We are trying to build a guild were the members already understand what is best in slot for them and others they compete with

I can tell you right now that I compete with 3 others for Plate. 2 of them and myself have a really good understanding of what is the best for each of us and the 3rd person is coming along nicely as well.

I do not want to have to think for people when it comes to gear. I want them to take the responsiblity of researching their class and taking that decision out of the loot council’s class.

Its also up to you as a member to talk to those people making bad decisions and refer them to the proper resources

I am not really too concerned with “Best in slot” items at this point. I will wait till ulduar too voice that opinion when the time comes(though I do voice that already in officer chat for loot). I am more interested in seeing how people react to others trying to get gear.

“This type of system is designed to optimize gear drops by placing them in the hands of those who will have most use for them. This may sound like the best players receive every item, but in practice, this is not true. A well-functioning Loot Council uses gear drops both to reward players for excellent performance and to help raise players to the group standard. Sometimes–perhaps often–the Council will reward the weakest player in a class and spec. All decisions are made for the good of the group, and no good items are sharded. Each member of the Loot Council must be extremely well-informed about the loot tables themselves and about the needs, wants, and skills of the player base. If a player on the Loot Council is interested in a gear drop, he or she generally bows out of the discussion on the item in question.”

2. Comments are important to read as well. When people disagree with you, they present a view that you’ve not experienced (for example, some mentioned that LC may not work effectively in casual guilds). Obviously, you want to skip over insulting comments (really, people? why stoop to childish name-calling?).

3. Perhaps it’s worthwhile looking into guild types and loot systems that work with them. You’ve written posts on guild etiquettes, and I think loot is just part of it. If everyone in the guild knows what the guild is about and understands their roles, then honestly any system will work. Yes, nobody is truly selfless, but any mature person will know that being greedy only destroys the guild in the long term.

4. Skipping minor upgrade is an issue right now since content is easy. Why get a 0.5% upgrade on farm content when you can raid next week and go towards the 2% upgrade? Especially for casual guilds, they’re not about min/maxing, and therefore have no incentives on requesting minor upgrades.

Come Ulduar time, a different system will be needed because the content will be harder, and any upgrade over T7 should be applied (sharding would be very unwise), if the guild desires progression at all.

Anyways, thanks again for your posts. They’re always enjoyable (even if some are disagreeable).

I think it’s fairly clear why someone would pass over a minor upgrade. You’ve mentioned that the size of the upgrade is one factor in determining who gets what. If a person has the 3rd best weapon and the 2nd best weapon drops, he’ll be tempted to pass over it, thinking that if the #1 weapon drops, he won’t get it. This is even more pronounced when that #1 weapon is clearly the best. The urge to have the best and be the best is prevalent in every high-end progression guild. It’s not a major leap to think that these types of raiders might try to massage the system to get the best gear.

Also, people won’t always come to you first when they have a loot disagreement. You and the LC hold the key to all future loot that person might get. That’s a lot of power and the person might not feel comfortable complaining. You might get angry with them and unconsciously hold it against them in future decisions. I’m not saying you would, I’m just saying why people might not feel that they can talk to you about such things. First thing they’ll usually do is complain about the decision to their close friends. If it made them really angry, it could lead to a whole clique of friends secretly fuming against the LC’s decision. The bad thing here is that it doesn’t matter if the decision was the right one. You’re still going to get blamed and may not know anything about it until the drama is at your doorstep.

Currently top-end raiding is fairly drama free for all guilds. The only problem I see is keeping your members motivated until Ulduar comes out. Loot is easy to get and falling from the sky for just about everyone. I’m not saying your LC will fail, I’m just saying that LC is an inherently flawed system and it’s better to know what caused other LC’s to fail so you can hopefully recognize and avoid those pitfalls when they happen to you.

Kittss last blog post..So Close, Yet So Far

There are of course pros and cons to this, if you have 5 clothies, all deciding that certain gear is best for certain classes, then the peer pressure comes into effect, 1 or 2 might not agree but they feel they have to go along with the rest. This usually leads to /gquit’s and arguments later.

But in any good guild, the officers/leader should be able to iron these out, and let all members know their opinion is wanted and will be given weight in decision making.

@ apokteino, I have to agree with your friend, if the thinking is similar, I hate when I spend hours and hours farming heroics/mats to make gear and buy gear to improve my character to the point of doing TOP performance in raids, only to have people that just ding 80, and stand around waiting to get their hands held through raids and of course the items are a bigger upgrade for someone that hasn’t done a heroic or crafted any gear at 80, so you lose out, all your work is to basically gear out a slackass.