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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsGetting your loot priorities straight
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 25th 2008 at 8:00PM
Many, many guilds have broken up over this. I've nearly been in a few myself. Back in the days of pre-bc, the first major loot drama came in Molten Core over the Hunter's ability Tranquil Shot. While now a days there are not really any single items that makes people fight tooth and nail over, there are a few bosses that drop some important equipment that might only be killed a few times.
In particular, Vashj and Kael'Thas. Some guilds only do these fights the absolute minimum number of times necessary to get all their guild mates attuned to Mount Hyjal. When this happens there will be a very limited number of drops of the Tier 5 Helm and Tier 5 Chest. Facing such small chances for key equipment, what lucky classes get the equipment? Should it be the warriors, protecting all things squishy from death? Do the priests need the helm and chest to finally make the raid stop blaming them for ever wipe? Or would the rogues benefit the most, giving them that extra stab-stab-stab, pow-pow-pow?
Often times guilds talk about this internally for weeks on end. My guild over on Anvilmar is throwing around the subject right now, and while we are all respectful and friendly with each other, there are definitely some difference of opinions.
Whats your opinion? Should limited loot be distributed on a special basis, or should it just be handed out with every-day loot rules?
Filed under: Items, Virtual selves, Guilds, Raiding, Alts
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Cilia Jan 27th 2008 10:35AM
Ah dkp, one of the biggest contributing factors to me being glad being out of the raiding game.
We tried DKP back in the day in my old guild, it got ugly.
We tried Null-dkp of whatever it was called, it turned ugly. Because the minus just kept getting bigger.
Then we tried a loot council, worked fine until items that both the priest, paladin and druid healer on the council wanted :P
DRAMA!
Spiritofire Jan 28th 2008 7:26AM
Our guild uses a loot system he designed himself. it starts out with each sucsessful raid you attend you get a +10 to a roll bonus. when you want to roll on something as a primary roll you add this accumlated roll bonus to your roll and if you have the highest rollbonus total with your actual roll you win the item and your roll bonus is set to 0. Even with this if you roll horribly like a 1 or 5 some with a lower rollbonus can still win an item. secondary item rolls don't use up this roll bonus. Such as hammer of the narru drops and no ret pallies are in the raid the other pallies can roll on freely.
Heela Jan 28th 2008 11:54AM
I think the biggest issue here is consistency. Most guilds setup their loot distribution systems when they form or when they are about to embark on raid progression. People are joining the guild based upon various factors such as the day/time of events, class distribution, filling a need with their spec, raid progression speed, and, most importantly, how loot is distributed.
If at any point the rules about loot distribution are modified, you are asking for drama. Why are the rules being changed now? You can argue that the OP's original dilemma about Vashj/Kael loot and progression into MH/BT is along the same lines as gearing up certain classes while running Kara.
A DKP/EPGP system is very different than a class priority system. How your players participate in raids is very different in each format. In a DKP/EPGP system, guild/raid leaders are more inclined to swap people in and out of instances and bosses based on their wants and needs. In a class priority format, there's no way you can ask the classes on the top of the priority list to sit out once they've received all the loot from the instance. The rest of your raid is gimped at that point.
No matter what system a guild uses, you are asking for trouble if you change it at any point. You run the risk of alienating some members that have bought into the system from the beginning. Maybe their loot distribution was their favorite aspect of the guild.
Changing things up makes it appear that you are playing favorites because you have reached a certain point in your raid progression. Plain and simple: if it's been working, keep it consistent and follow through with it.
RaidOrg - http://raidorg.com - Helping World of Warcraft Guilds Manage Raids
meltface Jan 29th 2008 1:23PM
I like the roll method. No method is perfect and there will always be some time in which you're going to want to smack yourself but it goes with the territory. The biggest issue is consistency imo. I have see tier pieces go to the one and only pug member on a guild run. Wasn't happy about it but they put in there part to get the boss down so what can ya do? Once in my guild two piece I needed dropped from Prince. Everyone was asked to choose only one to roll on as there were many casters. I chose and lost the roll and so lost both pieces. Not a huge deal, I regularly give up rolls to people who need the gear better than I do. But it was frustrating to see one bragging in guild chat two days later about replacing it already with a badge piece and also the next two times at Prince the same thing happened and the leadership didn't implement the one roll thing and so one person ended up with both pieces. I love my guild and for the most part everything runs as smoothly as possible. I'm not going to get my ass chapped over an occassional if-y situation. But plz, just be consistent is all I ask.
DavidC Jan 29th 2008 2:29PM
@theremover:
"It has it's perks. But more often than not, it just restricts people from getting the things they really need."
Everybody raids for stuff they 'really' need. Why else are you raiding?
You probably are referring to "jerks" that take sidegrades to burn DKP. That's not a DKP problem, that is a "why do you have jerks in your guild" problem.
See the difference there?
"Punishing people for having a life outside the game".
So ... your being "punished" by being forced to drive a sub compact car cause you don't make as much money as the guy driving a BMW?
No ... the guy that owns the BMW is rewarded for his efforts. WoW is the same. You get want you earn when it comes to raiding.
Kaan Jan 30th 2008 10:10AM
The one loot system I have used that I liked the best involved weighted rolls + DKP. You got X DKP per raid you attended etc. Every item was rolled for, you could spend up to 100 DKP to roll 1+DKP*0.5 - 100 + DKP vs. 1 - 100 that was the default. If you did not win the roll you only lost half the DKP spent. So best case you could roll 50 - 200. It gave people a significant change to win something, but still allowed an occasional "lucky" roll walk away with something.
We did have 2 types of DKP, general, and first time clear/kill so you could only get items on first times if you had first time credits, these were just 1 for 1 type things. (This was EQ so I don't remember everything)
This was the best I have used.