Loot System & Policy

[Serindy]

Loot System & Policy

 

An important message about loot:

In this guild, the purpose of raiding is not to get loot. The purpose of raiding is to the see the game, progress through the content, and have fun with friends. The ultimate reward is downing bosses, not getting loot.

That said, loot does serve a purpose. It helps us progress further as a team, it improves our individual characters, and it looks cool! We realize that loot matters more to some people than to others and we have tried to design a loot system that distributes the loot in a fair and transparent way, that ensures that the loot is distributed among all raid members as this is in the best interest of the team, and that rewards people who contribute to our ultimate goal of progression by showing up to raid consistently.

Issues can arise with any loot system and if that happens we expect everyone to act like adults about it. Make your concerns known to the lootmaster/officers and work with them to resolve the issue. The team comes before the individual. Loot drama will not be tolerated.

 

Loot system overview – SuicideKings

We are going to be using the SuicideKings loot system with a couple of changes from last expansion.

 

For anyone who didn’t raid with us last expansion or who doesn’t know what SK is, this is how it works:

At the beginning of a raid tier, everyone rolls to determine their place on the loot list(s). When a piece of gear drops, the person that wants it and who currently holds the highest position on the list (the “king”) is awarded that piece of gear and is moved to the bottom of the list (“suicides”).

 

Also:

- New lists will be made at the beginning of each raid Tier.

- New raiders or raiders who are returning after an extended absence will be added to the bottom of the loot lists.

- Only the lootmaster needs the SK addon, no one else needs to worry about getting it. If you would like to be able to see the current loot list live, you can download the addon and sync it to the list of the current lootmaster.

- You will not be awarded a second Tier piece for a particular slot if there are still other people in that raid on that token who have not received the first tier piece for that slot (this is because of how Tier tokens will randomly assign tertiary stats only after being “IDed”).

 

Changes From MoP

Some types of upgrades are obviously more valuable than others. Last expansion we occasionally ran into issues  where someone would have a high position on the list and want to hold out for a more valuable piece (like a weapon) instead of losing their position to get a less valuable piece (like a neck). This resulted in “less desirable” upgrades being disenchanted or going to offspec, rather than being used. This is understandable because everyone wants to improve their specific toon, but is bad for the raid team because it is in our best interest to make use of all upgrades to strengthen the team as a whole.

 

So this time around we have made 2 changes to address this:

1. We now have 2 lists! Everyone has their name on both lists. One list will be used for weapons, trinkets, and tier tokens. The second list will be used for all non-tier armor, necks, rings and cloaks.

2. If an item is an upgrade for you, no one else wants it and your name is at the top of the list, you have to take it. An item is considered to be an upgrade if it has an ilvl higher than what you are wearing. In the case of a lower ilvl item having drastically better stats, itemization, etc, the final decision will be up to the lootmaster of that raid.

 

We have also made 1 additional change, in order to reward people who show up to raid consistently.

3. Missing raid or being late to raid will result in being moved down on the lists. More specific info will be posted about this when we post the Attendance Policy in a couple of days.

 

 

[Xanaxchomper]

If we're worried about distribution of loot why not just turn on Personal Loot? Same RNG less raid hassle. Guild shouldn't need to file a tax return every time we down a boss, which is basically what a distributed loot system is, its a measure of "worth". only problem I see is a malicious use, say Ben is 1, Osh is 2 and Don is 3. Str Haste Wrists drop, but the off-stat isn't good for Ben so he is choosing not to bid for it, because its not an actual upgrade. It is an upgrade for Don, but Don is interested in the Shoulders from the next fight and doesn't want competition. Don doesn't bid. Ben is then forced to take it because its an upgrade and get Suicided to the bottom because he is the highest, Strength Haste user. Being at the top is at the decree of the people below you, I don't like that I can be forced to take loot I might not want because someone else isn't bidding below me.

[Serindy]

With regard to the personal loot setting:

It was always my impression that using the personal loot setting was to avoid drama in pugs and not as an actual gearing strategy for a raiding guild. But since you suggested it, I spent some time looking into it.

So far, I'm not convinced it would be a good option, for the following reasons: I was not able to determine how does the amount of gear that drops for personal loot compared to the amount that drops if we set it to master looter. But, if we assume that it is equal, with personal loot we will run into an issue where some of those gear drops will go to a person that already has that piece of gear. When we use master looter getting a piece for a second (and sometimes third or fourth) time usually doesn't matter because there are usually multiple people that need a piece. Even if we still theoretically get the same number of drops using both loots settings, when we factor in the possibility for repeats going to the same person, would be actually be getting less loot? I think we would. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but with personal loot you can't trade the piece to anyone else right? So if we get the same number of pieces with both loot systems, we would in theory actually get less usable loot with the personal loot system because we don't get to distribute it among the 15ish people we brought with us? That doesn't seem like a good idea.

Also, RNG is nice in that it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings but is fully relying on RNG really the best way to gear up a raid? For example, simply using /roll to distribute gear in a raid is generally accepted to be a poor method as it relies only on RNG. So often you end up with some people having lots of loot and some people having none. Would you not get the same result using the personal loot option?

Also do we get to DE personal loot? I don't think we could unless it's unneeded loot that an enchanter got. With normal loot systems we can get enchanting mats for the GB from extra loot. This is REALLY important for a guild that provides free enchants. Also extra patterns (once all members with that profession have them) and BoE gear (once no one else needs it) can be sold to provide funds for the GB.

Raiding is a team endeavor, our number 1 concern is distributing the loot in a way that is best for the progression of the raid team, while still being as fair as possible. So far, I am unconvinced that using the person loot option achieves this, nor does it provide any benefit to the team in the form of extra mats and funds to support the raid.

 

With regard to the opportunity for misuse of the proposed loot system:

We have tried out a bunch of loot systems over the years including straight rolling, EPGP, giving gear to whoever it is the highest upgrade for, a kinda sorta loot council, and more recently SK. All loot systems have their benefits and drawbacks. So far we found that SK was easy to use and distributed gear in a relatively fair way.

I get what you are saying with regard to the chance of malicious use though, it makes a lot of sense with the example you gave. The only issue we ran into with SK last expansion was people not wanting to give up their spot for a minor upgrade (which is kinda the issue in your example only it is someone lower on the list gaming the system). This resulted many minor upgrades being trashed. This is not ok because a bunch of minor upgrades handed out to a bunch of people will help the raid team more than people holding out for that one special piece that they want. Basically it comes down to people placing more value on their own personal character rather than doing what is beneficial for the team as a whole. And obviously we care about our own toons the most, but raiding is a team endeavor. It didn't happen often, but it did happen, and that's not cool. I would like to think that we could all put the needs of the team ahead of our own wants, but sometimes that special, shinny piece of loot is tempting. The changes we discussed this time around are aimed at addressing this issue.

In the example you gave, this is how I would see it going: If a piece of loot drops and it is an upgrade for someone, someone is going to get it, because that helps the raid. If the wrists are an upgrade for Ben and not Don, then Ben gets them and is suicided. If the wrists are an upgrade for Don but not for Ben, then Don gets them and is suicided. If the wrists are an upgrade for both Ben and Don, then Ben will get them because he is at the top of the list, and be suicided. If a piece of gear is truly itemized so poorly for a certain class/spec that it is not an upgrade, then you won't be forced to take it. So if it's an ilvl upgrade for both Ben and Don but the itemization is so bad that it is worse than what Ben is wearing but better than what Don is wearing, then Don gets it. If it's worse than what they both are wearing, then it will be trashed, go to os, whatever.

If we operate under the intention of doing what is best for the raid team, we can't trash a piece of gear that is an upgrade for someone because they want to hold out for some other piece of gear that might not ever even drop. We realize that ilvl is not the be all and end all and that's why the decision is ultimately up to the lootmaster. Maybe Glenn can chime in here since that it almost always going to be him? :P

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, suggestions, etc, on how to improve loot distribution, I (and probably Glenn and Ben lol) are happy to hear them, keeping in mind that the ultimate goal is to help the raid team progress, and the loot system should support that.

 

 

[Xanaxchomper]

Personal Loot might actually be more beneficial in the long run now that I've seen it in use. Chance for more people to get more loot off of bosses (assuming personal loot is going to be available to pre-form raids like it is pre-form dungeons). In dungeons, I've seen 3/5 people get loot off of one boss.

Think of that in a raid environment for a moment. 3/5ths of the raid getting loot off of one boss. Assuming 15 people in our raid team. That is 9 pieces of loot off of one boss (9/15).

Warcraft Forusm Discussion about Personal Loot

I'm going to be raiding with you guys either way, but just like discussing it anyhow even if the cement is solid.

Why the fuck wont my text format...

Edit 2. Why on gods earth is HTML formatting enabled for a forum post? xD

[Serindy]

The overall drop rate used to be the same for all loot settings, people just don't understand how statistics work and so they were happy with the extra drops but pissed when they got nothing (which is how you even out the extra drops!) So they complained and Blizz upped the drop rate on personal loot.

http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/11/21/random-dungeons-back-to-personal-loot-guaranteed-drops/

Now, in 5-mans personal loot means everyone gets loot off the last boss, because previously it could happen that no loot would drop at all from an entire dungeon (random is random) and that makes people cranky. They also made it that full premade groups that select need before greed will get 3 pieces of the last boss instead of 2.

Considering this change, personal loot is almost always going to result in a greater number of drops in dungeons, making it often a better choice even for guild groups, particlarly if everyone needs a lot of gear.

But... last night I ran a dungeon where the loot went like this: First boss - 1 piece, second boss - 0, third boss - 0, fourth boss - 5 (because everyone got something). Random is random. Sometimes you get more loot, sometimes you get less. But it seems like there is a huge confirmation bias happening with regard to the personal loot setting where everyone remembers the times when the group got a large number of drops (whoa, 3 piece on personal loot! Normally we would only have gotten 1! Personal loot is so much better!) and conveniently forgets the times when the group gets nothing.

I also don't know if personal loot will be an option for pre-made raid groups. But assuming the overall drop rate is the same and they don't implement some kind of drop rate increase as they did for dungeons, personal loot remains a sub-optimal loot setting for guild raid groups.

[Ramidus]

 I just wanted to throw in a couple of more cents here (since we did away with pennies I am looking at 10 cents minimum so this has more clout right?) about the group loot vs personal loot topic.

From my own experience to date in this new expansion, I feel that group loot is a better way to go for raids. I have had little to no luck with personal loot for gearing, and the pittance of coin that is thrown your was as compensation is so small it would not even cover the repairs of a character death. The groups I have been in have not been tripping over loot from the heavens either. I feel that leaving gearing entirely at the mercy of chance is not a good plan. Maybe later, if we're swimming in enchanting mats and if Blizzard was able to make the system smarter as they had been hoping (checking your characters gear compared to bosses loot tables, and not giving duplicate gear you have already), but at the beginning of a raid tier, when that first boss goes down I want there to be gear on it. Imagine how crappy it would be to down the first boss of a new tier and have no one get anything, and that feeling would just be amplified by the number of boss attempts / raid nights it took to down it.

Mind you I haven't received much more gear with group loot either, but the group as a whole seemed to because there was guaranteed to be something off of bosses (more than just the last one). Last night, for example in Everbloom the spider boss dropped a trinket (on group loot) which for some reason DK's were not allowed to need on. Well I won it and gave it to Will since he said it was an upgrade. Same run, an int offhand dropped and I won it (a heroic version of the normal I already have). I asked Hjorn / Ean how he was for that slot for his healing gear. He replied he had a strength shield so I quickly gave the loot to him. I couldn't have done either of these things in personal loot, but group loot let me make the team stronger.