Amusingly enough, most raids I have been to with a bad, or no DKP system, or even worse just simple rolling have quickly died from a lack of support classes, and a quick turnover for people who, when they got what they wanted, tired of helping others and looked for a raid on better content.
I think a lot of the love for purely luck-based systems stems from a hope to be the lucky one, and not having the bad luck of going 10+ times without getting jack. Its a gamble, but its exactly what the OP wanted to get rid of.
For progressing guilds who arent yet at a point where they wish to stay, a luck/roll/random based system is by far the worst solution simply because everything about it slows down a guild, and causes important classes and roles to not want to raid anymore.
But if you are, for example, in a Naxxramas Farm Guild, which doesnt really want to regularly go above it, or which doesnt really plan on following further raid progression, a DKP system may not be for you.
I've never seen a DKP system that didn't have problems.
My current guild has a simple system; we roll for main-spec upgrades. If no-one wants it for a main-spec, we roll for off spec upgrades. If there are still no takers than it goes to disenchantment. Using that system, we managed to remain the #1 progressive raid guild on our server throughout vanilla WoW and TBC. We eventually disbanded in WotLK when half of us decided to reroll Horde.
If you must have the formality of a DKP system though, the best I've seen is Zerosum with an added attendance modifier.
Follow the Zerosum model, but determine who has priority based on a calculation of DKP / %Attendance so that someone with 100 DKP and 50% attendance has the same chance at an item as someone who has 50 DKP and 100% attendance.
Stops people from hoarding points while not bothering to turn up for progress/unrewarding raids only to spring up once the content is on farm status and snaffle an uber item.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Unfortunately there is no perfect loot system but DKP does help to REDUCE alot of the bickering....its inevitable someone is gonna feel as if they got screwed by the system....but that is where it ends in sucessful guilds because people in sucessful guilds would much rather pass the loot to someone else than hear gear bickering over vent...85%of Raiding is getting everyone to show up....and now-a-days especially in WoW raiding is easy mode....to quote my old Raid leader Anikus "Epics flow like water"
There are times when one must ask themselves is it my passion that truly frightens you? Or your own?
I have never liked DKP systems for a couple reasons
1. If you are a new member of an old guild, you can wait an obscene long time and go on many many raids before you get any top tier items, because people have horded points for a very long time prior to you joining the guild. Sometimes once you get around to earning the points the guild is done raiding in that area because new content has been released. The good part to this is if the guild does decide to do a medium tier raid in an area they have already farmed to death, you will get a lot of freebies. This however assumes a guild is willing to raid a place they are already done with. Since people are selfserving, this happens rarely in many guilds. Once they are done, they are done raiding in that area.
2. Since raids are consistant of 20-40 people and guilds often has twice that number or more ..very very often will you have inner circle favortism of who goes on the raid or not. This is not a DKP problem but it becomes a DKP problem because the inner circle will earn more DKP points. You can argue that this is more of being in the wrong guild yadda yadda yadda. I have been in MANY guilds throughout my 10 year MMORPG experience, starting with EQ ending with WoW . My personal experience tells me that it is an issue. DKP is open to abuse. This of course is not a problem if you are a good ass kisser and part of such a circle. I have become very jaded over the years because i refuse to brown nosing people to get ahead. With a better designed DKP system i feel this issue could be fixed however
3. People with more free time to raid will get the best items.This is not a problem on it's own and is fair to a certain extent but because they have the best items they often will and do get picked first when harder raids are planned. This often creates an uneven gap between the haves and have nots since catching up in points becomes more and more difficult. You can't earn points if you are not picked to go on a raid
4. DKP in general caters to hardcore play and a secondary job over fun..atleast for me. The more time you can give to the guild the more you are rewarded. Fair isn't my problem with it. My problem is the stress it causes when trying to improve your character with better gear. You get burned out from it very fast. Some days you don't feel like logging in because it becomes more of a race against other guildmembers then relaxing and fun as a game should be.
This is why i strongly dislike a DKP system. Luckily i can opt out and in the same breath not see a big part of a games content because i disagree with this playermade system.
A DKP system can only work if need overrides greed in most cases. Just because someone has high DKP does not give them the right to take an item that someone else can make far more use of.
Secondly, if an item is useful to anyone and they pass on it to build up DKP points, then they should be forced to take it. Tossing good items just hurts the guild as a whole if it is useful to anyone.
Those two items have caused more people to leave guilds employing DKP.
Originally posted by Daffid011 It may suck to see some new guy get a sweet item on their first raid and then leave, but they were there for the kill and I see no reason to exclude them from a chance, no matter how big or small. Look at it from the other persons point of view. They show up to help you out and your opinion is they should not have any chance at loot due to events that happened in the past.
This is the 'clash of ideas' that makes DKP so controversial. A raiding guild that brings in a new player to 'help out' is subverting the principles of a organized loot distribution system like DKP. This kind of system is based on cumulative contributions to the power and experience sett of an organized team. Each success is based on the contributions to the overall team gestalt from previous raids. So each raid contributes to the success of future raids. This means that a player's individual performance is only a very small contribution to the success of the raid compared to the contributions brought over from previous raids. So big part of the reason why you beat boss T today is primarily because you beat boss U a week ago and boss E a month ago. Thinking this way, the fact that Bob contributed to the boss E kill means that he also contributed to the boss T kill even though he was not in the raid that killed T.
So looking at the big picture, a new player brought into the system contributes very little to a raid's success compared to the regular raiders who have massive cumulative contributions from previous raids. So a new raider simply does not have the cumulative contribution to be deserving of loot.
This is a pretty strict philosophy and it requires a pretty strict mindset. If your guild cannot adhere to it fully due to personal preference or basic logistics (you cannot field a regular committed raid team all the time) then you COMPROMISE. If you bring someone as a 'helper' rather than a full recruit, you negotiate a way for that player to be satisfied without you giving up your system. Too many players are too impatient and arrogant to even try to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to a problem like that.
I think that everyone that attends the raid should have an equal shot at the loot (assuming its need before greed) regardless of how long they have been in the guild........This gives everyone incentive to atend and usually they try harder if there is a chance they can get something.......
Well said Torik. I don't know what type of loot system the person I was responding to uses, but it obviously allowed someone new to the raid a chance at an item and they won that item. So I assume it is within their rules. To my understanding it was just one item, which should never be a concern to the degree of changing a loot system. There is always going to be the next sweet items that people are chasing after and that shouldn't be the catalyst to change a loot policy just to protect the sweet items.
I just don't think it is worthy of this much effort and feel that dkp systems detract from what raiding is really about.
I am currently raiding without dkp and I greatly hate it.
The problem is simply that I am close to finish my gear and I have a ton of dkp, but as we raid with another guild, we dont use dkp, but random instead.
Meaning I dont get dkp, I cant spend it, and I have full raids where NONE of the raid bosses we kill could even theoretically, even less practically, drop anything for me.
And if we actually kill a boss that drops something for me, I have only the normal chance to get the item in question.
While I agree dkp systems arent perfect either, dkp asserts that I get a reward for my raiding. At all.
Well said Torik. I don't know what type of loot system the person I was responding to uses, but it obviously allowed someone new to the raid a chance at an item and they won that item. So I assume it is within their rules. To my understanding it was just one item, which should never be a concern to the degree of changing a loot system. There is always going to be the next sweet items that people are chasing after and that shouldn't be the catalyst to change a loot policy just to protect the sweet items.
I just don't think it is worthy of this much effort and feel that dkp systems detract from what raiding is really about.
The way I look at it if you have to go outside your organization and hire a special contractor to finish a project you will pay a premium. ie. if your guild needs to bring in outsiders to do raids then they should expect to 'pay' them more then their DKP system says they should get. Beggers can't be choosers.
DKP is a very mechanical system and as such works best when used for content that is approached in a mechanical way. Vanilla WoW 40 man Molten Core was a very mechanical gear grind so a DKP system streamlined it a lot. For less mechanical content like small size raids (eg WoW's 10mans) or serious progression raiding you need to start customizing it a lot to acount for different goals other than just the gear grind.
Personally I would not use DKP if you are doing 'casual raiding' since you will muddle things too much and only create disputes. If your guild is into serious progression raiding DKP will usually take second place to the overal progression strategy. For anyone in the middle you have seriously consider whether you want to use DKP to 'gear up' or to 'progress'.
I was in the guild Tribal Fury in EQ. Best guild ever, btw. We never had any problems with DKP, or items rotting. You could bid 0 DKP for an item. If no one outbid you, then you won. No raid was worth more DKP than another. You got 1 DKP for being on time, and then 1 for every hour. And 1 extra if you didn't leave early( I may be missing some parts its been years). If it was a progression time raid where they needed to motivate people to show they did offer double DKP. I think that DKP is the fairest. It rewards those who show up, and it gives the people who are behind in points the ability to bid on items no one wants for super cheap.
On the other hand, before I joined TF I was in some truly awful guilds. They would let set the price of items, and let it rot if no one could afford. Talk about a retarded system. I left that guild almost immediately.
Let me clarify. This was a DKP bid system. No prices were set. For example, the treasurer would say start bidding now. Someone pipes in with 5, then another says 10, then another says 15, etc. The treasurer, then says going once, twice, sold. DKP systems with set prices is hard to understand for me. Nothing should ever rot, unless no one needs it.
Need N¨' Greed is the best looting etiquette there currently is out there and thats why its include in many mmo' these days. Some kids sometime invent there own foul system, be it DKP which mostly will plagued them forever. Here is the reason:
While part of a party most players will expect that if they need an item they should get first pick at it before those who want it for greed. For example, a party consisting of a tank, a DPS, and a healer walk into a bar and loot some rare cloth armor. All of them can potentially wear that armor, but only the healer really needs it, the rest will likely just sell it or give it to an alt (see Greed). Therefore, it is expected that the tank and DPS will allow the healer to have it by not rolling on the item.
Have a look here. I don't think anyone can argue with this system. I see you think you should award DKP per kill, etc. There is no need for that. Just do it based off time at the raid. Not off objectives completed. Even a failed raid should earn DKP. Everyone put their time and energy into it. You will have to appoint an officer to record who is there at the time stamps.
Like I said in my other post it is bid based. So new members can still earn loot. Especially on bosses/dungeons you've farmed before. When I first joined TF I was getting very nice upgrades, because the folks who had been there longer had already gotten it all. Then, I did miss out on the newer stuff, but that is reasonable.
I was in the guild Tribal Fury in EQ. Best guild ever, btw. We never had any problems with DKP, or items rotting. You could bid 0 DKP for an item. If no one outbid you, then you won. No raid was worth more DKP than another. You got 1 DKP for being on time, and then 1 for every hour. And 1 extra if you didn't leave early( I may be missing some parts its been years). If it was a progression time raid where they needed to motivate people to show they did offer double DKP. I think that DKP is the fairest. It rewards those who show up, and it gives the people who are behind in points the ability to bid on items no one wants for super cheap.
On the other hand, before I joined TF I was in some truly awful guilds. They would let set the price of items, and let it rot if no one could afford. Talk about a retarded system. I left that guild almost immediately.
Let me clarify. This was a DKP bid system. No prices were set. For example, the treasurer would say start bidding now. Someone pipes in with 5, then another says 10, then another says 15, etc. The treasurer, then says going once, twice, sold. DKP systems with set prices is hard to understand for me. Nothing should ever rot, unless no one needs it.
The problem was not with the set prices but with the inability to go into the negatives. If an item is an upgrade that someone wants then you let them have it if noone else wants. They simply go into DKP debt and have to work to get out of it.
Letting things rot if there are people who are willing to use them goes against the base purpose of a DKP system and just shows a bad understanding of its principles.
Personally I was never sold on bidding systems since they are just to easy to game. Fixed price systems always had most appeal to me since they are mathematically stable if set up right. Fixed price Zero Sum systems always made more sense from a pure gearing up point of view.
Need N¨' Greed is the best looting etiquette there currently is out there and thats why its include in many mmo' these days. Some kids sometime invent there own foul system, be it DKP which mostly will plagued them forever. Here is the reason: While part of a party most players will expect that if they need an item they should get first pick at it before those who want it for greed. For example, a party consisting of a tank, a DPS, and a healer walk into a bar and loot some rare cloth armor. All of them can potentially wear that armor, but only the healer really needs it, the rest will likely just sell it or give it to an alt (see Greed). Therefore, it is expected that the tank and DPS will allow the healer to have it by not rolling on the item.
Although i dislike the DKP system this one is worse. You will see multiples of the same classes attending the same raids. Most raids take multiple healers to be successful. If you do N'B'G people are just going to show up with the crappiest gear they have. If you do have honest players and you are able to keep tab on peoples gear in the guild, you face another problem. How will you get people to go on the same raid again, once they have obtained what they want from it?. You can't assume people will just go, out of the goodness of their heart. Without some kind of continuous reward people simply come up with excuses or just play alts to hide from the guild once they get that nifty item.
Although i dislike the DKP system this one is worse. You will see multiples of the same classes attending the same raids. Most raids take multiple healers to be successful. If you do N'B'G people are just going to show up with the crappiest gear they have. If you do have honest players and you are able to keep tab on peoples gear in the guild, you face another problem. How will you get people to go on the same raid again, once they have obtained what they want from it?. You can't assume people will just go, out of the goodness of their heart. Without some kind of continuous reward people simply come up with excuses or just play alts to hide from the guild once they get that nifty item.
A point system is the way to go.
Why would people wear their "crappiest gear"? Need before greed doesn't equate to the person with the worst gear gets the loot. It makes no sense to do this.
To answer your question about why people would continue to raid once they have everything. There is always some new dungeon to raid and quitting once you have all the rewards you want is very short sighted. If the raid keeps going after the person quits I guess they lose their spot in the raid when a replacement is found. Simple enough.
Zero sum dkp isn't bad, but any point beyond that is usually more trouble than it is worth to appease everyones sense of what is fair and what isn't. That will never happen. There is nothing wrong with just using the need/greed system in most games automated loot systems as long as your raid group has a tiny bit of responsibility. It rewards people for being there and not based on past actions. It is simple and unbiased. Either you are there or you are not and it doesn't matter what happened yesterday or the month before that. It will work for some guilds and it won't for others. It has been working for my guild since burning crusade without any problems. It may not work for that guild which constantly breaks up and reforms every few months under the guise of being the next super raid guild. You know the one I mean, every server has one.
As someone above stated, loot flows like a river now and there really isn't much to worry about.
Although i dislike the DKP system this one is worse. You will see multiples of the same classes attending the same raids. Most raids take multiple healers to be successful. If you do N'B'G people are just going to show up with the crappiest gear they have. If you do have honest players and you are able to keep tab on peoples gear in the guild, you face another problem. How will you get people to go on the same raid again, once they have obtained what they want from it?. You can't assume people will just go, out of the goodness of their heart. Without some kind of continuous reward people simply come up with excuses or just play alts to hide from the guild once they get that nifty item.
A point system is the way to go.
Why would people wear their "crappiest gear"? Need before greed doesn't equate to the person with the worst gear gets the loot. It makes no sense to do this. That's what it has always meant in the games i have played. If two people were wearing generic they would have first rights over a person wearing epic even if it's an upgrade or not for the guy wearing the epic. Need before greed has always meant who needs the most.
To answer your question about why people would continue to raid once they have everything. There is always some new dungeon to raid and quitting once you have all the rewards you want is very short sighted. If the raid keeps going after the person quits I guess they lose their spot in the raid when a replacement is found. Simple enough. Who said anything about quitting. I think you misunderstood what i said or didn't read it properly and then added a few assumptions. I'll see if i can make it easier to understand. Once people have the loot they want from raid area A. you have to figure out a way to reward them for still going back and raiding in area A. I said nothing about quitting the guild or quitting the raid. Otherwise they will duck and hide and only sign up for raid area B. I have seen it happen too many times. That's one of the big reasons behind a point system besides fair loot distribution. To reward and entice people to raid in an area they don't necessarily will be getting any loot from but that others will. It doesn't help if only 10 people want to raid in a 20 raid area because the other 10 already have the gear or better. If you give them points they are more willing to log on and participate. I have seen good individuals that will raid anywhere even if they have better gear just to help out but they rarely make up for the manpower really needed. It always end in a pickup raid.
And yes it is short sighted which is what a N'B'G encourages more than discourage.
If you define Need before greed as giving the main raid tank the best gear first before everybody else..the main healer the best healer gear before anybody else because they are key characters in the guild i equate that with greed over need. It may benefit the guild but favoritizing individuals when it comes to loot is still greed in my book. I would take DKP over that any day
When I quit WoW I had created my own variation of a DKP system that worked on a mathematical formula everyone had access to.The formula I created was mainly to ensure that people spent thier DKP points, which will eliminate many problems with DKP that people think are endemic to that sort of lot distribution system. My system made it where the more points you accrued, the less DKP points you got from doing raids.
DKP systems are only as good as your guild leader, or whom the guild leader entrusts to determine such things, is intelligent/wise and pragmatic. You also have to make sure the guild you join is "the guild for you", as that will impact the DKP system too. Some guilds are just people who want to have fun and occassionally hook up for events, others are folks that want to take over the vritual world.
Comments
Amusingly enough, most raids I have been to with a bad, or no DKP system, or even worse just simple rolling have quickly died from a lack of support classes, and a quick turnover for people who, when they got what they wanted, tired of helping others and looked for a raid on better content.
I think a lot of the love for purely luck-based systems stems from a hope to be the lucky one, and not having the bad luck of going 10+ times without getting jack. Its a gamble, but its exactly what the OP wanted to get rid of.
For progressing guilds who arent yet at a point where they wish to stay, a luck/roll/random based system is by far the worst solution simply because everything about it slows down a guild, and causes important classes and roles to not want to raid anymore.
But if you are, for example, in a Naxxramas Farm Guild, which doesnt really want to regularly go above it, or which doesnt really plan on following further raid progression, a DKP system may not be for you.
I've never seen a DKP system that didn't have problems.
My current guild has a simple system; we roll for main-spec upgrades. If no-one wants it for a main-spec, we roll for off spec upgrades. If there are still no takers than it goes to disenchantment. Using that system, we managed to remain the #1 progressive raid guild on our server throughout vanilla WoW and TBC. We eventually disbanded in WotLK when half of us decided to reroll Horde.
If you must have the formality of a DKP system though, the best I've seen is Zerosum with an added attendance modifier.
Follow the Zerosum model, but determine who has priority based on a calculation of DKP / %Attendance so that someone with 100 DKP and 50% attendance has the same chance at an item as someone who has 50 DKP and 100% attendance.
Stops people from hoarding points while not bothering to turn up for progress/unrewarding raids only to spring up once the content is on farm status and snaffle an uber item.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Unfortunately there is no perfect loot system but DKP does help to REDUCE alot of the bickering....its inevitable someone is gonna feel as if they got screwed by the system....but that is where it ends in sucessful guilds because people in sucessful guilds would much rather pass the loot to someone else than hear gear bickering over vent...85%of Raiding is getting everyone to show up....and now-a-days especially in WoW raiding is easy mode....to quote my old Raid leader Anikus "Epics flow like water"
There are times when one must ask themselves is it my passion that truly frightens you? Or your own?
I have never liked DKP systems for a couple reasons
1. If you are a new member of an old guild, you can wait an obscene long time and go on many many raids before you get any top tier items, because people have horded points for a very long time prior to you joining the guild. Sometimes once you get around to earning the points the guild is done raiding in that area because new content has been released. The good part to this is if the guild does decide to do a medium tier raid in an area they have already farmed to death, you will get a lot of freebies. This however assumes a guild is willing to raid a place they are already done with. Since people are selfserving, this happens rarely in many guilds. Once they are done, they are done raiding in that area.
2. Since raids are consistant of 20-40 people and guilds often has twice that number or more ..very very often will you have inner circle favortism of who goes on the raid or not. This is not a DKP problem but it becomes a DKP problem because the inner circle will earn more DKP points. You can argue that this is more of being in the wrong guild yadda yadda yadda. I have been in MANY guilds throughout my 10 year MMORPG experience, starting with EQ ending with WoW . My personal experience tells me that it is an issue. DKP is open to abuse. This of course is not a problem if you are a good ass kisser and part of such a circle. I have become very jaded over the years because i refuse to brown nosing people to get ahead. With a better designed DKP system i feel this issue could be fixed however
3. People with more free time to raid will get the best items.This is not a problem on it's own and is fair to a certain extent but because they have the best items they often will and do get picked first when harder raids are planned. This often creates an uneven gap between the haves and have nots since catching up in points becomes more and more difficult. You can't earn points if you are not picked to go on a raid
4. DKP in general caters to hardcore play and a secondary job over fun..atleast for me. The more time you can give to the guild the more you are rewarded. Fair isn't my problem with it. My problem is the stress it causes when trying to improve your character with better gear. You get burned out from it very fast. Some days you don't feel like logging in because it becomes more of a race against other guildmembers then relaxing and fun as a game should be.
This is why i strongly dislike a DKP system. Luckily i can opt out and in the same breath not see a big part of a games content because i disagree with this playermade system.
A DKP system can only work if need overrides greed in most cases. Just because someone has high DKP does not give them the right to take an item that someone else can make far more use of.
Secondly, if an item is useful to anyone and they pass on it to build up DKP points, then they should be forced to take it. Tossing good items just hurts the guild as a whole if it is useful to anyone.
Those two items have caused more people to leave guilds employing DKP.
This is the 'clash of ideas' that makes DKP so controversial. A raiding guild that brings in a new player to 'help out' is subverting the principles of a organized loot distribution system like DKP. This kind of system is based on cumulative contributions to the power and experience sett of an organized team. Each success is based on the contributions to the overall team gestalt from previous raids. So each raid contributes to the success of future raids. This means that a player's individual performance is only a very small contribution to the success of the raid compared to the contributions brought over from previous raids. So big part of the reason why you beat boss T today is primarily because you beat boss U a week ago and boss E a month ago. Thinking this way, the fact that Bob contributed to the boss E kill means that he also contributed to the boss T kill even though he was not in the raid that killed T.
So looking at the big picture, a new player brought into the system contributes very little to a raid's success compared to the regular raiders who have massive cumulative contributions from previous raids. So a new raider simply does not have the cumulative contribution to be deserving of loot.
This is a pretty strict philosophy and it requires a pretty strict mindset. If your guild cannot adhere to it fully due to personal preference or basic logistics (you cannot field a regular committed raid team all the time) then you COMPROMISE. If you bring someone as a 'helper' rather than a full recruit, you negotiate a way for that player to be satisfied without you giving up your system. Too many players are too impatient and arrogant to even try to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to a problem like that.
I think that everyone that attends the raid should have an equal shot at the loot (assuming its need before greed) regardless of how long they have been in the guild........This gives everyone incentive to atend and usually they try harder if there is a chance they can get something.......
Well said Torik. I don't know what type of loot system the person I was responding to uses, but it obviously allowed someone new to the raid a chance at an item and they won that item. So I assume it is within their rules. To my understanding it was just one item, which should never be a concern to the degree of changing a loot system. There is always going to be the next sweet items that people are chasing after and that shouldn't be the catalyst to change a loot policy just to protect the sweet items.
I just don't think it is worthy of this much effort and feel that dkp systems detract from what raiding is really about.
I am currently raiding without dkp and I greatly hate it.
The problem is simply that I am close to finish my gear and I have a ton of dkp, but as we raid with another guild, we dont use dkp, but random instead.
Meaning I dont get dkp, I cant spend it, and I have full raids where NONE of the raid bosses we kill could even theoretically, even less practically, drop anything for me.
And if we actually kill a boss that drops something for me, I have only the normal chance to get the item in question.
While I agree dkp systems arent perfect either, dkp asserts that I get a reward for my raiding. At all.
The way I look at it if you have to go outside your organization and hire a special contractor to finish a project you will pay a premium. ie. if your guild needs to bring in outsiders to do raids then they should expect to 'pay' them more then their DKP system says they should get. Beggers can't be choosers.
DKP is a very mechanical system and as such works best when used for content that is approached in a mechanical way. Vanilla WoW 40 man Molten Core was a very mechanical gear grind so a DKP system streamlined it a lot. For less mechanical content like small size raids (eg WoW's 10mans) or serious progression raiding you need to start customizing it a lot to acount for different goals other than just the gear grind.
Personally I would not use DKP if you are doing 'casual raiding' since you will muddle things too much and only create disputes. If your guild is into serious progression raiding DKP will usually take second place to the overal progression strategy. For anyone in the middle you have seriously consider whether you want to use DKP to 'gear up' or to 'progress'.
I was in the guild Tribal Fury in EQ. Best guild ever, btw. We never had any problems with DKP, or items rotting. You could bid 0 DKP for an item. If no one outbid you, then you won. No raid was worth more DKP than another. You got 1 DKP for being on time, and then 1 for every hour. And 1 extra if you didn't leave early( I may be missing some parts its been years). If it was a progression time raid where they needed to motivate people to show they did offer double DKP. I think that DKP is the fairest. It rewards those who show up, and it gives the people who are behind in points the ability to bid on items no one wants for super cheap.
On the other hand, before I joined TF I was in some truly awful guilds. They would let set the price of items, and let it rot if no one could afford. Talk about a retarded system. I left that guild almost immediately.
Let me clarify. This was a DKP bid system. No prices were set. For example, the treasurer would say start bidding now. Someone pipes in with 5, then another says 10, then another says 15, etc. The treasurer, then says going once, twice, sold. DKP systems with set prices is hard to understand for me. Nothing should ever rot, unless no one needs it.
Need N¨' Greed is the best looting etiquette there currently is out there and thats why its include in many mmo' these days. Some kids sometime invent there own foul system, be it DKP which mostly will plagued them forever. Here is the reason:
While part of a party most players will expect that if they need an item they should get first pick at it before those who want it for greed. For example, a party consisting of a tank, a DPS, and a healer walk into a bar and loot some rare cloth armor. All of them can potentially wear that armor, but only the healer really needs it, the rest will likely just sell it or give it to an alt (see Greed). Therefore, it is expected that the tank and DPS will allow the healer to have it by not rolling on the item.
Have a look here. I don't think anyone can argue with this system. I see you think you should award DKP per kill, etc. There is no need for that. Just do it based off time at the raid. Not off objectives completed. Even a failed raid should earn DKP. Everyone put their time and energy into it. You will have to appoint an officer to record who is there at the time stamps.
Like I said in my other post it is bid based. So new members can still earn loot. Especially on bosses/dungeons you've farmed before. When I first joined TF I was getting very nice upgrades, because the folks who had been there longer had already gotten it all. Then, I did miss out on the newer stuff, but that is reasonable.
www.tribalfury.org/eqdkp/viewnews.php
The problem was not with the set prices but with the inability to go into the negatives. If an item is an upgrade that someone wants then you let them have it if noone else wants. They simply go into DKP debt and have to work to get out of it.
Letting things rot if there are people who are willing to use them goes against the base purpose of a DKP system and just shows a bad understanding of its principles.
Personally I was never sold on bidding systems since they are just to easy to game. Fixed price systems always had most appeal to me since they are mathematically stable if set up right. Fixed price Zero Sum systems always made more sense from a pure gearing up point of view.
Although i dislike the DKP system this one is worse. You will see multiples of the same classes attending the same raids. Most raids take multiple healers to be successful. If you do N'B'G people are just going to show up with the crappiest gear they have. If you do have honest players and you are able to keep tab on peoples gear in the guild, you face another problem. How will you get people to go on the same raid again, once they have obtained what they want from it?. You can't assume people will just go, out of the goodness of their heart. Without some kind of continuous reward people simply come up with excuses or just play alts to hide from the guild once they get that nifty item.
A point system is the way to go.
Why would people wear their "crappiest gear"? Need before greed doesn't equate to the person with the worst gear gets the loot. It makes no sense to do this.
To answer your question about why people would continue to raid once they have everything. There is always some new dungeon to raid and quitting once you have all the rewards you want is very short sighted. If the raid keeps going after the person quits I guess they lose their spot in the raid when a replacement is found. Simple enough.
Zero sum dkp isn't bad, but any point beyond that is usually more trouble than it is worth to appease everyones sense of what is fair and what isn't. That will never happen. There is nothing wrong with just using the need/greed system in most games automated loot systems as long as your raid group has a tiny bit of responsibility. It rewards people for being there and not based on past actions. It is simple and unbiased. Either you are there or you are not and it doesn't matter what happened yesterday or the month before that. It will work for some guilds and it won't for others. It has been working for my guild since burning crusade without any problems. It may not work for that guild which constantly breaks up and reforms every few months under the guise of being the next super raid guild. You know the one I mean, every server has one.
As someone above stated, loot flows like a river now and there really isn't much to worry about.
Why would people wear their "crappiest gear"? Need before greed doesn't equate to the person with the worst gear gets the loot. It makes no sense to do this. That's what it has always meant in the games i have played. If two people were wearing generic they would have first rights over a person wearing epic even if it's an upgrade or not for the guy wearing the epic. Need before greed has always meant who needs the most.
To answer your question about why people would continue to raid once they have everything. There is always some new dungeon to raid and quitting once you have all the rewards you want is very short sighted. If the raid keeps going after the person quits I guess they lose their spot in the raid when a replacement is found. Simple enough. Who said anything about quitting. I think you misunderstood what i said or didn't read it properly and then added a few assumptions. I'll see if i can make it easier to understand. Once people have the loot they want from raid area A. you have to figure out a way to reward them for still going back and raiding in area A. I said nothing about quitting the guild or quitting the raid. Otherwise they will duck and hide and only sign up for raid area B. I have seen it happen too many times. That's one of the big reasons behind a point system besides fair loot distribution. To reward and entice people to raid in an area they don't necessarily will be getting any loot from but that others will. It doesn't help if only 10 people want to raid in a 20 raid area because the other 10 already have the gear or better. If you give them points they are more willing to log on and participate. I have seen good individuals that will raid anywhere even if they have better gear just to help out but they rarely make up for the manpower really needed. It always end in a pickup raid.
And yes it is short sighted which is what a N'B'G encourages more than discourage.
If you define Need before greed as giving the main raid tank the best gear first before everybody else..the main healer the best healer gear before anybody else because they are key characters in the guild i equate that with greed over need. It may benefit the guild but favoritizing individuals when it comes to loot is still greed in my book. I would take DKP over that any day
When I quit WoW I had created my own variation of a DKP system that worked on a mathematical formula everyone had access to.The formula I created was mainly to ensure that people spent thier DKP points, which will eliminate many problems with DKP that people think are endemic to that sort of lot distribution system. My system made it where the more points you accrued, the less DKP points you got from doing raids.
DKP systems are only as good as your guild leader, or whom the guild leader entrusts to determine such things, is intelligent/wise and pragmatic. You also have to make sure the guild you join is "the guild for you", as that will impact the DKP system too. Some guilds are just people who want to have fun and occassionally hook up for events, others are folks that want to take over the vritual world.