Hello all,

I'm an officer (Paladin class lead actually) in my Classic WoW guild. We got a late start and we are discussing loot systems for when we begin to raid. The preferred option from talking with the officers seems to be some form of DKP or EPGP, but we all agree that certain items should be on a loot council and made clear to the rest of the guild.

In a previous thread talking about loot systems, I mentioned that I was a fan of a hybrid approach, so this to me sounds like a good idea. There are some things which I'm on the fence about as a result of only running with guilds that already had this in place, and now we are coming up with a system from scratch. Given my thoughts on it, there's a chance I might be designated the loot officer and become in charge of this as well.

The first question is if we should use a straight DKP system or EPGP. I've been playing with the addons CEPGP and MonolithDKP to get an idea for configuration options for both, and I see the pros and cons of either approach. I am leaning towards EPGP mainly because I don't like how a DKP system, even with a decay, is only concerned with the number of points (either flat or how much is bid) with no consideration if the person already got upgrades, while EPGP alleviates this by the PR formula ensuring there isn't any drama around "But you already got an upgrade from the last boss". I also like that in EPGP you don't need to subtract points like in DKP (excluding the decay), there's only the GP that goes up and affects your priority, so it simplifies the approach and keeps it transparent as everyone can view their status.

I forget if EPGP has a flat point (GP) amount for every item; I vaguely remember that it was something like X for the rarity, Y for the slot (e.g. chest is more than wrist), and Z based on the item level, while DKP I think every piece has its own value which needs to be set up beforehand. I don't remember if the CEPGP addon takes care of that or if you have to set your own slot modifier, but this would be easy enough to do.

Next, on the hybrid topic, it came up about what gear should be on the loot council. Bindings are a clear example, as is Warrior tier for the MT/OT. The question came up if it should only be a minimal subset of very specific gear (e.g. tank gear, legendary items) or certain "BiS" pieces as well on the council to ensure that the most useful pieces go where they would benefit the most. This discussion was left up since none of us really had a good idea of how to work that out.

Either way, this would be kept out in the open in our Discord so everyone would know what is going to be on Loot Council. Also, in this case, should these items count as freebies and not increase GP or cost DKP (depending on the system) since they are "special" cases? I wouldn't think they do, but my past experience hasn't been with hybrid systems like this.

Third, we considered based on some advice I've read here and elsewhere that some items should be on a straight /roll system to discourage people from not showing up once they have all the gear they want. If we went with this approach, what sort of items should be on this list? It would seem that it should be relatively minor items, but what would constitute that since to one class the item might be minor, but be major to another. I think it would cause too much of a delay to have the item be either on the DKP/EPGP system or roll depending on who wants it.

It seems that there isn't a lot of information regarding how to actually set these up, despite it being a pretty important decision. Which I suppose makes sense if you are an established guild that has been using it for years in retail and now is transitioning to Classic, but less so for a guild that has only formed in Classic and needs to come up with a more robust loot system than simply random rolling.

We use DKP. Some items still have restrictions (bindings prio to tanks, hunters with leaf have prio on sinew and vice versa). You need to figure out what behaviors you want to reward or encourage and THAT will determine the system you choose. DKP rewards attendance and loyalty. This is not a system that will net the highest performance gains from the guild. World first guilds will be using loot council to ensure the raid is always netting the highest value out of each piece of loot. For the average guild, the hardest raid boss in vanilla will be player attrition. This is what lead to me and my guild choosing DKP. If you are going with a DKP system and you want people to value their DKP, you need to input as few restrictions on their spending as you possibly can. You must acknowledge that this is NOT the best system to reward performance and watch some pieces go to suboptimal places within the raid. This is the cost of a DKP system.

As for what system to use as a foundation, we created our own. We use a % based DKP system which makes the bidding process quick, the bids transparent and there is no need for decay.

-Preditions blade costs 70% DKP.

-Pred blade drops and is linked in raid.

-3 rogues type "bid" in raid chat.

-You do a countdown and close bidding.

-You go to the website and look at which rogue has the highest current DKP, he wins the dagger and spends 70% of his current DKP.

Simple and straight forward. No long back and forth bidding. No secret whispers where officers can be accused of rigging the system. No opportunity for raiders to upbid someone or target an disliked player to punish them. All loot is resolved within 3 mins of a boss fight - which by the way - is the MOST important aspect of ANY loot system. There are currently 11 bosses in the game. The quantity of bosses multiplies with each piece of content. You cannot afford to waste more than 3 mins per boss. This system encourages spending DKP quickly because the more you save, the more you end up paying for an upgrade which also leads to players blending their DKP quickly. This is an important factor to DKP because player attrition is the biggest boss in vanilla and recruiting new players into a guild where there is a massively inflated DKP surplus where they wont see loot for 2 months means that recruiting will be impossible. Conversly because this is a % base system, and no items cost 100%, players who leave will always leave DKP on the table which means that even if a player is unhappy, stacks their DKP by front-loading effort and then takes an item and leaves, they have left DKP on the table and thus they have contributed more than they have taken.

Figure out what behaviors you want to reward. Build a system that rewards those behaviors. Make it simple and ensure it only takes 3 mins per boss. Have a longterm strategy to deal with inflated DKP. Acknowledge that a DKP system is not designed to equip your guild from a min/max perspective, it is designed to hold players longterm and to reward loyalty and attendance. There is no "best" system, the system should just be an extension of your goals for the guild and should be used as a tool to encourage or discourage certain behaviors.