This a though topic.
First off all if you are in a perfect guild, a guild that you know long enough or are mostly RL friends, LC is the perfect way to progress fast.
The problem is that most guilds are mostly a bunch of random guys with max 2-5 people that they know longer. In such a guild DKP is the better system because it is more rewarding for every single player.
/random
EDIT: But I think a Loot Counsil and classofficer keeping a count of their mate attending the raid night is crucial.
And keeping a track of item obtain for a +1 or +2 stuff.
DKP is fine, as long as it decays and you don't allow bidding. I couldn't imagine trying to do loot council for a 40 man raid.
In a world with no corruption and greed, Loot Council is the best system in my opinion. Unfortunately it's not like that in the real world. I've honestly never played in a DKP guild longer than 3-4 weeks, almost all of my playtime has been in Loot Council guilds.
Loot Council is based around item usefulness for the player receiving it, attendance, performance, consumes, etc. It allows a new player that doesn't know anyone to get almost everything (minus stuff like Thunderfury for the main tank obviously) they need if they can play well. DKP puts you way behind and unable to catch up, so you're basically just waiting in line anyway which is how Loot Council guilds tend to go. If you can join a DKP guild at start then I'd say that's perfectly fine instead of joining a Loot Council guild.
Anyway, most Loot Council guilds have corruption even if it doesn't seem like it on the surface, be it due to friends, crushes, lovers, etc, it's unavoidable really. Either a GM and/or Class Leader will gain resentment or even total loss in their friendships and/or relationships over impartialness with item distribution (not everyone is this extreme but I've seen normal coolheaded people outside of raids get very upset and irate in raids over loot distribution) or they will cave to the pressure (even if it's just a little bit, like putting their friend ahead of someone else in terms of item priority) and it ruins the system for everyone.
One thing I really dislike about Loot Council is how touchy of a subject it is, people get hurt and offended if you question their choices and they will use it against you later. If you are the kind of person to complain about loot, do not join a Loot Council guild, it will set you back in your progression and will create even more biases among the higher members in the guild, you will get looked at as a whiner whenever an item drops you need and you might get looked over because of it. Most Loot Council guilds are basically just shut up, farm your consumes, and don't miss any raids.
I agree with Swans. Just yesterday I've been watching some MC runs on YouTube to reminisce and one guild was using LC. Everything was fine until https://classic.wowhead.com/item=16816/mantle-of-prophecy dropped and council awarded it to one of 4-5 priests without a word. The recording player started scrolling chat, looking if he missed questions about who needs it, what item each person has, anything. He scrolled up a couple times. Then he proceeded to inspected winning player. You could say he/she was bothered but didn't say a word. After raid he again started inspecting winner of this item.
And this is exactly what I meant when I was against LC. People won't say, just like that guy, but bitterness will build up and one day blow up. With DKP it's all predictable. Swans mentioned that if you join DKP guild late, you'll miss on gear, however I don't think so. Assuming you join guild who is already raiding BWL and MC is on farm, you'll be behind on DKP but a lot of people already have key items from MC collected. Yes, on BWL items it will be tough for a couple weeks.
awarded it to one of 4-5 priests without a word
That's the issue right there, bad LC. You can do the same with DKP or any system, just because you put numbers over it doesn't mean corruption stops being a problem. You can just "give" people items without a word using any system, it's not an LC specific problem.
I can think and recall a couple of scenarios where it's equally likely that members of a class will collude on a fixed minimum bid for their class's items on DKP, screwing people from other classes when they get to roll on commonly desired items and have more DKP than them.
Or a scenario where I start giving DKP points for certain activities which pertain to only a handful of people/classes. Or another scenario where I place the minimum bid on certain items that I want lower than other items.
People won't say, just like that guy, but bitterness will build up and one day blow up. With DKP it's all predictable.
Yeah, and the guy who raids for 6 months and passes on all the items will get the BiS warrior axe for his off-spec PvP shaman for lulz. I'm sure that's all predictable and nice.
Again, this is bad management. Most people who are put in charge to handle administrative tasks are also the same people put in place to handle raid-organization tasks. Class Leads become Officers become Community Managers become Recruiters and so forth. When you have stupid people doing bad jobs, you end up with resentment that blows up eventually - but that happens in any system.
Assuming you join guild who is already raiding BWL and MC is on farm, you'll be behind on DKP but a lot of people already have key items from MC collected. Yes, on BWL items it will be tough for a couple weeks.
And no matter how good or dedicated you are, you'll still be hindered by coming in late for the party and there's no one in the world that can correct that because there is a minimum bid on DKP and he will lose BiS rolls against other people's OS memes easily.
Any system that goes against what would otherwise be a rational and good choice is a bad system. Fairness is relative no matter how you decide to judge attendance, consumables, performances etc. - whether you do it with a point system or a vote system - but deciding who or what should get which item based on best improvement for the raid isn't as relative.
So when you have to step in and say "we're only using DKP for other people, tank don't abide by the same rule" you're already admitting what a flawed system DKP is and the conversation should pretty much end there. If you're only applying the law in certain situations and then completely disregarding it when you know the law doesn't work, then you know you have a shit law that's only there to bullshit the masses into believing there's justice and that justice actually works. It's the same with DKP - it looks fair because "numbers" but once you realize that those numbers are still decided by people, and only apply to certain players at certain times only for certain activities, suddenly it doesn't look so fair and unbiased anymore.
Nymis, you raise valid points. Just to add context, in this particular run/guild LC discussion was not public. They literally kicked everyone out of voice chat for discussion at each boss.. :lol: But they usually consulted - asked who has what or who wants some item. Most of the time they asked a couple selected people to roll on item. So yeah, that one item was the only item awarded without a word during that raid.
Also, as I said, DKP that I used was full of rules with fixed prices, so yeah. I guess we ran hybrid system.
At first I put Loot Council but I just changed it to DKP.
I've been in far too many guilds, put in far too much effort to be unrewarded a BIS item in favour of an officer getting loot just because.
inb4 you're in bad guilds but getting into a guild with LC that doesnt have at least one greedy officer is trial and error. Hell I don't think I've even been in a guild since Legion's Emerald Nightmare Mythic runs due to my BIS items constantly going towards an under performing (I believe he was around 30-40 percentile) Rogue who was an officer and friend of the raid leader/GM. I'm all for boosting the potential of a player through gear but giving away BIS items to a character who doesn't consider it BIS is a no-no from me and will ever make me hate LC and 99% of guilds.
Lots of interesting points raised. People argue their points passionately, and I think ultimately trying to use the best system etc, keeping the flaws and limits of what one has chosen well in mind and striving to make up for it is the way to go, be it dkp or LC.
I personally feel the open bid zero sum system I made for my guild will cover most of the issues I might worry about. As long as I stick to my arguments and convictions the guild should flourish. Similarly other guilds with other systems should be fine as long as whatever they went with was carefully chosen and thought through. Transparency and stability is likely what matters most to members. Fairness is always subjective.
From another similar topic, copy pasting my reply then to throw a tiny spanner in some big works:
Something that often doesn't come up during these discussions but that I've been a part of to great effect previously (albeit in WotLK rather than Vanilla) is Gold-DKP.
There is a simple set of rules that determine the system, explained here. Essentially, items are auctioned for gold, all gold goes into a central pot that is then evenly distributed amongst the raid at it's conclusion.
This system was used in Gevlon's (The Greedy Goblin) guild on Aggamagan-EU, The PuG. That guild was made up of people that liked to earn gold, and so the system worked well.
Individual items were worth a certain amount to each person that wanted it. If you wanted the item more then you would bid more. Your available DKP was nested in your ability to make gold outside of a raid environment, though participating and getting no new items would still see you making a profit.
There are criticisms against this system, namely that there is no way to guarantee that your MT that comes to every raid is guaranteed the Amazing Shield of MT Power over someone else that has a bit more disposable income and therefore no way to ensure that the progression of the guild is maximised, as is the case with Loot Council.
What Gold-DKP does provide is a stable and impartial method of loot distribution, assuming the pot holder is morally sound.
In The PuG the pot itself and the desire to weed out bad practice meant that penalties had to be paid for mistakes made during raids as well, which helped further incentivise preparation.
Gold isn't as common in Vanilla, but all that really means is that the items that used to go for 1250 gold in WotLK will go for 125 gold in Vanilla.
Like I say, this won't appeal to everyone, especially those who felt that they only made enough gold to scrape by in Vanilla anyway (looking at main tanks and MT healers who typically had to respec 4x or more every week just to float), but equally it may well forge a way for these classes to not have to farm as much, if they're getting the gold they would have looked to farm anyway.
The PuG has a 'no communist collective' rule, but its equally viable that off-tanks may understand that the MT could use a specific piece of gear to improve progression and therefore hold back on bidding.
I myself was in The PuG as a Warrior off-tank and never felt like I was getting less than I deserved when I raided, probably more so than when I raided using classic DKP as a Mage in Vanilla.
Following on from this, there were a number of specific points that made this work in the context of the guild I was in, The PuG:
The aim of the guild was to simulate a simple pick-up-group mentality for forming raids, where there wasn't a specific raid leader, no guild MT or MH or anything like that. Raids were organised by individuals on a case-by-case basis, the only guidance here being that one night a week was tentatively the 'primary' raiding night, just to aid in forming something along a schedule. Outside of that, anyone could make a raid using the in-game calendar (admittedly something that will be missing from Classic).
What this meant was that there was no worry about making sure the MT got enough gear through some other loot scheme, it was up to any individual tank to want to get to that gear level and attend and bid on items. Yes, this definitely had some impact on the potential for progression compared to a non-corrupt loot council, but also the individual members of the guild were almost to a player determined to progress, and would work as hard as possible outside the confines of gear to make sure that this was the case, ensuring that they knew all the strategy required for any potential fight etc. Heres a bit of a rub - this was all but required for players anyway, so new people had to prove that they had done the requisite learning of their class and the fights to come to participate, with rules like 'if your DPS is below the tank you will have one chance to improve there and then or you'll be kicked from the raid'. This was on a per-raid basis, nothing stopping that person improving and trying again in another raid, only serial offenders were removed from the guild.
As in the quote, I saw no issues with any progression when I was in the guild, we cleared all of the WotLK content without issue, even when new players came to raids (and when that happened they frequently got discounted gear anyway as people that raided regularly already had what they needed).
I admit the rules are a bit draconian looking back now, but honestly they worked well with the mindset of the players that actively participated in raiding.
I'm coming late to this discussion but I wanted to put some thoughts as this topic has come up in the guild I'm a part of. I'm wondering if perhaps a hybrid approach might work.
The main issue with Loot Council is that it's easy for it to look biased, or be biased. When you have a small group deciding who gets every piece of gear, there's bound to be disagreements or people feeling like they aren't ever getting an upgrade but Bob seems to get every piece he needs. This can be alleviated a bit if you have members on the council that rotate, so it's not always the officers deciding, but every guild I've been in that has used loot council there was bad blood because someone felt they deserved an upgrade, and it went to someone else instead. You especially see this in the context when a DPS upgrade goes to someone who is higher DPS already and not someone with lower DPS, thereby keeping the high DPS high and the low DPS low. I agree that loot council is the most optimal choice if you want actual progression but it also requires a monumental effort to have people understand how it works and that it is, essentially, a system based on how corporations work. It puts the need of the guild ("the company") above those of the players ("the employees") who enable it to exist in the first place. And just like in real life (more so because this is a game for enjoyment) people will join a guild because it's mutually beneficial to them and not out of some sense that they want the guild to succeed (just like how in the real world you usually don't join a company because you think it's an amazing company and you want to make the owner rich, you join because they offer you payment in exchange for work). A bd loot council guild can be likened to a company that asks its workers to constantly work hard and then never rewards them.
Now the issue with a DKP system and it's derivatives (e.g. EPGP) is that it does the opposite. It's essentially a capitalist system and puts the needs of the player above the needs of the group. Besides the obvious issue with people hoarding DKP (alleviated somewhat by a decay system or things of that sort), you have upgrades go to the person who has the most, usually without caring if it benefits them the most. This can easily result in someone getting a minor upgrade over what would be a major upgrade for someone else, just because they have more points to spend. It can result in key pieces of gear (a tier piece that would give a set bonus, for instance) going to someone else over the person it might benefit more. I've never heard of this actually happening in WoW but in Everquest it even results in items sitting there ("rot") if nobody has the DKP to spend or wants to spend it, resulting in upgrades being completely wasted and not going to anybody due to blind obedience to some arbitrary system. DKP also has the issue of, without modification, being much harder for new raiders to accumulate DKP to bid on items (this impact is lessened by decay but still exists) which leads to frustration because new recruits often get crapped on for gear anyway as some sort of "initiation" process (despite gear being the major reason to bother with raiding in the first place outside of the top guilds who carry name recognition) and not being able to win items even after you deal with the "no loot for trials" nonsense just pisses people off if they feel that they are super low on the priority chain due to everyone else hoarding their DKP.
I have considered a hybrid approach. There are some pieces of gear that are incredibly important to a progression-minded guild, mostly tier pieces, things like the Bindings for Thunderfury, often trinkets and the like. Then there are your "average" upgrades that are just upgrades which anyone might want for the sake of being an upgrade. Therefore, I think it might be beneficial to have a combination system that uses Loot Council for the critical pieces and uses some sort of DKP system for the non-crucial upgrades. This has the effect of making it clear exactly which items will be distributed via a council, keeping things transparent as opposed to the nebulous "all loot goes through the council" system, while at the same time making sure everyone understands that the majority of loot will be distributed in a much fairer manner. While the DKP system can still have some of the drawbacks outlined above, there can be measures added to discourage hoarding or give trials a fair shot or whatnot; I've even seen a DKP system that accounted for and rewarded PUGs so they didn't feel that they wouldn't have a chance of getting loot while at the same time not forcing the DKP system to be abandoned for the night due to inclusion of people outside the guild (it even had provisions if the PUG was extended an invite to the guild to "convert" their DKP earned as a pug to actual DKP used by the guild!).
This hybrid approach, while it's definitely more work than using either system alone (at least to start as you'll need to make a list of what is going to be handled via the loot council, although it's usually apparent), seems to be a good approach to get some of the benefits of both systems without all of the drawbacks. The main flaw of this system is that you can't eliminate the perception of bias when that person gets their 4th piece of tier gear while someone else hasn't gotten any, and still does nothing to prevent the idea of falling behind on points so that you can't bid on anything unless it's the dregs nobody else wants, but having the key items be decided to where they benefit the guild the most while also allowing the majority of upgrades to be distributed with a fairer practice seems like the best of both worlds.
You forgot Suicide Kings from the list.
I have considered a hybrid approach.
This. I have been advocating for a hybrid approach since retail BC. Having participated in suicide kings, loot council, DKP (variations including eDKP and zero sum DKP) and straight rolling. They all have their benefits. From a min/max perspective, loot council will always net the guild the highest value outcome and maximize the raids throughput, but this depends on leadership rewarding players exclusively based on performance (which never happens).
What would my hybrid system look like? Items that were class specific would be categorized into the DKP column. Basically your tier set and any items that are used exclusively by your class (Onslaught girdle for warriors on horde side) would be bid on with DKP. DKP rewards loyalty and attendance, two of the most important variables when gearing your raid is to invest loot into those that will attend.
Loot council for exceptional items including thunderfury. The key here is transparency. These items should be listed on the guilds website/discord and should be accessible for all members to see months in advance.
Rolling. Rolling for items is valuable. Hear me out. You DO NOT want your top tier players to gear to completion and lose incentive to attend raids. You want your top tier performers to gear quickly, so that you maximize your throughput by investing into your best players HOWEVER, you want them to still be incentivized to attend raids by collecting those last few pieces. We're talking ranged weapons for melee dps, rings and neck pieces. You also want new players or players who have dumped their DKP to be incentivized to attend raids. Rolling means that there is ALWAYS a chance that players will have something to gain by attending content.
Complexity? This system would take a ton of effort to organize, but once the system is organized it would be very effective. I would post all of these things on discord leading up to the release of a phase and give raiders at least 2 weeks to a month to voice and grievances they may have before the content is released. Grievances like "Onslaught girdle shouldn't be warrior only because, I'm a ret paladin and I should be able to use my DKP on that item!!!" Etc etc etc. Transparency is the key to avoiding guild drama. DKP is the BEST system for rewarding loyalty. Loot council is the BEST system to ensure valuable items fall into the right hands. Rolling is the BEST system to incentivize players to attend raids when they dont have banked DKP and have no other means of gaining loot. Rolling also prohibits your best players from collecting their full BiS quickly.
On raid night, you have one person who is responsible for DKP. They are dealing with roles and DKP bids. Other than that specific individual, the raid continues pulling to avoid downtime. At first this system would be slow, but over time when less people need items and when people become accustomed to which items are DKP and which are roll, it gets very quick. I have sampled this method on a private server with great success.
I know I am reviving a dead topic, but I was surprised to see no one mentioned a loot distribution system similar to one I like best, and have found to work really great. (for non-hardcore guilds) It uses a council light system with /roll.
BiS Roll > MS Roll > Secondary MS Roll > Off Spec Roll> free for all
Everyone gets 1 MS item to roll on. (BiS item, or item you wish to get for an upgrade)
Unlimited secondary/offspec rolls. (After you already got gear, or if literally no one else wants it and you want it for your off spec)
Roll 1. When gear drops, anyone who needs it for BiS and has not already received a piece of gear for MS may /roll on it.
Roll 2. If no one rolls for BiS, then it opens to anyone who wishes to use it for their Main Spec and has not already received a piece of gear for MS to /roll on it.
Roll 3. If no one rolls for BiS or MS, then it opens up to anyone who wants the item for their MS upgrade to /roll on it. (Players who already received 1 MS piece already from either Roll 1 or 2)
Roll 4. If no one has rolled on the item still, it opens up to anyone who is gearing to switch specs. (Say a dps warrior gearing to become a tank) This person must be in communication with the council and the guild leadership must have approved the spec reroll. (dps warrior doesnt get to roll on raid gear for tanking if the guild isnt open to them raiding as tank later on. They also must prove they are actively working on gearing outside of raids too, such as dungeon between raids for Pre-Raid BiS items, crafting, etc.)
Roll 5. If no one has rolled on it still, open to anyone who wants to /roll on it the winner can chose to keep it for OS, or have the Guild Enchanter DE the item for the mats.
The council light comes in on roll #2, where the council can bar individuals from rolling on gear under certain situations. Such as:
1. If other raid attendees are significantly less geared than the players they would be rolling against. For example player A is geared to the teeth, and this item would be a marginal upgrade to their overall gear set, while players B, C and D all are looking at a major upgrade. Council can selectively bar player A from rolling on items (never BiS items) until they feel that the other players who needed the handy cap have had a chance.
2. Certain players have had unusually bad luck and haven't received gear in the last raid night would get a +5 to their rolls for roll #2 until they get an item. They receive a +10 to rolls if they did not receive gear in the last 2x raid nights, etc etc. This +X to rolls is ONLY for roll#2 and doesnt need to be sequential.
3. The council can determine if a certain player should be assigned the item for reasons X AND unanimous council agreement. This can only be done ONCE per raid and is usually used to give a major upgrade to MT or MH or an unusually dedicated and helpful player as a reward. Once again ONLY on roll#2 and never on BiS rolls. Usually the council and the player(s)/guild leaders know this will be done before the raid even starts. (If X drops and no one rolls on it for BiS, then assigning to Joe because he just ran 60 dungeons last week to help new guild members get pre-raid BiS for this weeks raid)
4. If you show up to a raid, receive gear, and leave the raid before the dedicated raid window is up, council can assign a -5 to all rolls for the next raid. If this occurs frequently for a player, council can decide to bar the players from rolling on any gear, even BiS. Since this barring from rolls cannot happen without the player ditching a raid group early > 1 times, there is little bias here.
I like this system so much, as it works very well for more casual guilds and even guilds who take raiding serious and are only casual in the attendance requirements. (lets face it, there are more casual raiding guilds). DKP rewards the people with endless time to dedicate to raiding, (And works well for guilds who require that), and I have never seen loot council not take attendance or roll into consideration, and in a casual guild discourages people from showing up if better plans come along for the night (As they know the odds of them getting gear are slim to none).
The pros:
1.This means anyone who shows up to THAT raid has a chance at BiS gear
2.A really good chance to get at least one MS piece upgrade even if not BiS.
3.IF you show up to a raid and are unlucky enough to not receive gear, showing up for the next raid night increases the odds even more. (rewards being a team player)
4.Players can strategically withhold rolling on gear, one day to give themselves a +roll boost on their next attendance. (Remember +roll boosts do not
In the more casual guilds, it encourages people to attend, as loot council rewarding the loyal and DPK tends to push people with IRL responsibilities out of showing up.
5.It also encourages people to show up early / on time, as slots are filled on a first come first serve (per roll) basis, and not by gear score.
The Cons:
1.In some situations, your most hard core players may determine that their effort to reward isn't paying off. This can be mitigated with leadership rolls in the guild, or by invoking council privilege to assign gear to them during roll #2
2.Overall guild gearing up may not be the most efficient. Your guild progression will likely be a little slower, as gear assignments are not done optimally for progression. So dont recommend in bleeding edge progression guilds, but I have done this system in progression guilds, and they are just content with progression being delayed a week or two.
3.slots are filled on a first come first serve (per roll) basis, and not by gear score, so this could mean that last week you cleared MC no problem, but this week it is a struggle.
I would be interested in hearing peoples opinions on this system. (I dunno what the name is if it has one) Would you consider using this system or this system slightly modified over DKP or Pure Loot council?
I think something that hasn't been considered is that in vanilla you'll want to have a very good spread of classes. Tier gear should not be getting sharded.
Often LC guilds are going to also be min/max guilds, and it's a mistake to lower the amount of druids you have in favor of pallies or priests when you have Stormrage dropping and no one taking it!
One guild I was in even had an Ashjre'thul drop and all TWO of the hunters already had it because they were so focused on min-maxing. It was dumb. Incredibly dumb.
These guilds simply cannot min/max raid performance and loot distribution at the same time. Instead they would be better off if they kept morale up with high loot distribution. Bring more hunters and less warriors so that the warriors you do have get some gear for once, etc. Don't shard Ashjre'thuls while you have eight warriors waiting for a single Ashkandi drop.
EDIT: Same danger lurks for DKP, and I have probably mentioned that before, but it's how you game the system. If you have a low-pop class in-guild, you can save your points more easily on tier rolls and lie in wait for that big cross-class weapon or trinket.