Isn't there a better way to distribute raid loot? If not which is most fair?

[August]

Zero sum DKP is the only nonbiased, fair way to award loot based on contribution and previous loot distribution.

DKP systems nowadays award inflationary dkp and implement bid systems to balance that massive oversight out.

If I'm in a raid and a piece of loot drops that is worth 100 DKP and there are 25 members at the table, we all get 4, someone spends 100 dkp, and it's done. If those same 25 people continually made every raid and the same scenario played out, all 25 would get 1 piece of loot (for the same amount of contribution) in 25 100 dkp loot drops.

Ran a DKP system for several years both in EQ and WoW with this exact mentality and it worked flawlessly. WoW guild was world top 10 for both years that i ran it - because our members were geared based on how much they showed up and contributed to getting loot (which is another indicator that they do well - we actually down the boss).

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Zero sum DKP is the only nonbiased, fair way to award loot based on contribution and previous loot distribution.

DKP systems nowadays award inflationary dkp and implement bid systems to balance that massive oversight out.

If I'm in a raid and a piece of loot drops that is worth 100 DKP and there are 25 members at the table, we all get 4, someone spends 100 dkp, and it's done. If those same 25 people continually made every raid and the same scenario played out, all 25 would get 1 piece of loot (for the same amount of contribution) in 25 100 dkp loot drops.

Ran a DKP system for several years both in EQ and WoW with this exact mentality and it worked flawlessly. WoW guild was world top 10 for both years that i ran it - because our members were geared based on how much they showed up and contributed to getting loot (which is another indicator that they do well - we actually down the boss).

That's an interesting compromise between loot council and dip and seems to function most closely to alpha ^^ since in essence everyone in 100% attendance is taking turns. The guilds's interests are not directly elevated/satisfied as with loot council and it seems to address Ceci's concerns about strategic spending, which certainly must cut down on the frustration of those who would otherwise be outwitted. It would also aid in retention rate for some because one would realize that they will get the items they want for certain if they are patient.

I like it.

[August]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's an interesting compromise between loot council and dip and seems to function most closely to alpha ^^ since in essence everyone in 100% attendance is taking turns. The guilds's interests are not directly elevated/satisfied as with loot council and it seems to address Ceci's concerns about strategic spending, which certainly must cut down on the frustration of those who would otherwise be outwitted. It would also aid in retention rate for some because one would realize that they will get the items they want for certain if they are patient.

I like it.

The most important part about it is that there is no inflation. More DKP should not enter the system that exits out of it. Inflation is the game-killer, because it allows people with above average attendance to start taking more items than is proportional to their attendance, and the people who are coming to 30% of raids, may only see 10% of drops.

Of course, this means that mobs value varies based on what drops, and how many people are present in your raid. This means that 1 Trakanon raid may be worth 2x another. You can try and skirt this by building a loot table, average raid size, and average DKP value of his drops, and produce a static amount (this is what we did, but it requires that you collect data over the long term). Assuming your trends are correct, average DKP IN == average DKP OUT.

Even then, there are outlier situations that need to be dealt with.

1) You don't down the mob. You'll be really tempted to give your guild attendees points for mobilizing and spending time. Fact of the matter is you weren't successful. Nobody gets a cookie. NO DKP

2) An item (NO DROP) drops and nobody wants it. This is inflation entering into the system. It sucks - if you do it via pure numbers (dkp spent / number of people in raid) just omit the item from the calculation. If you've given static amounts based on statistics, you need to keep track of these items. About once a month you should calculate the amount of inflation compared to total rewarded, and apply a blanket tax equal to the amount across your member base. Something like taking everyone's DKP and reducing it by 10%. This is fair to all active members, and also penalizes 'hoarders' more than those who are actively using and consuming their dkp (for example, if i'm at 0 DKP and i get taxed 10%.. that's 0 dkp lost. I lose 10 DKP if i've saved up 100).

3) An item (DROP) drops and nobody wants it. Create an account for 'the guild' and have 'the guild' be a viable DKP entity. The guild default spends the DKP if it's droppable, and that goes into the guildbank. Thus you are almost guaranteed the guild to be the most negative member, so it never has priority - it's only the dumping ground. This can help with....

4) Tracking. You have to reward your trackers. You can't do it with DKP unless you somehow build that into your system. The guild bank should have plenty of items and you can reward them from this pool. Alternatively

5) Buffer DKP - Decisions in zero sum DKP are based on 'who has the most DKP and wants the item'. You can award trackers, basically (+) modifiers on their DKP when an item is up for consideration, and then wipe out their buffer when they take an item. An easy example is say you have someone tracking Trak, and you decide to award 1 DKP buffer per hour of tracking.

Tracker A - has 20 base DKP, and spends 10 hours tracking, giving them a +10 to roll
Member B - has 25 base DKP

Trak spawns, guild kills him, and he drops AMAZING_ITEM_FOR_TRACKERA_AND_MEMBER_B.

Item price is 20 DKP. Tracker A says he wants it, Member B says he wants it. Tracker A has 20(+10) 30 DKP priority, Member B has 25. Tracker A Wins item:

Tracker A now has 0 DKP (and no buffer)
Member B now has 25 DKP.

This means that trackers get PRIORITY on gear but not more DKP, and once they use their buffer they're back to normal. This incentivizes tracking for high priority items. Alternatively, the tracker can trade in their buffer DKP to the guild bank for items of equivalent DKP value (droppables).


Anyways, i got bored and just wrote out some of the rules we used to enforce. Hope it helps someone.