked into that for a time, however I think it should be a shorter time than main character. That way if I say my main spec is Unholy DPS and I'm asked to tank I can still get dps pieces like I wold if I was DPSing. Also I think we should keep a list of everone's main/off specs once duel spec comes out. That way raid leaders know everything they have access to when filling the raid. This is no way pressure to spec a certain way, if you want to be pve fire and pvp fire as your two specs that's totally fine imo. 3) an idea for this is that if you show up on time and prepared with your main and you are asked by the raid leader to bring an alt that alt should be treated as a main for that time. This doesn't happen if you ask the raid leader if you can bring your alt or even signing on halfway through a raid and being asked to bring a certain character.

Remember that invoking priority on an item as a main character's main spec is a double-edged sword -- you will pay full DKP price for the item and go further into the negative. If you are flip-flopping on main characters, alternate characters, main specs, and alt specs all of the time, you will be spread thin since you're paying full DKP for every item. Once you are spread thin and are undergeared to fill any particular role, it motivates the raid leader to not bring you to a raid until content is on farm (e.g., we're trying to learn XYZ progression fight and I have a choice between a healer who has always spent his DKP on healing gear and a healer who spent half their DKP on +hit gear). -HP

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 21st, 2009, 4:44 am

Kaittlynn wrote
I think that we should specify when DKP is changed-- I know in the old system it was set up in some peoples minds that nothing changed untl after the run was over-- meaning someone could come in, grab 2 or 3 pieces and it wouldn't matter because DKP wasn't subtracted until the raid was over.

While I don't think that we should be changing the spreadsheet during raids, I think that we should have something set up so that ideally, loot is distributed evenly throughout the night anyways.

Also, do we want to set something up so that people dont hoard their DKP? Or is that ok? I was one to spend DKP to gear up in SSC and Tk-- meaning I never got BT or Hyjal loot because other people had saved their DKP. Dunno just some thoughts...

In my opinion, someone who wants to invoke 'the letter of the law' and try to acquire multiple items on the same night just because the DKP page isn't updated in real time is someone who is immature and should not be invited to the raid because it really hurts raid morale and will ultimately cause raid turnover to increase and raid attendance to drop. If this becomes an issue, we will do the following calculation on the spot (current DKP = DKP from webpage minus DKP from items awarded so far that night). This number is accurate enough given that if DKP is awarded on the spot, everyone gets item DKP divided by 25. Item number 11 in the original post tries to strike a balance between two goals -- the % depreciation can be tweaked till we hit the right spot.
11a) By depreciating the value of DKP from old content going into new content, it encourages people to use their DKP to gear up in old content in preparation for new content. You will have higher raid invite priority if you are fully geared up, ready to charge into the newest progression encounters. If you are passing on loot and staying undergeared in an attempt to hoard DKP for new content, the % depreciation will hurt your 'return on time spent' and you will also be undergeared and have lower raid invite priority.
11b) By retaining some value of DKP from old content going into new content, it encourages people who need absolutely nothing from old content to help fill out 25 man raids so that we can gear up others in preparation for new content. Note that the use of DKP for old content is at the discretion of the raid leader. If we can form and clear old content raids successfully using informal /roll on loot, we won't use DKP (e.g., Gruul's lair). If there's still a nontrivial old content boss that requires some motivation and effort to clear (e.g., Vashj), we would use depreciated DKP. -HP

Kaittlynn · Post by **Kaittlynn** » March 21st, 2009, 10:18 am

--Determining Mains--
I really don't think this comes out to be as trivial as people think. I think before when i played Kaittlynn and Jazzmynn, it worked out. They both have their own DKP, and the toon that comes gets the DKP. I always started Kait out as a main, but being a Holy Pally it was often beneficial to the guild to have her available. I think it is important to know what toons people want to bring-- accept the raid invite on THAT toon. For me, I don't have a preference. I don't really see one of the toons being a main over the other. Sometimes I want Kait, but I get bored and want Jazz- thats what happened this time. I hadn't even planned on getting Jazz to 80. I can see where people would worry about fairness, but IMHO DKP keeps it fair. You get the points if you were there. Points don't transfer from toon to toon. You are going to need to raid consistently to stay caught up on loot. Just my 2 cents...

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 21st, 2009, 1:08 pm

Kaittlynn wrote --Determining Mains--
I really don't think this comes out to be as trivial as people think. I think before when i played Kaittlynn and Jazzmynn, it worked out. They both have their own DKP, and the toon that comes gets the DKP. I always started Kait out as a main, but being a Holy Pally it was often beneficial to the guild to have her available. I think it is important to know what toons people want to bring-- accept the raid invite on THAT toon. For me, I don't have a preference. I don't really see one of the toons being a main over the other. Sometimes I want Kait, but I get bored and want Jazz- thats what happened this time. I hadn't even planned on getting Jazz to 80. I can see where people would worry about fairness, but IMHO DKP keeps it fair. You get the points if you were there. Points don't transfer from toon to toon. You are going to need to raid consistently to stay caught up on loot. Just my 2 cents...

This does present us with an option - should DKP be tracked on a per player basis or on a per character basis?

The advantage of doing it on a per player basis is that if someone needs to swap to another character to help the raid progress, the earned DKP is not stranded on an alt. It also allows the alt to acquire items at reduced DKP since the primary spec for an alt is treated as an offspec.

If we decide to allocate DKP on a per character basis, there is a pitfall scenario that I consider unacceptable. Using myself as an example, suppose I got a full set of Ulduar healing gear on Inori and my current DKP on Inori settles out at -500. If I get tired of healing and decide to only accept raid invites on Offtank, his DKP will start at zero -- it amounts to a DKP reset.

The way WotLK is architected, I believe that we will best utilize Ulduar 25 loot by concentrating them on main specs. I would encourage people to gear up their dual specs or alts using Ulduar 10, crafted items, emblems, etc. The faster we get Ulduar 25 on farm, more main spec characters will be passing on loot and off specs and alts can have access to that gear.

-HP

Kaittlynn · Post by **Kaittlynn** » March 21st, 2009, 2:55 pm

Before, if someone was asked to bring an alt, they could choose which toon the DKP went to. THis was a fix for stranded DKP.

If someone is bringing in an alt to do a DKP reset, that is different than just switching toons-- I believe that Kait and Jazz were positive DKP when we did it last. So, I guess my thoughts are it really depends on reasons for people having two toons. Are they just doing it for themselves, or are they really doing it to benefit the team? If I had to choose a main, I would probably choose my lock, but there always sits the fact that there is a good holy pally in behind the scenes 'when' we end up being short on healers. As a casual guild, I feel that regardless of how much we try to get people to come, we will still need to have people bring alts to fill in critical positions. I hope this isn't the case, but I don't have any other experience to compare it with.

I guess what it really comes back to is the intent of the raider. I don't think that people should be allowed to create a big negative DKP then move on... Maybe we will need to set something up to fix that...If that becomes a problem, we could try to set up limits, ie "If someone is waay negative, they need to get it positive before they can switch toons", or "If someone is negative on a toon, the dkp that they earn on their other toon goes to fill in the negative before they can get loots on the new toon". Not sure though

Maybe I am remembering wrong, or maybe it was just different for me because of how much I cared about helping the raid. We should have thoughts figured out for all situations ahead of time though. It is alot easier to overthink things before hand, then to be in the middle of a loot/dkp issue and try to change rules on the spot to be fairer for everyone else.

Drumble · Post by **Drumble** » March 22nd, 2009, 6:29 am

I think we should take a more severe and radical approach. /roll for main spec Really DKP is a way to really define who participates more, who puts in additional effort to be early, etc, etc, etc... But each system has inherent flaws and no matter what - potential abuse (whether that be in the form of hoarding DKP or whatever). Just pulling an example out of thin air, I wouldn't give an "on time" DKP bonus to a rogue that was on time to the raid - but left and held up our raid for 15 minutes when he (or she) decided to go PvP. /roll keeps it all fair IMHO -- the 25 people who participated in the kill get an equal chance. Whether or not you're on time, bring consumables, are a shmuck, etc. all just determines whether or not you get to participate in the raid. Fairness dictated on a per night basis ala how we did things in ZG --- one purple a night. When you raid with a group of friends, loot becomes less important. I consider you all friends, and will go with whatever system you guys decide -- but these rules hurt my brain. Can't we all just get along?

Nagashi · Post by **Nagashi** » March 22nd, 2009, 9:11 am

Chuunks wrote I think we should take a more severe and radical approach. /roll for main spec Really DKP is a way to really define who participates more, who puts in additional effort to be early, etc, etc, etc... But each system has inherent flaws and no matter what - potential abuse (whether that be in the form of hoarding DKP or whatever). Just pulling an example out of thin air, I wouldn't give an "on time" DKP bonus to a rogue that was on time to the raid - but left and held up our raid for 15 minutes when he (or she) decided to go PvP. /roll keeps it all fair IMHO -- the 25 people who participated in the kill get an equal chance. Whether or not you're on time, bring consumables, are a shmuck, etc. all just determines whether or not you get to participate in the raid. Fairness dictated on a per night basis ala how we did things in ZG --- one purple a night. When you raid with a group of friends, loot becomes less important. I consider you all friends, and will go with whatever system you guys decide -- but these rules hurt my brain. Can't we all just get along?

QFT I approve this message. Just friggin roll! One night Wapau may win all the mail i rolled on big whoop the next week he already has those pieces etc.. . maybe do DKP for Tier tokens and weapons or something, all that nonsense above is way too friggin complicated and is gonna hold up pulls and etc.. . Most guilds don't use dkp anymore they just roll... . This is a game not a business. Raid attendance was always lackluster at best with Forged Alliance even with a dkp system in place, it didn't increase or bolster raid attendance. People either came or they didn't. Also I think we should pug out spots if we are low there's nothing more friggin frustrating than showing up with all your ducks in a row and waiting for 45 minutes for people that aren't gonna log on and then call the raid off, it pisses me off tremendously as I'm sure it does alot of the others here. So yeah i agree with Chuunks ... just roll.

WarmApplePie · Post by **WarmApplePie** » March 22nd, 2009, 12:21 pm

I almost want to agree with the, "Just Roll" thing but I can't.
I can't agree with /roll because even if people had the best of intentions they still could roll on things on accident. And since we're not the kind of guild that has a lot of stuff on farm an important peice of loot might never be seen again.

If you want to get radical and extreme then I vote for Loot council. Keep it small 1-3 people, or assign a class lead and have them be on the council. All things being equal (participation, skill, etc etc) loot going to the person for whom it is the biggest upgrade would also benefit the guild/raid the most.

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 22nd, 2009, 12:33 pm

Nagashi wrote QFT I approve this message. Just friggin roll! One night Wapau may win all the mail i rolled on big whoop the next week he already has those pieces etc.. . maybe do DKP for Tier tokens and weapons or something, all that nonsense above is way too friggin complicated and is gonna hold up pulls and etc.. . Most guilds don't use dkp anymore they just roll... . This is a game not a business. Raid attendance was always lackluster at best with Forged Alliance even with a dkp system in place, it didn't increase or bolster raid attendance. People either came or they didn't. Also I think we should pug out spots if we are low there's nothing more friggin frustrating than showing up with all your ducks in a row and waiting for 45 minutes for people that aren't gonna log on and then call the raid off, it pisses me off tremendously as I'm sure it does alot of the others here. So yeah i agree with Chuunks ... just roll.

Going into Naxxramas, we actually attempted to maintain a DKP system in the background to track attendance and provide a metric for loot distribution, but not actually use the DKP system for loot distribution. Since the eqDKP framework wasn't in place at the time, we tried doing it with a Google spreadsheet in the background, but eventually abandoned it when enough gaps in the raid recording occurred. We are much closer to having the eqDKP system running again, so we could very well do Ulduar on /roll with a limit of one epic per night but keep the DKP system in the background to track metrics. I would support this approach. Note that the whole notion of DKP bonuses (e.g., on time attendance, learning nights, wipe nights, etc.) and penalties (e.g., who got hit into the whelp cave, hahaha) is up to the raid leaders. My preference is that they not be used until it looks like we have a problem. I discussed them in the original list to highlight the phantom raid member feature -- it annoyed me in the previous system how the total never added up to zero because there wasn't an extra raid member to counterbalance the extra DKP being added to the system. Guilds that don't use DKP for 25 man content already had the assumption that they would have Naxxramas, Malygos, and Sartharion on welfare status long before Ulduar. We are not at that point. I think Zul'Gurub is a poor comparison since Blizzard had not moved to loot homogenization yet (e.g., +healing gear was very easy to identify) and the set bonuses from gear in ZG weren't that great (I stuck with Tier 2 and collected the ZG set for fun). Even with a /roll system, I can see us arguing for some time about who should and shouldn't have /rolled on an item and not being anywhere near ready for the next pull. Lastly, I want to reiterate that without an effort to identify main specs, we will be diluting loot. How would Naxxramas 25 have turned out if we did not concentrate tanking gear on Thandrenn, Handsomo, and Koko? I think we would be stuck on Patchwerk every week (not to say that this doesn't happen now from time to time). -HP