Guild loot distribution discussion

[Zaptruder]

So what kinda loot system does your guild use?

What kinda things did they have in mind when they set around designing it?

Is it DKP? is it some other system?

is it Zero-sum? What type of zero-sum?

How do you deal with high initial demand and eventual low demand?

Does the system favor the core raiders or does it try to make things fair for casual raiders too?

What are the problems that you've observed with your loot system and how do you propose to fix it?

If you use fixed costs for items rather than bidding, how do you assign point costs? What do you believe should determine the costs?
Do you modify it with time and drop history?

If you were to design a complex loot distribution system for a MMORPG, what kinda things would you do to make it fairer for everybody? If not, then why not? Do you advocate the random system? Do you believe the flaws of that system are part and parcel of a natural game balance?

[Cybsled]

I'm assuming you are shopping for a loot system for your guild?

In anycase, we use officer choice.

[Cad]

We use zero-sum DKP with officer-directed class preference. Fixed prices for items with tiers of DKP, so 0-50 if you have 3 people who want the item they roll. 51-100, 101-150, etc. Once you go negative if everyone who wants the item is negative then you go by tiers of 20, -1 to -20, etc. Point costs are based from nurfed's points; they seemed to have the most rational point scheme I'd seen.

It's designed to not be fair to everyone, it's designed to give more loot to people who show up more. Since if people don't show up, you don't have a raid. Problems observed are: people don't want to show up for learning encounters because no loot will drop and thus no points.

The loot distribution systems WoW has are fine if they actually worked 100% of the time. DKP and other systems are guild issues, and have nothing to do with WoW. Another reason I prefer smaller groups, honestly.

[Zaptruder]

Originally Posted by Cybsled

I'm assuming you are shopping for a loot system for your guild?

In anycase, we use officer choice.

No. I'm just intrested in how players overcome an innately flawed distribution mechanism used by the game.

Do they bother trying to overcome it?

Well if they're using any sort of system I guess they would be... to more appropriately distribute loot that randomly drops off bosses.

[Wanand]

we use officer choice it goes on loot already awarded number of hours raided.

We take logs on every raid every hour you must have 60%+ attendence in order to eligable for loot (unless it is going to rot) applicants are intilted to nothing unless again going to rot in which case depends how good the app is.

It is a sort of combo of using the dkp database systems and office choice

[Surlok TP]

Originally Posted by Zaptruder

No. I'm just intrested in how players overcome an innately flawed distribution mechanism used by the game.

Do they bother trying to overcome it?

Well if they're using any sort of system I guess they would be... to more appropriately distribute loot that randomly drops off bosses.

You mean the same "flawed" system used by every other game,because it is really the only way to control the flow of Quality (term used loosely) Items into the game world? That particular discussion has been done umpteen million times over the past 10 years,welcome to MMORPG's.

[Darkmyst]

Originally Posted by Zaptruder

No. I'm just intrested in how players overcome an innately flawed distribution mechanism used by the game.

Do they bother trying to overcome it?

Well if they're using any sort of system I guess they would be... to more appropriately distribute loot that randomly drops off bosses.

Perhaps if you stated what you consider the flaws to be you might get more discussion on it.

[Zaptruder]

Well the flaws would be simply that in a random system, you'll often get many instances of uneven/streaky drops for any individual guild; often items drop that can't be used, and players/classes can go for many months without seeing a single particularly desirable class drop.

In the end, this means:
Rewards are not properly coupled with effort/merit
Player frustration due to lack of drops, on a random basis
etc.

Without a distribution system... what do you have? ninja looting? random rolls? Even further decouples the idea of reward with merit.

So how far do players go in combating the randomness of reward and effort? By controlling the distribution to the players after the items have been distributed to the guild, it at least minimizes some of the frustration of a purely random system.

[riot]

Zero-sum. System has/was recently been modified to reward more frequent raiders. We based ours off NULL originally, modified in some ways.

This was almost a year ago, and DKP is by and large the biggest source of recurring drama every week as people point out injustices, unfair schemes, people taking advantage of the system a bit too far, and why they don't get free epics first.

When designing your DKP system, try to reason _why_ you're using it. What are your goals? To distribute loot fairly and equally? To maximize loot chances for constant raiders? For progression? To cause as little drama as possible? Those are some broad questions that only your guild can answer. Those are the questions I asked myself.

As far as answering your questions specifically: Fixed item prices are a good way to go, as long as such items are priced such that it has the desired effect on the item-taker's point pool. Try to figure out how many points a week your raids generate for members, set point values sort of loosely on that with an eye to gear that improves constantly and increasing point generation with future raids. The Nurfed formula for items was implemented by Alcaras, you can try talking to him on Dethecus if need be - there a couple of concepts of his I agree with, such as weapons being the largest upgrades in terms of power for characters and therefore necessarily being the most expensive items in the game, etc.

Bottom line summary - Find a way to reward constant raiders yet not stick new raiders into a pit it takes 6 months to dig out of. Counter inflation as best you can. Try to reward progress. Get something automated.

Apologies if I rambled loosely in a roundabout sort of way, hope this helps.

[Cad]

I really think they need to get smarter about the drops and have the game keep a database of all the stuff a particular group of players has seen drop. So if you bring 40 players who have all seen 470 felheart boots, 290 arcanist gloves, and 3 of everything else, it'll start dropping the other stuff. I know "overall" it's random, but they need to do something to combat the streaks in the random drops. This isn't a coin we can flip 500 million times to get the desired average outcome, this is a coin we flip 15-20 times before we get bored and move on, and if it comes up heads 15 out of 20 times, it sucks balls.

[Creediki]

You're doing what a lot of people do when the look for a new system, computer, car.. etc. You're looking for details and specifications without knowing your requirements first.

What is your guild about? What are your goals?
What are the principles you want to follow? "Fairness", "Personal Choice", "Guild Success".

Once you have decided that, and the leadership needs to all be on the same page, then you will be ready to decide which system you want to use to get there.

"Fair" is a myth btw.

[Deris]

We just use officer based, and if people dont like it they can stfu and get out. Cuts the drama rather short.

[Nyceane]

http://www.aurora-guild.com/policies.php

pretty good system if you want to evalute it, although it creats problem where items always go for more in the beginning, and you can exploit it by not raiding and eventually get it for free

[Fammaden]

You should try setting up a duel tournament among interested parties after every boss kill. Randomly assign people to the ladder and the last man standing wins the loot. Report back with chat logs and screenshots to let us know how it goes.

[Dynalisia]

Here you go:

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showt...8&page=1&pp=15

10 pages of discussion + tons of links to other discussions in that thread itself.


Btw Zaptruder, are you the epitome of a 05'er or what? You started three threads in the past week, all of which are about a subject that was already extensively discussed or beaten to death recently.