Ulduar 25 DKP Policy Brainstorming Thread

Beiner · Post by **Beiner** » March 25th, 2009, 12:54 pm

Let's try this again for the third time I really like Paul's response as I'm sure that would be something he would say. Also, thanks for knowing about the panties, as I like when I have some in hand... either means my wife isn't wearing any or she's making me do laundry. Overall, I'm not a big fan of /roll, mainly because I really suck at rolling for things that are worth it. Also because we don't have a large consistent raiding population, as a lot of the raid is sometimes comprised of whoever is online at the time. But either way, I don't have any real strong feelings one way or the other, because no matter which way we go, I think it will work out in the end. That and I will always find a way to be Captain Negative! I do appreciate if we do /roll that dkp will be running in the background in case we switch at one point. I didn't think GL was fair in TBC, because I really sucked at rolling and by the time I received gear from their, I was paying full price while it was all free prior. Then we changed it to bidding, which softened it up a little, but dkp was still being affected. The only question I have with regards to dkp in the background is would every item for the time while we do /roll be of equal value? I just think it would be somewhat as a disadvantage if we're doing /roll and everyone is talking about it before hand with some kind of expectation of around 1-2 epics so we don't hog it all. But if we switch, that 1-2 epics people received, if it were a tier piece vs. wpn vs. other crap puts people in different rankings with dkp, but on the same level with item counts. To me tier gear is less of an upgrade than a belt given my current setup, but someone that took the tier gear would have less dkp than me, even though we both got 1 item. This is just my 2 cents. Btw - why am I bringing this up, I'm the one benefitting

thandrenn · Post by **thandrenn** » March 25th, 2009, 2:12 pm

Hope this works. Doing battle with the forums in order to post a reply

I dislike how people are trying to say (either implied or directly) that using DKP is impersonal and makes us an unfriendly guild. wth?

We used DKP throughout BC and largely had no problems. Some people here try to place us in a wishy-washy world where everyone is happy and no one is going to get bitter about losing repeatedly due to randomness. We do not. I enjoy raiding with this guild and these people. And though there are times I wish people were a little less sloppy and things happened faster, I can't imagine raiding with anyone else.

DKP is a fair system that promotes participation. Rolls are not fair. They're random. Chaotic. With a /roll system, in theory a person could walk out of there with every piece of cloth loot if he she wanted. Everyone knows I'm not Mr. Happy Bubbly Optimist. I'm a realist. We already use random /rolls for Off Spec stuff and ALREADY there has been drama. I refer to the Wapau - Beiner - Challah love triangle.

DKP still allows for people being nice and not taking gear if someone else needs it more. Forced upgrades should only occur when the piece of gear in question is going to be Offspecced or Sharded imo. Starting off with open rolls and running DKP in the background with the idea that people are going to be cautious with /rolls is still asking for trouble. We're creatures of habit and when we get in the habit of doing one thing we'll stick with it. DKP would be abandoned in that scenario and quietly swept under the rug until someone raiding for weeks missed out on a piece of gear that some new guy just got. Said new guy then promptly leaves. Then it'll be back to "zomg, we need DKP so that doesn't happen"

What we used in BC worked. There's a few minor tweaks I'd like to see - combating DKP hoarding. Quote "Well, that is a bit of an upgrade, but I don't want to spend DKP or an item on it". BS. An upgrade is an upgrade. If it's not a bigger upgrade for someone else, then it should be taken. I also kinda like the idea of DKP being per-person rather than per-character. Though if the issue ever came up of someone wanting to bring an alt just so they could have a fresh start on DKP, Raid Lead could always say Hell no. But for the people that are asked to switch to specific toons to fit the raid's needs, that'd be useful.

My vote is and will continue to be for DKP. Open rolls be damned.

WarmApplePie · Post by **WarmApplePie** » March 25th, 2009, 2:24 pm

Kaittlynn wrote
I wish the raid could have seen me and Blastine "Fight" over cloth drops in 10 man Naxx...\ Handsomo: Ok, Cloth DPS Roll.... Blastine: *Crickets Chirping* Kaittlynn: *Wind Whistling By* Handsomo: No one wants it? Kaittlynn: Hang /emote looks at Blastines gear... Blastine: You can have it, Kaitt it's good for you Kaittlynn: No you take it, I can get it next time... Believe it or not, this dialogue went back and forth until we were both sure that we were being fair to each other.

This can't go on in 25man though, we'd only get 1 boss down a night. Suggestion: If we go to /roll and go for the mature raiders being mature about loot thing then maybe we should all join a new channel such as /faloot.. You make a new tab on your chat window and turn off everything but /faloot. Then people that want an item link what they are currently using.. This way other people see this and go, "Ok bigger upgrade for db#1 so I'll pass." We could join smaller channels too like, /fameleedps or whatever but then some drops would require you to be a whole bunch of channels. The other thing we got to becareful of is to make sure that this loot distribution system doesn't slow down the raid too much. Also lets be clear that "Mature Raiders Being Mature About Loot" is not the same as Group loot. Maybe we should put down a 2 week no loot rule for new recruits or for the trial raider rank, something like that( side question: What does it take to be promoted to Raider from trial raider?) There is still plenty of time for people at that rank to move up off of 25man naxx raids. And this wouldnt' be to prevent Supercool McMage from getting phat loots on the one night he comes, but rather to make sure Supercool McMage is infact super cool and super mature about loot. I see this as an all or nothing system, if half the raid isn't being MRBMAL then this is going to go south very fast.

Kaittlynn · Post by **Kaittlynn** » March 25th, 2009, 3:43 pm

Funny Story--it isn't really that time consuming, I just had to add affects (<3 Blastine). That was just me sayin that we can do 'whatever' we do peacefully. I dunno if you noticed, but as it is already in Naxx, our guild seems to take waay too much time between bossfights...we need to revamp things anyways, maybe we need to set up a structure to fix that time waster too...

drp · Post by **drp** » March 25th, 2009, 5:43 pm

thandrenn wrote
Hope this works. Doing battle with the forums in order to post a reply

I dislike how people are trying to say (either implied or directly) that using DKP is impersonal and makes us an unfriendly guild. wth?

We used DKP throughout BC and largely had no problems. Some people here try to place us in a wishy-washy world where everyone is happy and no one is going to get bitter about losing repeatedly due to randomness. We do not. I enjoy raiding with this guild and these people. And though there are times I wish people were a little less sloppy and things happened faster, I can't imagine raiding with anyone else.

DKP is a fair system that promotes participation. Rolls are not fair. They're random. Chaotic. With a /roll system, in theory a person could walk out of there with every piece of cloth loot if he she wanted. Everyone knows I'm not Mr. Happy Bubbly Optimist. I'm a realist. We already use random /rolls for Off Spec stuff and ALREADY there has been drama. I refer to the Wapau - Beiner - Challah love triangle.

DKP still allows for people being nice and not taking gear if someone else needs it more. Forced upgrades should only occur when the piece of gear in question is going to be Offspecced or Sharded imo. Starting off with open rolls and running DKP in the background with the idea that people are going to be cautious with /rolls is still asking for trouble. We're creatures of habit and when we get in the habit of doing one thing we'll stick with it. DKP would be abandoned in that scenario and quietly swept under the rug until someone raiding for weeks missed out on a piece of gear that some new guy just got. Said new guy then promptly leaves. Then it'll be back to "zomg, we need DKP so that doesn't happen"

What we used in BC worked. There's a few minor tweaks I'd like to see - combating DKP hoarding. Quote "Well, that is a bit of an upgrade, but I don't want to spend DKP or an item on it". BS. An upgrade is an upgrade. If it's not a bigger upgrade for someone else, then it should be taken. I also kinda like the idea of DKP being per-person rather than per-character. Though if the issue ever came up of someone wanting to bring an alt just so they could have a fresh start on DKP, Raid Lead could always say Hell no. But for the people that are asked to switch to specific toons to fit the raid's needs, that'd be useful.

My vote is and will continue to be for DKP. Open rolls be damned.

2 things i have seen in dkp systems that helps a bit is to first make off spec loot a free roll (its pointless to charge for an item that would be sharded even more so since no one rolling is expecting to use the item in a raid. this also slows down the rate at which people gain dkp since if we are using a zero sum system no cost means no one in the raid gains) the other thing i have seen well was having it set up in a way which any person who wanted an item would roll they used an addon to track dkp at that point they would post it and give it to the person with the highest dkp, and if you where within a set amount (say 10 dkp) of the top person you would go by the rolls what i like about a dkp system is that it prevents people from rolling for items they may or may not use very offten.

Drumble · Post by **Drumble** » March 26th, 2009, 1:27 pm

It occurred to me a moment ago while I was doing dishes, that we have a good number of opinions on how loot should be distributed in our guild. Then something my grandfather used to say snuck into my head as well.

Chuunks's Grandpa said Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one - and they all stink.

It seems odd to say it, but I think this guild needs to be a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Every system has it's benefits and foibles, and depending on your own personal standpoint, you gravitate towards something that either affected you personally or you believe to be the most fair. But remember that this is a subjective opinion - because realistically, no distibution method will be 100% fair 100% of the time. What seems fair to you, is a kick in the nuts or ovaries to someone else. We listen to and follow our raid leader, despite potentially disagreeing with tactics, because the RL can then evaluate/adjust if necessary in effort to beat the encounter. I've only raided a few times with Wadup, and despite the internal chuckle I get hearing someone speak the word "lolz" out loud, he's a great f'ing raid leader and gets us focused on the important crap in the encounter. I trust him. I also trust our GM Benvolo to make the right decision here, and evaluate/adjust as we need to. Lets hear what he decides.

Ofie · Post by **Ofie** » March 26th, 2009, 9:17 pm

lolz no pressure andy ^^

thandrenn · Post by **thandrenn** » March 27th, 2009, 3:44 am

You want a Dictatorship. Fine. I'm taking over and we're doing Zero-sum DKP using basically the system we did for TBC with a few minor changes. Though who don't like it will be put on the first train to the russian front. Seriously. Like your grandpa said, your opinion stinks. A dictatorship won't work for this kind of guild. We're a casual laid-back family & friends raiding guild and should go on that way. We won't be #1 on the server, but most of the time we'll at least have a good time. You tried to get this done once before and it was rejected. I won't speak for Benvolo, but I'm pretty sure none of the Officers would want to do that. No system is ever going to be 100% fair. What we want is the system that is the closest. Open rolls isn't anywhere.

draven · Post by **draven** » March 27th, 2009, 9:07 am

oh noes! a coup! quick, we must gather our forces before master sergeant thandrenn bends us to his will! zero sum dkp similar to what seemed to work well in bc? getting people's opinions about things that affect the guild? trying to accommodate everyone as best we can regardless of how much of a pain in the ass it generally is to do so? it's all starting to make sense... alas, it is too late for me.

thandrenn · Post by **thandrenn** » March 27th, 2009, 12:01 pm

^^

Drumble · Post by **Drumble** » March 27th, 2009, 3:08 pm

thandrenn wrote You want a Dictatorship. Fine. I'm taking over and we're doing Zero-sum DKP using basically the system we did for TBC with a few minor changes. Though who don't like it will be put on the first train to the russian front. Seriously. Like your grandpa said, your opinion stinks. A dictatorship won't work for this kind of guild. We're a casual laid-back family & friends raiding guild and should go on that way. We won't be #1 on the server, but most of the time we'll at least have a good time. You tried to get this done once before and it was rejected. I won't speak for Benvolo, but I'm pretty sure none of the Officers would want to do that. No system is ever going to be 100% fair. What we want is the system that is the closest. Open rolls isn't anywhere.

Wow. Am I being a dick, or is it just you and that horse your rode in on? Not sure where you think "I tried to get this done once before" and I'm not sure what agenda you think I have. But I think it's fair to let the person who killed the boss roll on the loot. Call me crazy, but what the fuck dude -- you have been nothing but hostile with me in this forum. Don't pretend it's otherwise.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » March 27th, 2009, 3:45 pm

It's not a horse, it's a Raven mount...and it's very attractive, tantalizing even. So yeah, here's my final DKP answer. It's useful but I for one will not take the time to keep track of it. So if nobody wants to deal with it, let's just /roll. If we do this, everybody has to suck it up, and don't QQ about loot, just go kick your dog after the raid and leave the guild in piece. If someone is willing to keep track of the 0 sum system, I applaud your efforts to the guild and may you get all your loot and may all your wildest dreams come true. I wish to thank everyone who has contributed to this fine thread concerning DKP and the joys of 0 sum systems. The officers will now defillibrate (yes, using Goblin Jumper cables).

Jon · Post by **Jon** » March 27th, 2009, 3:47 pm

Oh yeah, I forgot: LOLZ!!?!?!!

WarmApplePie · Post by **WarmApplePie** » March 27th, 2009, 3:51 pm

WHAT!?!? Drama here?!! Impossible! /popcorn

Edited to add: What would a mature group of friends do? They'd compromise. So I just tried to take a step back and get a fresh look at it. What do we need? - A loot system that fairly and evenly distributes loot throughout the raid while at the same time rewarding regulars and not-so-regulars. So what about this: Keep the Golf loot system... we update the attendance spreadsheet, those that are at the upper levels of raid attendance get to roll on the tier loot and weapons, not so regular people roll on the nonset items... It would pretty much stay the same as it is now in Naxx except that we would more closely regulate and quickly update who gets the tier and weapons. In my spreadsheet you get counted as "Attending" if you were there for atleast 66% of the raid... We could even start Ulduar off with it's own spreadsheet, so on the first night, everyone is rolling. You'd only get ding'd if you weren't there for consecutive nights. Man, I think this would be good. Post any questions you have or examples of conflits that could arise. I might not be covering everything because I'm so excited about the possiblity of this that my mind is skipping around too much.

Ofie · Post by **Ofie** » March 27th, 2009, 11:24 pm

The problem with the whole golf-score business is well documented so far. A lot of people aren't happy with it, and the only way to calm some of them down was tell them it was changing in Ulduar. There's no reason to fight over this though. What it's basically going to come down to is someone having to make a unilateral decision on what to do and stick with it. So far there's people of equal rank and senority on both sides of the issue, so there's not going to be a resolution that way. A compromise between the two would obviously be awesome, but I don't see any way that it could actually be done without completely changing how the systems work in the first place. I think Andy just needs to pick one and we need to be done with it, otherwise we'll be debating it well into the new stuff, and no one will be happy. We need to just pick something early so people have time to vent and be pissed and get over it before we start raiding, because dealing with drama while trying to enjoy new content would be super annoying. I honestly don't care what system we use at this point, as long as we're all getting along and having fun.

WarmApplePie · Post by **WarmApplePie** » March 28th, 2009, 1:00 am

Thats why we base the tier loot and the weapons off of the attendance spread sheet.. We're talking like 13 people that would get first crack at stuff.. buy the 2nd or 3rd week of having a boss down things would start trickling down to the less consistent people. It's not a huge penalty like DKP, nor is it as hard to follow/update. And anybody could roll on the non set items.. we keep the golf score thing going just to keep all that stuff fair/even but its not such a big deal. Mostly we're all just following the Mature Raiders Being Mature About Loot.. Tier peices are probably going to drop off bosses further in the instance just like always, we dont necessarily want to penalize the guy that misses the first 3 weeks worth of attempts but we should give the guys that were there for all 3 weeks of attempts the first shot at the good stuff. I dunno, I really see this as a nice middle ground...

Inori · Post by **Inori** » March 28th, 2009, 2:02 am

Timeout guys. This thread was for brainstorming and highlighting problem scenarios so that an educated decision could be made on what changes (if any) were to be made going into Ulduar 25. Please refrain from negativity and stay on topic. Back on topic, I think that having open /rolls with an attendance restriction for premium items will work. I do not think we should adopt the golf score system for keeping loot level. The primary problem with the golf system is that it has no mechanism for decreasing your count by continued attendance; your count can only go up. I'd actually say that the golf system is bad for attendance because it rewards you for obtaining gear outside of the guild raid (e.g., if I go with a PUG and for two weeks and get Ulduar 25 gear in two slots, my 'count' is two lower than everyone else in the guild raid when I do come back). Back to brainstorming solutions, the eqDKP system does track attendance, so we wouldn't have to create an extra spreadsheet. Use open /rolls and restrict premium items (Tier Gear, Weapons, Trinkets) to a TBD attendance cutoff. For loot leveling, I still think that self regulation with DKP in the background is the best bet. Before the raid starts, the loot master can 'red tag' any raiders with super negative DKP values and only keep an eye out for their rolls; for everyone else, the open rolls stand. It's a lot faster than having to track on a per drop basis, who rolled, cross check the golf sheet to see who's lowest among those who rolled, and then decide which rolls (if any) are to be discarded. Even if you're super negative, you're not barred from winning rolls, but it gives the loot master objective grounds to /whisper "Dude, you've gotten a lot of loot, you may need to pass on some of this stuff" and it gives you a metric to decide for yourself when you need to be more selective about the loot you scoop up. -HP

Quani · Post by **Quani** » March 28th, 2009, 6:26 am

I used to be guilded, on another server, with a guild that had the BEST "round robin" loot policy ever IMO, I've tried numerous times to explain it to people so you may have heard this one before

Lets say we have 10 "raiders" in our guild, give them all a number(/random it or alphabetical ... whatever), 1-10.
Make a list. #1 Warrio
#2 Priesa
#3 Druill
#4 Rouge
#5 Mange
#6 Warlick
#7 Shoman
#8 Deathknot
#9 Huntra
#10 Palasin (I'm so creative I amuse myself) ..... then lets say ... 1H Mace of Uber Smashing drops ...
#1 Warrio   Eligible Interested
#2 Priesa    NE
#3 Druill   Eligible (has better so pass)
#4 Rouge    Eligible Interested
#5 Mange     NE
#6 Warlick   NE
#7 Shoman    NE
#8 Deathknot NE
#9 Huntra    NE
#10 Palasin Eligible Interested It goes to Warrio (yay) who then goes to #10, everyone moves up...
#1 Priesa
#2 Druill
#3 Rouge
#4 Mange
#5 Warlick
#6 Shoman
#7 Deathknot
#8 Huntra
#9 Palasin
#10 Warrio .... Now Ultra (plate) Breastplate of Barechestedness drops ...
#1 Priesa     NE
#2 Druill     NE
#3 Rouge      NE
#4 Mange      NE
#5 Warlick    NE
#6 Shoman     NE
#7 Deathknot Eligible (not a huge upgrade so pass)
#8 Huntra     NE
#9 Palasin   Offspec so NE
#10 Warrio    Eligible Interested It goes to Warrio (yay) who stays at #10 List remains the same but Deathknot gets a P (pass) next to his name because this WAS an upgrade, but he passed.
3x P (PPP) next to your name and you go to the bottom of the list Mr!, that's right, no points hording for YOU MOFO!
You CAN pass, 3 times, yes we ALL know that the end boss drops your #1 BIS weapon, but if you pass on 3 upgrades before we get to him then you're screwing your guild over to benefit yourself and you WILL be penalised.
You can pass without consequences if you have the item already (duh), or you have better. DKP is complicated, hard to track, calculate, divide, who was there for how many bosses, is that item half price now?, is that 99 dkp for your main spec or we'll just give it to Jimmy for 10dkp for his off spec ... round robin is a rotating list of names. /random is frustrating if you roll a 1 and people anger easily over loot ... Loot council is a guild disband waiting to happen, seriously guys, 1 SECOND hesitation over a loot decision and the loser will be screaming blue murder favouritism FTL! The "least loot" thing you've been playing with lately ... I understand that you're trying to spread the love .. but ... use some lubricant?

No seriously, great idea if you're playing with 25 people who are so focused on end game that they don't give a farq about sparkly epics, but ... as you've seen ... quite a lot of us are late to show up, barely stock up, rarely read-up, greedily snap-up and then replace it next week ... yes Scott I am looking at you!
If you miss a raid, you don't lose out, you stay in the same spot, or move up as people above you get loot and drop.
1 month of no shows puts you to the bottom of the list and inactive.
New raiders go to the bottom of the list but above the inactives (can still get loot first night if people pass). I think that covered it all but I'm sure I just wasted my time, or someone will growl at me about how I tried to push this on you guys before, or aliens will steal my *...'s* and NONE of this will make sense without the pauses!!!
If you're still reading this .... you are as crazy as I am for posting it

Quani · Post by **Quani** » March 28th, 2009, 6:31 am

To be honest, not 100% sure what we would do about offspec gear, it was never an issue in the guild I was in, PVE server and all, no need for pvp gear etc... I don't think people even HAD offspec gear lol, resistance sets, but nothing else?

drp · Post by **drp** » March 28th, 2009, 9:54 am

Inori wrote
Timeout guys. This thread was for brainstorming and highlighting problem scenarios so that an educated decision could be made on what changes (if any) were to be made going into Ulduar 25. Please refrain from negativity and stay on topic. Back on topic, I think that having open /rolls with an attendance restriction for premium items will work. I do not think we should adopt the golf score system for keeping loot level. The primary problem with the golf system is that it has no mechanism for decreasing your count by continued attendance; your count can only go up. I'd actually say that the golf system is bad for attendance because it rewards you for obtaining gear outside of the guild raid (e.g., if I go with a PUG and for two weeks and get Ulduar 25 gear in two slots, my 'count' is two lower than everyone else in the guild raid when I do come back). Back to brainstorming solutions, the eqDKP system does track attendance, so we wouldn't have to create an extra spreadsheet. Use open /rolls and restrict premium items (Tier Gear, Weapons, Trinkets) to a TBD attendance cutoff. For loot leveling, I still think that self regulation with DKP in the background is the best bet. Before the raid starts, the loot master can 'red tag' any raiders with super negative DKP values and only keep an eye out for their rolls; for everyone else, the open rolls stand. It's a lot faster than having to track on a per drop basis, who rolled, cross check the golf sheet to see who's lowest among those who rolled, and then decide which rolls (if any) are to be discarded. Even if you're super negative, you're not barred from winning rolls, but it gives the loot master objective grounds to /whisper "Dude, you've gotten a lot of loot, you may need to pass on some of this stuff" and it gives you a metric to decide for yourself when you need to be more selective about the loot you scoop up. -HP

I will point out a small flaw in this part. I think 70% of my best in slot gear is not a tier piece. infact only the helm and shoulders are best in slot for shammys