Raiding as we go forward

[Mirajj]

Well, you know, there's that post about how people think the random loot seed is based on the raid leader, so it's OBVIOUSLY all my fault, and you'll never get any loot at all.  ;)
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I knew it! You h4t0rZ us! No mo hunterz raiding for joo! =)

I've wondered some about that myself, personally. I mean...I can see Blizzard doing that, but it doesn't make much sense. You'd think they'd be interested in rewarding someone who took the inititive to raidlead, instead of kicking them. *Shrug* Stuff drops, eventually. ;) *Shakes fist at LBRS*

[Tharn]

I've been reading this discussion with interest as I get closer to raiding on my EU server

What I don't understand is how class conflicts are resolved

Suppose Stabby Dagger of Uberness drops which will be incredible on a Rogue, good on a Dual Wield Warrior and a noticeable upgrade for a Hunter

Does the master looter call for Rogues first, without the other classes getting a sniff? I can see the logic of that but it has the downside that as a Hunter, once you have your gun and your set there's no point going because you'll never get any decent melee weapon over the hordes of others ahead of you in the priority system
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If you're using some sort of points system, be it bidding DKP or Basin BRP, if you want to spend your points on that item, it's yours. Simple as that.

Btw, we use FFA loot with only designated looter allowed to loot.

Edit: It might also depend how much your guild wants to use loot for progression or not. For example feral druids could and would like to use similar items as rogues, but they obviously are in the healer group for MC.

[kalil]

Miss One Raid: No movement down the list (#$%& happens, right?)
Miss Two Consecutive: 2 spots down the list
Miss Three Consecutive: 6 spots down the list (I get more severe :D )
Miss Four Consecutive: 20 spots down
Miss Five or More: Poof, bottom.

Now, what happens if a person hits every other raid?  Honestly, I'm fine with not moving them at all.  I know people like Mirajj can't always make it because of work, but usually makes at least every other raid, and Mirajj is always a big contributor.
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I don't like the idea of moving people down the list for not showing up... It doesn't seem neccessary.
The problem of people gravitating towards the top when not present is easily fixed. Peg people to a slot and don't move them if they aren't present. For example:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J are on the list, in that order.
A, C, D, F, G, and I make it to the raid. The order, for people present at the raid, would be A, C, D, F, G, and I, for the duration of the raid, you completely ignore B, E, H, and J, who didn't make it. A and C win loot, dropping them down the list. The new order for the raid is D, F, G, A, C. The raid ends, and the people who didn't make it go back to the places they were in, leaving the final list as D, B, F, G, E, A, H, C, I. Make sense?

[Pesmerga]

I don't like the idea of moving people down the list for not showing up...  It doesn't seem neccessary.
The problem of people gravitating towards the top when not present is easily fixed.  Peg people to a slot and don't move them if they aren't present.  For example:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J are on the list, in that order.
A, C, D, F, G, and I make it to the raid.  The order, for people present at the raid, would be A, C, D, F, G, and I, for the duration of the raid, you completely ignore B, E, H, and J, who didn't make it.  A and C win loot, dropping them down the list.  The new order for the raid is D, F, G, A, C.  The raid ends, and the people who didn't make it go back to the places they were in, leaving the final list as D, B, F, G, E, A, H, C, I.  Make sense?
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That was my original intention with it, but I modified it because some don't like the idea of one person sitting at the top of the list, missing 80 raids (exageration), then coming back, and winning loot.

::shrugs::

[Bevock]

This in itself could be a problem in my opinion. Last night we were talking about drops on Teamspeak and the subject of Azuresong Mageblade came up with the comment that mages and warlocks would probably be pretty pissed if a paladin rolled on it as it was more suited for the casters. I contend that if I am to be regulated to the role of cleansing, buffing and healing that this sword would be a boon as it allows me another slot with intellect on it and more importantly + to healing. I'm certain that there are many who would disagree. Same with Aurastone Hammer - some would argue that a paladin shouldn't roll on that either as it would be better served in the hands of a priest or a druid than a paladins. Really begs the question of what deserving means. :)

P.S I really really really want a Aurastone. ;)
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Those looks like great paladin weapons too me. I don't see how those would be better for a priest or mage but maybe I am missing something. That hammer does look great!

[Alrin]

Those looks like great paladin weapons too me.  I don't see how those would be better for a priest or mage but maybe I am missing something.  That hammer does look great!
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Note the + to healing and DAMAGE done.
Note the +1% spell crit chance.
Note the sta.
Note the int.

This is a schweeet caster sword.
Combine it with the grimoire and you got yourself a pimpin' setup.

If paladins can roll on this, so should DEFINATELY casters.
Frankly, I am tired of x class cannot roll on y item.
I see enough of this drama on MJ raids.
I have no qualms against rolling vs say a holy specced paladin when it comes to an item that is clearly meant for multiple classes.
Helps you heal better? Yeah, it also helps me KILL faster.

Oh and its also called Azuresong Mageblade :)

[anadrol]

I agree with the points system, not sure if blind bids are necessary, but its an interesting step to try to lower overall points by making people bid to high to win things. I still dont understand the inflation or limiting thing and how thats implemented.

The problem that you will hear as far as an argument is that people who always come only on saturday will never get loot when others have points, but i dont think thats true.

I like the idea that each person has control if they win an item, perhaps blind bidding makes it more fun not sure. Having control be on the person if they show up and bid will help allevite some of the stress on the raid leaders.

I also dont agree with a boss kill itself equaling all of the points, perhaps being on time and staying until the end of the raid can be a part of points to reward those that dont just get summoned in right before luci, etc. And an argument could be made that those that only join us once a week should have 1/3 the points because they just dont help the raid take down as many bosses.

If the goal is loot itself than should each person get points when we also see random bracer or belt drops as well?

Anyway I think if we can work out a points system thats the thing i will endorse...not because i dont trust a group of people deciding, hell I would probably do fine being one of our tanks that is needed....but I just like putting responsibility in the hands of each member to chose how much they want a specific item. Random is fine as well, but i get increasingly more frustrated with OH, hey guys i'm new guy001 who has not been raiding the last few months while you guys progressed, gee thanks for phat_lewt001, while 30 solid people have been building this alliance over the last 2-3 months and dont get #$%&. At least with a points system these folks can be rewarded. And you know what? those new people can join us and put in the work and get points and decide for themselves if they want to bid on something, they may win you never know.

Anyway thanks, hope this helps our discussion a bit.

[Tuftears]

Here's a possible way to allow raid participation on failed boss attempts to count in a zero-point system - briefly, if you participated in an attempted boss kill, you earn a credit. When the boss finally does go down on a later raid, if this is the first kill of that boss, then the points for the boss's loot are divided among everyone who has a credit, whether they're on this raid or not. You can potentially earn more credits for having been on more attempts.

This is useful for raids where no useful crafting material is likely to drop before the boss in question, i.e. Onyxia or Blackwing Lair.

What do people think?

[Quark]

Here's a possible way to allow raid participation on failed boss attempts to count in a zero-point system - briefly, if you participated in an attempted boss kill, you earn a credit.  When the boss finally does go down on a later raid, if this is the first kill of that boss, then the points for the boss's loot are divided among everyone who has a credit, whether they're on this raid or not.  You can potentially earn more credits for having been on more attempts.

This is useful for raids where no useful crafting material is likely to drop before the boss in question, i.e. Onyxia or Blackwing Lair.

What do people think?
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It devalues one raid (the first succesful after failures), but I can deal with one kill being less valuable if it means everyone who worked towards it earlier gets credit.

[Olon97]

I think that's an excellent suggestion Tuftears. Alternately, you could spread it out over more of the subsequent kills (5 weeks learning with no kill, 5 weeks extra people in the system for successful kills). The only question is at what point does the administration (figuring out which "ghost players" to add to the current raid to handle the adjustments) become too much of a burden.

The suggestion reminds me of some of the ideas tossed around on Tich when we opened the can of worms considering people who get waitlisted despite wanting to go (more likely for you SR folk given the recent Basin merger). We ended up not adding waitlist people to the divisor, and maintaining a policy of waitlisted one week gets priority the next, but I think that decision came down to more practical administrative hassle consideration than necessarily a best fit with our priorities.

[oldmandennis]

It devalues one raid (the first succesful after failures), but I can deal with one kill being less valuable if it means everyone who worked towards it earlier gets credit.
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Exactly, and if it takes you 4 weeks to beat the first BWL boss, then not only is that first kill devalued, but 1 kill / 5 raids is still not a lot of points for the people who were helping learn the encounter. You could potentially have a problem where people were avoiding BWL and doing MC because they don't like being frusterated (legit) come in with a pile of points for kill 2 and snap up tier 2 gear(probably not fair).

Our guild had a example of why I like bidding better then set prices last night. We came with one newb priest and a pile of vets. 2 pieces of priest set gear drop that everyone but the newb had. We have low but meaningful minimums, the newb is just a little bit in debt at the end of the night. If you have set prices, he would be WAY in hock, which would suck if he was trying to save for the eye of divinity or something, or you'd burn the pieces.

One thing we do that might cut down on inflation is maximums. The max bid is 10-12 nights of solid raiding. Nothing has ever gone for that, but it might be stopping some people from just piling points on. If 2 people both want to the max, they random. Discussing bidding strats is officially prohibited, but its not really necessary. People deliberatly bid each item up, because it is in your interest to drain your classmates of their points so you have a better shot at loot.

If I was making a system from scratch, I would say 1 point per hour, rounded up. If you are late, you lose the first hour. If you leave early, you lose the rounding up of the last hour. It's simple, and learning pays as well as pharming. Admittedly my experience is limited (1 game, 1 guild alliance, 3 months), but "inflationary" systems don't necessairly need to inflate.

Also, we go loot council with the core mats. I think everyone who goes with us realizes that if you distribute them evenly in any way, all you will end up with is a bunch of people with junk in the bank and a middling rep with the TB. Have the guild leaders pick someone reliable to gear up the MT as fast as possible, then the OT and rogues.

[Kevin]

One thing we do that might cut down on inflation is maximums.  The max bid is 10-12 nights of solid raiding.  Nothing has ever gone for that, but it might be stopping some people from just piling points on.  If 2 people both want to the max, they random.  Discussing bidding strats is officially prohibited, but its not really necessary.  People deliberatly bid each item up, because it is in your interest to drain your classmates of their points so you have a better shot at loot.
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This is one of the issues a lot of our members don't like. It is adversarial. That isn't what our communities are about. I do not want to cause Anadrol to spend more points than he should have/could have on tank gear just so I have a better shot at the next piece. I want Anadrol and Telsak and Cybitar and and and and and to have as much tank gear as they can get. :) I just want to try and be a bit more fair to the effort that people put in than /random is. I don't want runs to become about loot. I wish I didn't want the damn Draconian Deflector as much as I do because now that place is a damn pindle run for me. I want loot to remain a side effect of having fun playing with other people. :)

I'm convinced there is no best system. I'm pretty sure that a list or a bidding point system is not the best for our situation but I'm not done considering it. In my mind it seems that a council or zero-sum point is the best choice we have though there are flaws in each and of course random can still work for us because well loot is the side effect, it's just a side effect that can be very painful at times because of the design decisions that Blizzard has made. :)

[Kevin]

I have started several poll topics on the Carpe Aurum boards (where it is easy for me to make a poll) to try and quantify how people feel about the various loot systems. I didn't want to lump them all into one poll so there are 5 different topics, one for each major system type. I would prefere discussion about them to stay in this topic but I really want to try and somewhat quantify how people feel about each system to make decisions about them easier so we can focus effort on designing what we think is the best system.

Also if you have any ideas for a type of loot system that you think our alliance would benefit from post it, please. Details are good. :)

[oldmandennis]

People deliberatly bid each item up, because it is in your interest to drain your classmates of their points so you have a better shot at loot.

This is one of the issues a lot of our members don't like. It is adversarial.
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Last reply then I'll let you get on with it in peace. It's not so much adversarial as it is a fuzzy list. Basically, a sweet item, like a set piece chest, will drain you of most of your points, sending you to the back of the list. By bidding it up, I'm putting my money where my mouth is when I say this item is sweet enough to set you back a bit. At the same time, the system is more flexible, so it allows [Ring of Not Much Better then DM] to not send you all the way back.

But you are right, not every system is for every group. I hope I've given you some ideas, and best of luck with whatever you chose.

[WildFire]

Also if you have any ideas for a type of loot system that you think our alliance would benefit from post it, please.  Details are good.  :)
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I am fond of the 'All To Red-haired Gnomes' system myself, but sadly, my guild never seriously considered it.

I blame the collective myopia of the leadership :whistling:

But seriously, whilst I like shinies myself, I like to believe that I don't go out of my way to covet my neighbour's ox. As such, I'd go for any system that the majority of the alliance is happy with, and not have it being questioned by somebody every other month.

[anadrol]

Well, I'd like to think that raid leadership knows who's carrying their weight and who's not... I talk with various people after every run to get their input on how everyone did.

I'm agnostic about this, of course; whatever makes everyone happy is fine with me, although if an idea I just abhor came up, I'd fight it for awhile.  But I think the biggest concern I have is very simple: point systems assume victory, and there have been a lot of people who have been with us on every raid, done their job properly, and have nothing to show for it.  Every failure helps the overall raid team, unless it's a stupid mistake by someone who should have known better.  In cases where there's a chance to give them something useful, I want to make sure they get it.  They've waited long enough.

It absolutely frustrates me that we have people who've attended every Avarice raid, and have been outrolled by people we've never seen again.  It's to the point where if something dropped that would be a serious upgrade for me, but Sharanna would get good use out of it, I refuse to roll.  I have no problem with Ramala outrolling Arleas in a random system; there's really nothing to distinguish between the two as far as who deserves it.  In fact, if we get to the point where we're ONLY using allies, no outsiders... a lot of this becomes moot.  95% of the frustration is two things: outsiders winning things (whether they come back or not), and a lack of drops for Rogues and Hunters.  Pure'n simple.

Something I haven't seen mentioned, just an off-the-cuff idea: if we stuck with a random system, we could designate who is allowed to roll on what items -- and allow everyone in that classification to roll, regardless of whether they already have the item, or what they've won recently, or any other variable... and if they win, allow them to in turn give the item to someone else.  No, it wouldn't be perfect, and such a system would absolutely require an understanding that nobody is obligated to do anything specific with a win, but... realistically, we are none of us loot whores, and we like seeing the people who deserve things get them.  (I am brought to mind of my finally, after 40+ Scholo runs, getting my Valor hat -- because Shalandrax and Telsak declined to roll on it out of respect and courtesy.)
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The single biggest frustration for me is seeing someone win loot when they are at their first raid and then never show up again. It pisses me off to hell. I hope that with the basineers joining us evryone will be avarice from now on that this type of bs wont happen. I like to see us grow stronger as a whole.

[martini]

A loot council would track various things such as attendance loot won, possibly things you do outside the raids to help out, possibly how well you perform. Criteria would be known to all members any numerical ranks that the council used to make decisions would be public. But the council would decide where every piece of epic loot went and where crafting items went. Greens and BoE blues and stuff would be greed rolled for. Details of how the council would work would be discussed with everyone before it was implemented.

Yikes, really? Public criteria, then you make a private decision? This sounds like it's ripe for bad feelings - what if someone can see that they're next in line, as far as the criteria goes, then you give a nice item to someone else (for a very good reason that the council discusses in private)? Feelings of favouritism are inevitable with this kind of system, but if you're publishing your criteria, then any decision that differs from what the criteria numbers spit out would be doubly-scrutinized. Also, I voted in the polls. :)

[Tharn]

Exactly, and if it takes you 4 weeks to beat the first BWL boss, then not only is that first kill devalued, but 1 kill / 5 raids is still not a lot of points for the people who were helping learn the encounter.  You could potentially have a problem where people were avoiding BWL and doing MC because they don't like being frusterated (legit) come in with a pile of points for kill 2 and snap up tier 2 gear(probably not fair).

The motivation for the first kill is beating the encounter.

Loot system is important once you're farming (parts of) those instances.

[Kevin]

A loot council would track various things such as attendance loot won, possibly things you do outside the raids to help out, possibly how well you perform. Criteria would be known to all members any numerical ranks that the council used to make decisions would be public. But the council would decide where every piece of epic loot went and where crafting items went. Greens and BoE blues and stuff would be greed rolled for. Details of how the council would work would be discussed with everyone before it was implemented.

Yikes, really? Public criteria, then you make a private decision? This sounds like it's ripe for bad feelings - what if someone can see that they're next in line, as far as the criteria goes, then you give a nice item to someone else (for a very good reason that the council discusses in private)? Feelings of favouritism are inevitable with this kind of system, but if you're publishing your criteria, then any decision that differs from what the criteria numbers spit out would be doubly-scrutinized. Also, I voted in the polls. :)
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Well it could be private data too but I got a lot of objection to that as well. :)

And has someone linked the polls on the Basin boards?

[martini]

And has someone linked the polls on the Basin boards?

I think Tuft has, but I'll check and make sure there's a link somewhere. Note that we don't have fantastic board participation, so a /nudge in Guilded might be a good idea too. :)