[orcstar]

You can set anything you want in the rules, just make sure you're not caught by surprise. Things which are only theoretically possible will happen. (murphy's law)

So if you can think up some unlikely things about your lootdistribution, they will probably happen with your pants down.

Some examples which caught my guild with its pants down
-A person getting a vanity item, not an upgrade, while it was an upgrade for someone else. (I think it was some kind of cool fistweapon from Al'ar)
-Our rogues (who were on top of dkp and very close to eachother) not getting ANY upgrades and passing on everything in Black Temple to make sure they had highest dkp on the warglaives.
-People wanting to do farmcontent instead of progressioncontent because the risk-reward was better for farmcontent. (read our dkp system gave dkp for kills, not tries on a new boss.)


In these cases we followed the lootrules but the results were not optimal. So think about the things which you don't want to happen and cater your lootdistribution for that.

[Tatt]

My guild has a surprisingly easy loot system that has worked well so far into Hyjal. Main>Alt>Offspec, and only 1 piece of gear per night. Sounds simplistic, but how can you argue with a free roll based on that system? We have literally 0 loot drama, if you win it great, if you don't it'll drop again so who cares, and everyone stops worrying about loot

[orcstar]

Source: Tattman2an My guild has a surprisingly easy loot system that has worked well so far into Hyjal. Main>Alt>Offspec, and only 1 piece of gear per night. Sounds simplistic, but how can you argue with a free roll based on that system? We have literally 0 loot drama, if you win it great, if you don't it'll drop again so who cares, and everyone stops worrying about loot

At first sight such a loot system might sound ideal, but bad things are hapening with that.
If you can think it up it will happen.
Let's say your competing with one other warriortank for gear. Each run 1 tanking item drops and the other warrior wins each run and after about 2 months you're still running around in your SSC gear, because that darn loot only wants to drop that one time. I would like to ask you then if you think the loot distribution is still ok?
And it's exactly what I've seen happen.
Some people might argue when rolling, in the end it all evens out but statistics will prove that wrong.
What happens when rolling is that a few people get more then average and a very few a lot more, most of the people will get about average and a few people will get below average and maybe one person will just always seem to lose.
If you're that one person having a streak of bad luck, raiding can become very frustrating.

(We had a shaman in guild with blue shoulders in Black Temple because he was out of luck every single time for shoulders and he started with us in Karazhan. If he was in the raid, shoulders would not drop, if he wasn't we would get lots of shoulderpieces. But tbh that wasn't because of how the lootsystem worked.)

[Tatt]

Only thing I can say about that is if the tank who keeps winning isn't a decent enough human being to see the trend and help the other guy, than I would not want to raid with him anyway.

[orcstar]

Source: Tattman2an Only thing I can say about that is if the tank who keeps winning isn't a decent enough human being to see the trend and help the other guy, than I would not want to raid with him anyway.

That's not the point. And, decency is relative, if you're in the position to set lootrules you're also in the position to get rid of the need for "relative".
Make a better system, which doesn't rely on human decency and then there is still room to always pass on an item.

[phaze]

Source: giwsgib Can anyone direct me to this?

Are you asking about the stickied thread on Guild Loot Distribution?

Source: Tattman2an Only thing I can say about that is if the tank who keeps winning isn't a decent enough human being to see the trend and help the other guy, than I would not want to raid with him anyway.

Your system doesn't require the winning player to keep tabs on the other player(s), therefore you have no solid basis for determining when the winning player should see any trends / pass on gear for others.

In order to correct for that, you'd have to track loot/attendance/etc, and assign values accordingly; that's a point system, whether it's explicitly written down or just "everyone should know when it's not their turn".

If your guild can function perfectly with a simple free-roll system, great! But don't expect the players to be self-imposing additional constraints, if they're not spelled out in advance by the system.

[Ceravantes]

Just because a free roll based system has worked thus far, does not mean it will continue to do. Guilds implode over loot more often than anything else, eliminating as much possible trouble ahead of time is the entire reason for a loot system.

This does not mean complicated, but it does mean precise. Free roll absed systems leave to much room for error or hurt feelings and will inevitably cause trouble.

[Inaara]

Source: Paruhdox There is a large misconception sometimes when it comes too loot. No matter what the system, people expect it to be fair but that will never be the case. There is a hierarchy in the guild structure and the people that set the most finite of rules for loot still make the system they want fair or not. Our guild uses a loot council and the reason we do it is because we base the loot we give out, on the "benifit" to the guild. I just want to explain what our system attempts to achieve and it does do a fairly accurate job. Our system is based off a few things: 1. Who would benifit most from the item? 2. If this person benifits the most, is he active enough and does he put the time in to deserve it? (this does not mean that people without 100% attendance don't get loot, it just means that they wont get as much.) 3. The last thing we look at is how much loot has this person taken already? and make sure that loot is being distributed fairly. There are a few exceptions to this rule, one being the main tank. He/I will take any loot we can use. This isnt because we are greedy, but because the guild benifits more for every piece of gear we have. This does put tanks on the spot sometimes, but it is a role some people chose. The tank that gets the loot also probably maintains a high 99%-100% attendance. Two reasons I personally am a fan of this system: 1. It weeds out the people that raid for JUST epics, the people who log on for farm nights and not progression nights. Often these people get very aggitated when they get no loot because all they do is show up for old content and leave. This is not to say people do not raid for just loot, and some people do both. They raid for loot but attend progression nights, they earn their loot. 2. This system make it the easy to complete new encounters. In my opinion from past experiences this systems causes faster progression which in the end gets you more epics. The people who do want to progress and just log on for farm content are ususally to dim to realize that PROGRESSION = more dead bosses = more dead bosses = more purples.

Our loot council is done EXACTLY the same way and it is by far the best loot system I've had experience with. Our loot council consists of 6-7 players covering every aspect of tank/dps/healing so that we as a whole can make the best decision for the guild.

As for rewarding people for farming mats like herbs/primals, we buy it from them at a higher rate than the auction house using guild bank gold. It's also not hard to remember who's putting in alot of hard work for the improvement of the guild and that little bit extra can get them that purple over someone that doesnt put in the extra effort.

[Krashtork]

Loot council sucks because it begs to be abused. It may not be actively being abused, but the fact that it allows for abuse is sketchy at best.

[Tatt]

Our guild is absolutely free roll, to the point that I was sent an angry tell from the guild leader for suggesting we discuss who would get Solarian's Sapphire, simply to make sure the melee warrior who attended the most and was in the right group would serve the raid the msot good with it. We are very strict about loot, just not the way people think.

[Krashtork]

So you're very strict about not being strict?

[Tatt]

Sounds like it doesn't it? I think we are strict about loot never being an issue. We won't let the raid implode over loot, because even at the kara level they made the loot rules, and being a small guild (30-40 people), all of who are raiders, then if we all started this way, it does not seem so strange. Loot is only a guild breaker if you let it be. Especially at this stage how can loot be a big deal? Unless we are talking about warglaives or the orange bow, what isn't going to be replaced in the next 6 months? Anyone playing right now who is only in it for the loot needs to step back and get some perspective.

[phaze]

Source: Krashtork So you're very strict about not being strict?

Eh?

He's stated his guild's loot system, and he's stated that his guild experiences no problems with it. What exactly are you asking him?

As has been mentioned previously in the thread (and others): choose the system that works for your guild. Picking the system is up to you.

[Krashtork]

Source: Tattman2an Sounds like it doesn't it? I think we are strict about loot never being an issue. We won't let the raid implode over loot, because even at the kara level they made the loot rules, and being a small guild (30-40 people), all of who are raiders, then if we all started this way, it does not seem so strange. Loot is only a guild breaker if you let it be. Especially at this stage how can loot be a big deal? Unless we are talking about warglaives or the orange bow, what isn't going to be replaced in the next 6 months? Anyone playing right now who is only in it for the loot needs to step back and get some perspective.

Thanks for the straight up answer. That does make some sense if you have a small tight guild of all raiders. That way no matter who gets the loot there is a benefit.

[orcstar]

Well in the en it boils down to this: everyone uses what works for them. Just stick to what you do and never ever change a lootsystem on the fly while raiding.

[Doc309]

thinking that a zero sum ep/gp system works really well...

PRiority for loot = Effort/Gear

with EP = GP passed out / number of raid members.
you helped pass out more loot than you've taken your PR is higher.

[Tatt]

Problem I had with EPGP is guys who were always backups, I.E. not good enough to be a main raider, would accumulate points for sitting in org or doing BG's while we were raiding, than would show up in a raid once a month and get whatever gear they wanted.

[Doc309]

thats due to the divide by zero problem.... if the EP and GP is set to 1 and 1, problem gone.

[Valley]

An idea I've run across that I feel some people may make sure of.

In my main's guild they have a rule. If an item is going to be de'd, or offspec. You can offer up 2 voids from yourself to the guild bank for the item instead. The offspec will still kinda count against you.

This just benifits the guild bank as it lets them always get 2 voids from something no one is going to really use. It does have some flaws with it as just a blanket idea. however in some aspect I hope that someone may make some use of it.

(guild was primarily lootcouncil w/ a large attendence backing. They only really tracked the previous 3 weeks of attendence to back the council decisions.)

[mero12513]

My guild uses EP/GP and it's worked very well.
Two things about epgp that make up for some problems:
Base GP: Everyone in my guild has 420 GP minimum at all time. You cannot go below this.
Decay: both ep and gp decay at 10% per week. This doesn't change priority unless you have no EP or are at the Base GP. This way, people who never actually come to raids and thus never get gear can't stash ep and auto-win.