I like the idea of a zero sum system and I am going to present that to my officers and see what they think.

Thanks Matt!

Crusards last blog post..Let’s Not Get Too Hasty…WoW Wasn’t Built in a Day!

That being said, there’s a fundamental flaw with the “discounted t2 for t1 owners” approach that is hard to ignore. A raid that has a player who owns t1 and t2, and a player who owns a blue item is worse than a raid in which the t1 and t2 items are on two different players.

You say the reasoning for DKP discounting is so that players will not try to skip tiers, but it’s hard to believe that this reason justifies gimping the raid in a very real way. A better way to avoid skipping is to not allow players to skip upgrades. That doesn’t mean that players can’t go from blue to t2 or t1 to t3, it just means that if a t1 drops and there are people in blues that can use it, one of them is taking the item AND paying for it.

To try to skip a tier is pretty much a slap in the face of your guild, given that if you’re in blues and you have reason to believe you might get t2 soon, then you’re probably one of the least responsible for that t1 which dropped. Essentially a skipper is riding the efforts of his teammates and does not even have enough respect for their effort to enjoy the fruits of it. You’re wasting their time. Once your guildmates realize this you’ll probably be gone anyway.

I suspect that the real justification for upgrade discounting is greed. Players want to upgrade cheaply because they want more items, and the less you have to pay for them, the more you can get.

Let’s look at the common misconception that DKP hoarding is a bad thing. The less DKP players spend, the better! Because the less they spend, the less items they take. The fewer items they take, the more the items are distributed amongst the raid. The greater the distribution, the fewer the sidegrades and small upgrades. The bigger the upgrades, the stronger the raid.

Saving DKP for later instances is not necessarily a bad thing. It shows confidence on the player’s part that their DKP has enough value that it’s worth saving. That’s a really good thing! Guilds that foster this sentiment have, on average, higher lifespans. The less DKP a player has, the less investment he has in the guild.

Ultimately this point is somewhat moot because the player that under performs is going to find it harder to get into raids, and it’s hard not to fall behind if everybody else is upgrading and you’re not. If you’re outperforming without taking loot out of the pool, then what’s the problem? Maybe the loot you’re skipping will help the under-performers catch up. Or you can give them a few tips.

Ultimately when choosing a DKP system, guild goals are the most important thing. If the #1 goal is to clear content as fast as possible then loot council or hierarchy makes sense, but in doing so you’re placing the importance of guild stability down there with the importance of defending your capital city against the other faction. Favoritism rarely fosters long term loyalty.

Worth nothing: The guild I’m in has been around since WoW alpha and has lasted to this day. The DKP I earned on our first Lucifron kill can still be spent on a Leo drop. That’s a major accomplishment for a WoW guild, wouldn’t you agree?

Of course its slightly more complicated than that but thats the gist.

Lets say you have a 30 day Policy, and someone (Adam) with a normal 100% attendance policy goes on a 2 week real life vacation. At the same time, you have winter vacation, and a college student (Brad) who normally has 50% attendance gets to hit 100% attendance for the same month starting on the same day Adam goes on vacation. When Adam get sback, they have a 50% attendance policy, and Brad has a 75% attendance policy. By the end of the first month, Brad has 100% Attendance rate, and Adam still has 50%. I think punishing someone for an entire month for missing a few days to go on a honeymoon, or to a family reunion is a little bit excessive, especially if they told you well in advance, and that isn’t the normal playstyle.

DKP already accounts for items vs. attendance. If its not working for you, you’re either giving out too many points, or you need to implement a DKP tax.

Zero-Sum only works if everyone equally wants loot. If you have a large discrepancy in gear, the system won’t work.

We net points for showing up ontime whether you get to go or not. This equals people always showing up! Yay! You get points for how many hours (per hour) you spend in the dungeon learning fights. And you get points for each baddie you take down.

We then use our points to secretly bid on an item. Each item has a cost in points. Say: Cool sword costs 10 points. Person A bids 15 points. Person B bids 20. No one else bids. Person B wins the cool sword, but only pays 16 points (what she would have had to pay to win).

Think of it as ebay for WoW! Only…it’s faster…and you get the stuff in the condition you expect it in.