EPGP Values

[Zxian]

Hello everyone,

Our guild has worked on a simple roll based loot system for a long time, but it's become apparent that some players are contributing more, and having newbies "steal loot" from them is simply unfair. As such, we're going to be moving towards an EPGP loot system from now on. I had a few simple questions for other GMs or Raid leaders who use this in their guilds to help us get off the ground.

First off - how does one decide on an appropriate value of EP to award members? I know the commonly chosen topics include showing up on time (includes being prepared), time spent in raids, bosses downed, wipes on new content, etc. Any insight on how to fairly alot EP values would be greatly apppreciated.

Second - do most people simply use the GP values given by the EPGP addon? It seems to do all the work for you, which is nice.

Third - Decay rates? Would 10% per week be an appropriate decay rate for EP?

Finally, because I'm paranoid about this topic in general - backups. How well does the EPGPweb system work?

Basically, I'm just slightly nervous about starting this up and botching it in the first week. Any insights or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
-Zxian

[Karatheya]

The EP values you use are irrelevant, as they aren't spent like cash. If you award 1000 EP per boss kill, people will be ordered the same as if you award 10. People like seeing big numbers, so I lean towards the former.

What is important is the relative amount of EP you give for different things: boss kills for farm vs progression, time spent raiding, bonuses for being on time or exceptional performance. Those need to make sense when viewed side-by-side.

As for GP values, you'd be very silly to use anything other than the values that the addon calculates for gear. It's a record of what was received, not something that you spent. If you used your own values, you'd have to re-calculate values for absolutely everything in the game, both now and in the future. You'd also have to make sure that you accounted for the slot modifiers so that the cost of a full set of tier gear + mainhand / offhand / ranged was the same for each class and spec.

10% decay sounds fine. Work out what the longest break you are comfortable with people taking before they are seriously penalized and figure out how many weeks your decay rate takes to get there. A 10% decay will take about 7 weeks to drop someone to half of their initial EP; 15% will take about 5 weeks to do the same. 20% does so in 3 weeks.

As for backups, I suggest you simply get a good backup program to back up your LUA files. You don't need EPGPweb to back things up - it's more to let people see their values outside of the game. I've never liked the idea of putting my data on someone else's systems. For backup of all my WoW UI (and the EP/GP values are backed up in the addon's saved variables files) I use a program called Cobian Backup:

Cobian Backup

It's free to use and automatically creates a zip of my UI every day, keeping 7 generations. Weekly, I copy the latest backup to an external HD. While I've lost a drive and sometimes screwed up my UI settings, I've never had to start from scratch since I started using the system. Get two regulars in the guild to do this and you shouldn't have to use EPGPweb unless you have a need to publish your member values to the web. I've never found it to be that important.

It does sound like in some ways you're getting caught up in the "EP and GP as cash" mindset that is common when coming over to EP/GP from a more traditional DKP system.

I wrote up an article on EP/GP a few months back that might be of some help to you:

The EP/GP Loot System « Cold Comfort

And a follow-on one about EP rewards:

It’s Raining EP – Cold Comfort « Cold Comfort

My loot policy showing the values I use may also be of some help:

Loot Policy

As you can see, I use EP rewards scaled to the thousands. Hopefully that helps some; feel free to ask questions if you have them.

[Horaxe]

The only thing I would add to what Karatheya said is this, make sure you have the miscellaneous items covered too. By that I mean Trophies of the Crusade, Regalias, etc. You need to get with your officers and agree on a standard for handling these items. Initially we had trophies valued at the GP for the Chest item that the trophy was used for. Then when we transitioned to heroics, we lowered the value of the trophies to that of the gloves GP. The reasoning being that the higher amount kept someone from going in on a single run and taking every trophy. Similarly, we ask people to only take trophies if they have the Emblems already.

I say this, because we like you went from rolls to EPGP as a casual raiding guild and the first night we realized as we downed the Beasts that we hadn't thought of how we were going to handle the Trophies. Some quick thinking fixed it, but it's definitely not a fun feeling to realize you overlooked something like that.

[Zxian]

Thank you both for your insight. Karatheya - thank you very much for those links. You were right - I had been thinking of EP/GP as a "cash" system - I've got that sorted out now.

Would you mind if I copied some of the values and policies from your website for our guild? Reading through them, it looks as though pretty much everything is the same as what I had been planning, but just not put down onto (digital) paper. The only difference that I would make is on special items such as Archivum Data Disc (we're still working on hard modes), or back in the day, the Key to the Focusing Iris.

[ck5uperman]

We use our EPGP for only 25 man raids.

Raid Night 1 :

25 VoA: EPGP OFF (if vault is up)
25 Ony: EPGP ON 1000EP/20 min (no wipe/progression bonus)
25 VoA: EPGP OFF (if vault is up)
25 ToC: EPGP ON 1000EP/20 min (no wipe/progression bonus)
25 ToGC: EPGP ON 1000EP/20 min (Bonuses On)

Raid 2:
25 Ulduar: EPGP ON (We are just starting this tonight, I don't know what to do yet)
25 ToGC: EPGP ON 1000EP/20 min (Bonuses On)

Raid 3:
25 Ulduar: EPGP ON (TBD)
25 ToGC: EPGP ON 1000EP/20 min (Bonuses On)

Below, I will attach a quick EPGP Clarification post I made for my guild. You may or may not find it helpful. I haven't update it yet since our raid schedule changed.

My question to others: I want to use EPGP on 25 Ulduar. When we left Uld we were 8 bosses in. My initial thought is that this raid is NOT PROGRESSION. But, then again, we are only 8 bosses in, so the later bosses ARE PROGRESSION.

Is there a way that I should properly scale my awards in 25 ToC to my awards in Ulduar? Should I award progression bonuses on bosses we haven't downed in Uld? I know these are personal decision, but I am curious as to what others think.

My starting idea is 200EP/20min + 1000EP bonus on progression wipes.

[ck5uperman]

Clarifying [Almost Epic] EPGP

Decay is set at 7% weekly, Minimum EP to 4500 and Base GP to 250. This means that you can't roll until you reach 4500 EP, and when you do, you GP will be 250 to start.

Any 25 Man raid will award 1000EP every 20 minutes. Up to 4000EP bonus can be awarded per boss kill (this is usually reserved for new progression bosses or an amazing achievement.)

Bonus EP can also be awarded by raid leaders in any fashion they so choose, so long as the awards are not outrageous. Wipe bonuses may also be awarded.

If you are on standby you receive the same EP as the rest of the raid, excluding the bonuses. You can receive standby EPs by being in the raid or by whispering your name to the raid leader on every reward. Standby means that you are available at a moments notice without any undue delay.If you are called for a replacement while on standby and you are found unavailable, up to 9000 EPs will be deducted from you.

Farming items for the guild or otherwise helping the guild outside raiding time can get you EP and it will be awarded depending on the size of the job. This will be awarded as decided by the Guild Master, up to 9000 EPs. MAIL THE GM THE ITEMS FIRST SO HE MAY GIVE YOU AN IMMEDIATE AWARD

You can incur penalties if you fail repeatedly on an encounter, after a warning, you will be replaced from the raid if the standby bench permits it. In either case you may get a "yellow card" which means you are unable to get any loot for the rest of that raid ID (until next reset). This is only in extreme cases

NO CALL NO SHOW = THE WORST THING EVER! If you NCNS you will be deducted up to 9000 EPs.

If you come to a raid unprepared you may be deducted EPs

If you leave a raid early, you may be subject to an EP deduction of up to 9000 EPs, or in certain circumstances a gkick.


GP for Items
Items are split in two categories:
100% GP Items: items that benefit your pre-agreed and assigned Mainspec
50% GP Items: Offspec: items that do not benefit your Mainspec
Mainspec > Offspec

Trial cannot spend EP until they reach 4500GP. Then they are treated as normal members for terms of EP. THIS IS SOMETHING WE CAN CHANGE TO A HIGHER NUMBER.

Trophies - These are done by priority. If you have not looted a trophy you select mainspec. If you have, you select offspec. Then top priority gets the trophy.

Mounts, bags, satchels, keys (not reserved for raid leaders), and non-performance enhancing items
Items that are not enhancing your toon for raid performance are going to be rolled to the 10 most active members of the raid. These are the 10 raid members with the highest EP totals. This means if a /roll 10 results to N, the Nth member sorted by EP wins the item.
For example – the following 10 players are on a raid and are listed in descending order of EP; (Slowcumb has the most EP. Frankfrankerson has the least EP.)
1. Slowcumb
2. Gormath
3. Slarful
4. Gartheye
5. Garthhog
6. Zeus
7. Hercules
8. Hera
9. Quashsmash
10. Frankyfrankerson
The lootmaster will read down the top 10 EP list, then roll /roll 10.
If number 5 on a /roll 10 is rolled by the raid leader. Therefore, Garthhog receives the item.

FEEL FREE TO POST QUESTIONS BELOW!

[Budaj]

Hi ive been reading a lot about the epgp system and i've got it all set up and ready to go.
My question is the best way to go about starting it up. At the moment we have people in the guild that have put a lot of time and effort into helping the guild grow and progress, but we have a lot of new members as well.
If I was to start up the epgp system would the best thing to do be to give people who have put in time and effort in the past the Min EP value right off and leave new members at zero?
I'm trying to figure out a "fair" way to go about this.
This is pretty much all im stuck on before i go ahead and turn this baby on.
Any advice is appreciated!

[ck5uperman]

I completely wiped everything when we started EPGP. I did this to start everyone on an even playing field. However, you don't have to. It really depends on how you think your guild will respond.

[Budaj]

How'd your guild respond with everyone starting out equal?

[Jackripster]

We just converted over to EPGP from NiKarma. NiKarma had achieved what it set out to do, but looting was slower, the system less transparent and generally more confusing for new members.

Anyway we did a bit of testing to make sure we converted over as fair as we could. From reading posts we soon realized the EP doesnt matter a great deal provided its even, so we simply converted 1 karma to 10 EP. The trickier part was the GP, if that started at zero you'd have new people winning key items over vets second drop, which was unacceptable to us.

Via some testing we settled on a starting/ base GP of 1000, this smoothed out the early wild swings and allows our vets 3-4 items over an equally gear newer person. The system has been great so far, with loot distributed much quicker using the epgplootmaster addon. Being able to customize the buttons with this addon is simply awesome, we set it up as per our priority order with mainspec, minor upgrade(25% cost), priority offspec(nominated classes for tank/ healer gear generally), casuals, offspec and of course pass.

[ck5uperman]

How'd your guild respond with everyone starting out equal?

It was mostly the officers and veterans who lost their EP. They have a "what's best for the guild" mentality- it wen't fairly well.