Title says it all.

This is something I'm not sure how I feel about. I've actually had great experiences with loot council but I may have just been lucky to have a good group of people. A 40 man raiding guild makes things more complicated, often. If there was an entire, feasible progression path of 20 man raids in vanilla (which would be cool to see happen if they add additional content), loot council would be way easier with 20 people, especially if it's a close-knit squad of friends. Loot council is super easy in 10 man raiding, though, but I feel like it's super hard to pull off and keep people happy in a 40 man raid.

I'm not a fan of dkp, but some of the suicide kings or zero sum DKP systems are interesting, but a pain to keep track of.

What is you guys preferred loot system?

I was the DKP officer during vanilla so I feel it's somewhat in my area to say that DKP has massive drawbacks and I'd never advise using it. Never having raided with lootcouncil leaves me pretty ignorant on the system other than the horror stories I picked up left and right of guilds abusing it for selfish reasons. So I've always been adverse to it but I only have anecdotal evidence to be fair.
I myself have raided for the last ten years with EPGP (which has an addon that keeps track of everything and is easy to use) and I feel it strikes a balance between merit-based loot distribution and gearing up a guild as a whole to help progression. So come raiding time I'll be looking for a guild that uses it.

I am fine with DKP. I always was a fan of EPGP, besides the fact that officers can easily edit their own values.

In my opinion, attendance is something that any loot system should weigh on heavily. If I am an officer, and you have sub 80% attendance, don't expect to get loot.

I was expecting another poll and potentially another plea by @teebling to stop creating a poll for everything imaginable. Now I'm genuinely a little disappointed at not finding a poll.

I prefer loot council system even though I admit that it's pretty hard to make everyone happy in a 40 man raid. I think unless someone really needs the item you should just /roll for it. On the other hand I've experienced a situation where they initiated a roll and then gave it to the guy who lost because he brought more consumables to raid, which is not very fair if you ask me...

The theoretical best loot system is master loot with a master looter who has perfect judgement and wisdom. Good luck finding that though.

Loot council>Master looter with good judgement>DKP
I will always support the "play good, receive good" mentality. Anyone in a group who supports the group effort, is always on time, pulls their weight and then some should always have priority. Separately, I never felt that you should be charged DKP for loot that no one else wants just because the guild wants to DE it for guild supplies.

Vanilla, I was an officer and lead healer for my raiding guild. DKP was our primary system for loot distro. It seemed to work. But could be manipulated. My last stent as a heavy raider was legion and we used loot council. The Loot Council with "weighted rolls" (i.e. - upgrade, 2pc, 4pc) was a much smoother system and I saw a guild trying to gear itself up as a unit instead of individuals. Much less drama.

Definitely Loot Council.

The problem with DKP is that, at the end of the day, with the amount of effort you'd have to put into that system in order to make it work you might as well put it into refining your criteria and judgment for Loot Council and even so, it would still be an inferior system to Loot Council given that corrective measures against unforeseen circumstances can only be accounted for a priori in a DKP system whereas the Loot Council can and will always step in and apply as soon as unforeseen circumstances arrive.

In other words, if something unforeseen and undesirable happens, you have to oblige by the rules you've set in with DKP whereas with LC you can always step in and say "no, we won't do this, and here is why".

The criticism against Loot Council is also the source of its greatest strength. Even if you were to put your mind up to the task of designing a DKP system which:

a) adequately accounts for the value of each DKP eligible activity in terms with some objective quantifiable metric and records these activities flawlessly
b) provides an adequate minimum bid for each and every single item inside a raid proportional to that item's utility and rarity against arranged bids
c) counters DKP hoarding and inflation without punishing veterans
d) rewards a different number of DKP points for a different variety of raids progress (progress raids, farm raids, more difficult bosses etc.)
e) confers a motivating method of converting DKP points from one phase to another as more raids become available

You could still have bullshit situations where Warlocks are getting an over the mages even though they're doing DPS that's worse than a Hunter's pet in that current phase Might be fair from a DKP perspective, might be fair from the Warlock's perspective, but it would definitely be a loss for the whole raid - whereas with Loot Council, I can step in and see if I can explain it to my fellow Warlocks that it's more important for now that we as a raid group get better during P1 and less so about who can get which epic items first, that their patience and perseverance will not be forgotten and it will be their day in ZG and onward where they will be favored over the mages on these matters.

Even if they disagree with me, I think in general that a genuine, human explanation is far better than a "it's just numbers, bro" excuse.

Nymis wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Definitely Loot Council.

The problem with DKP is that, at the end of the day, with the amount of effort you'd have to put into that system in order to make it work you might as well put it into refining your criteria and judgment for Loot Council and even so, it would still be an inferior system to Loot Council given that corrective measures against unforeseen circumstances can only be accounted for a priori in a DKP system whereas the Loot Council can and will always step in and apply as soon as unforeseen circumstances arrive.

In other words, if something unforeseen and undesirable happens, you have to oblige by the rules you've set in with DKP whereas with LC you can always step in and say "no, we won't do this, and here is why".

The criticism against Loot Council is also the source of its greatest strength. Even if you were to put your mind up to the task of designing a DKP system which:

a) adequately accounts for the value of each DKP eligible activity in terms with some objective quantifiable metric and records these activities flawlessly
b) provides an adequate minimum bid for each and every single item inside a raid proportional to that item's utility and rarity against arranged bids
c) counters DKP hoarding and inflation without punishing veterans
d) rewards a different number of DKP points for a different variety of raids progress (progress raids, farm raids, more difficult bosses etc.)
e) confers a motivating method of converting DKP points from one phase to another as more raids become available

You could still have bullshit situations where Warlocks are getting an over the mages even though they're doing DPS that's worse than a Hunter's pet in that current phase Might be fair from a DKP perspective, might be fair from the Warlock's perspective, but it would definitely be a loss for the whole raid - whereas with Loot Council, I can step in and see if I can explain it to my fellow Warlocks that it's more important for now that we as a raid group get better during P1 and less so about who can get which epic items first, that their patience and perseverance will not be forgotten and it will be their day in ZG and onward where they will be favored over the mages on these matters.

Even if they disagree with me, I think in general that a genuine, human explanation is far better than a "it's just numbers, bro" excuse.

Kristhan wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I prefer loot council system even though I admit that it's pretty hard to make everyone happy in a 40 man raid. I think unless someone really needs the item you should just /roll for it. On the other hand I've experienced a situation where they initiated a roll and then gave it to the guy who lost because he brought more consumables to raid, which is not very fair if you ask me...

Something that often doesn't come up during these discussions but that I've been a part of to great effect previously (albeit in WotLK rather than Vanilla) is Gold-DKP.

There is a simple set of rules that determine the system, explained here. Essentially, items are auctioned for gold, all gold goes into a central pot that is then evenly distributed amongst the raid at it's conclusion.

This system was used in Gevlon's (The Greedy Goblin) guild on Aggamagan-EU, The PuG. That guild was made up of people that liked to earn gold, and so the system worked well.
Individual items were worth a certain amount to each person that wanted it. If you wanted the item more then you would bid more. Your available DKP was nested in your ability to make gold outside of a raid environment, though participating and getting no new items would still see you making a profit.

There are criticisms against this system, namely that there is no way to guarantee that your MT that comes to every raid is guaranteed the Amazing Shield of MT Power over someone else that has a bit more disposable income and therefore no way to ensure that the progression of the guild is maximised, as is the case with Loot Council.

What Gold-DKP does provide is a stable and impartial method of loot distribution, assuming the pot holder is morally sound.

In The PuG the pot itself and the desire to weed out bad practice meant that penalties had to be paid for mistakes made during raids as well, which helped further incentivise preparation.

Gold isn't as common in Vanilla, but all that really means is that the items that used to go for 1250 gold in WotLK will go for 125 gold in Vanilla.

Like I say, this won't appeal to everyone, especially those who felt that they only made enough gold to scrape by in Vanilla anyway (looking at main tanks and MT healers who typically had to respec 4x or more every week just to float), but equally it may well forge a way for these classes to not have to farm as much, if they're getting the gold they would have looked to farm anyway.

The PuG has a 'no communist collective' rule, but its equally viable that off-tanks may understand that the MT could use a specific piece of gear to improve progression and therefore hold back on bidding.

I myself was in The PuG as a Warrior off-tank and never felt like I was getting less than I deserved when I raided, probably moreso than when I raided using classic DKP as a Mage in Vanilla.

Teeny wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Something that often doesn't come up during these discussions but that I've been a part of to great effect previously (albeit in WotLK rather than Vanilla) is Gold-DKP.

There is a simple set of rules that determine the system, explained here. Essentially, items are auctioned for gold, all gold goes into a central pot that is then evenly distributed amongst the raid at it's conclusion.

This system was used in Gevlon's (The Greedy Goblin) guild on Aggamagan-EU, The PuG. That guild was made up of people that liked to earn gold, and so the system worked well.
Individual items were worth a certain amount to each person that wanted it. If you wanted the item more then you would bid more. Your available DKP was nested in your ability to make gold outside of a raid environment, though participating and getting no new items would still see you making a profit.

There are criticisms against this system, namely that there is no way to guarantee that your MT that comes to every raid is guaranteed the Amazing Shield of MT Power over someone else that has a bit more disposable income and therefore no way to ensure that the progression of the guild is maximised, as is the case with Loot Council.

What Gold-DKP does provide is a stable and impartial method of loot distribution, assuming the pot holder is morally sound.

In The PuG the pot itself and the desire to weed out bad practice meant that penalties had to be paid for mistakes made during raids as well, which helped further incentivise preparation.

Gold isn't as common in Vanilla, but all that really means is that the items that used to go for 1250 gold in WotLK will go for 125 gold in Vanilla.

Like I say, this won't appeal to everyone, especially those who felt that they only made enough gold to scrape by in Vanilla anyway (looking at main tanks and MT healers who typically had to respec 4x or more every week just to float), but equally it may well forge a way for these classes to not have to farm as much, if they're getting the gold they would have looked to farm anyway.

The PuG has a 'no communist collective' rule, but its equally viable that off-tanks may understand that the MT could use a specific piece of gear to improve progression and therefore hold back on bidding.

I myself was in The PuG as a Warrior off-tank and never felt like I was getting less than I deserved when I raided, probably moreso than when I raided using classic DKP as a Mage in Vanilla.

Gensei wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Teeny wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Something that often ...

In my experience, Gold DKP is something I've never heard of a guild implementing internally. It's almost universally been something on private servers for guild's that have finished MC and BWL to take on some random pug players, like 15 of them, through MC/BWL and sell off the items to them and the guild members split the pot on the gold spent for the items that drop. I can't imagine this working for the day-to-day loot distribution of a guild.

The only time I ever raided with a guild in Vanilla, we used Zero Sum. It wasn't perfect, but no single loot system is. It seemed quite fair, even though I'm somewhat biased because we surpassed it with a couple rules (e.g. - gear out MT in Might first, then offtank, then open it to the rest who don't even need tank items, really). Items were given a value before the raid. Tier, for the most part, was 40dkp. High-profile items like Azuresong Mageblade and such were 60dkp, so we could distribute 1.5 points per item.

Notable issues with this:
- Two priests were geared super early, so every piece of gear they wanted from BWL when it released went to them above the rest because they were just stashing it away.* (See below for a fix.
- If your raid doesn't have 40 people, the numbers could either A) get wonky, or B) be calculated where DKP is actually lost. (40 points distributed over 30 people, say, 30 people get 1 point and 10 are lost, etc).
- It did still come down to a mini loot council at times. Warrior X and Y are both putting out numbers, the upgrade is about the same for both of them, so which deserves it? /roll doesn't seem right when Warrior X has been guilded with us since the beginning, but that doesn't mean Warrior Y is any less important as a member.
- Addendum to previous point: major vs. minor upgrades. A really unlucky raider who has been there the same time as a less unlucky raider might have equal DKP but they would be replacing a Farstrider's Belt of the Bear as opposed to a previously acquired purple, but the item is BiS, so it's pretty much the one thing they need to go in that slot. Who gets it? Back to loot council? Or /roll?
- Can become a fairly massive spreadsheet over time, depending on if you have to PUG folks regularly.

Notable pluses:
- It's usually pretty darn fair. You amass points slowly at first, but you can go into the negative. (By definition, the first always goes into negative.)
- The ones who show up the most are rewarded the most.
- You can add weight to more important items.
- It makes people prioritize their own upgrades, leaving less work up to you.
- The math is fairly easy.
- *You can do different spreadsheets for each raid, so stacking points from MC will not help you in BWL.

All in all, it worked for us, but we were a solid group. Had about 30-35 that were steady each week, and we raided A LOT. (5 hours a night, about 6 nights a week). These numbers are just not to be expected now, especially with how easy it will be to start clearing MC and BWL.

-----

In Wrath, my guild used a 3's and 5's system that worked out great and was even simpler. To put it into Vanilla terms, it would work as such:
- Loot drops. Everyone who wants it /rolls. Winner receives, losers get 1 point.
- Once you have 3 points (for 20 mans in Vanilla, 10 mans in BC onward) or 5 points (40 mans in vanilla, 25 mans in BC onward), you can spend them for a top priority roll.
- If two priority rolls clash, they then /roll and save their points if they lose. If you use your points for priority roll, you're reset to 0.

This was by far the simplest system to manage. The downside is that it didn't favor newcomers as much, and it encouraged rolling on lower priority upgrades just to get points.

Again - no system is perfect, but if you're not terribly loot hungry and just want to progress through the endgame, any of them can work for you.

Just linking another thread/poll we had on DKP/loot council a while back for anyone wanting further reading:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1270&p=15278

Max wrote: ↑

5 years ago

The theoretical best loot system is master loot with a master looter who has perfect judgement and wisdom. Good luck finding that though.

Well a quick glance at my signature, and I think my favouritism is pretty established, and there are plenty of reasons for that.

Loot Councils, are on paper, the absolute best system, as it is a community needs oriented system, rather than a individual gain based system. DKP is not oriented towards supporting a greater good, but rather on the individual cogs that drives a machinery. DKP is automatically fair for all users, as you directly trade input (attendance) for output (gear), meaning that the metrics for operations are simple, transparent and fair. However DKP becomes problematic as soon as you grow or adjust your roster, as new members are placed at a relatively worse starting point; e.g. back at square one, while the old core, is already miles ahead.

Loot Councils are however more focused on the total raid output, and should in theory at least, have it as a set objective to distribute gear fairly to those who need it, and who are committed to the cause. Good Loot Councils use a lot of metrics to ensure as fair a distribution as possible, and if guilds adopt transparent systems for this, then i think you have a very strong starting point. The key problem with Loot Councils is however corruption, and sadly this problem is relatively common, notably in classic. Often, you see guilds forming around a core of friends (big or small) and very often, you will see the emergence of an inner circle within guilds, where disproportional amounts of loot are diverted to, compared to the rest. Corruption can be offset by active members, strong systems and enforced transparency, which is why i put a lot of work into creating a platform for this.

There is also a lot of underlying culture in this whole debate, as its clear that DKP is quite popular in the US, while Loot Councils are popular in Europe, and naturally this coincides well with real-world politics, systems, structures and mentalities.