3 70 The Perfect Loot System

3 70 The Perfect Loot System

Drecca is the lone survivor of a heroic Rotface kill,
Icecrown Citadel

What Makes the Raid Go Round

Heroic work began in earnest immediately following the Lich Kings defeat at the start of April. Drecca continued to make a name for himself by being the sole survivor of a desperately close attempt on heroic Rotface, and the screams that filled Vent poured the concrete around his ankles -- he was one of us now, and there was no turning back. By this point, Drecca was not only charging head-first into heroic bosses for the 25-Man progression team, but was assisting Mangetsu with the Alt-25 with increasing frequency. As our roster grew, fewer spots were available in progression, so the Alt-25 continued to garner interest from both guildy and stranger alike. The good news was that both Mangetsu and Drecca felt strongly about keeping standards high in the Alt-25, and this trickled down in the form of a strict set of rules to be followed as described on the forums. It was nice to see guildies finally taking pride in their play, and the result was a surprisingly successful 2nd 25-Man team.

When Mangetsu picked up the Alt-25, GDKP was the loot system first discussed, the reasoning being that non-guildies could be persuaded to help out. The concept of pouring gold into a pot to reserve a spot in the lineup worked surprisingly well, and if players hoped to see any of that money back, they were forced to stay throughout the duration of the raid. We knew nothing about non-guildies, hadnt vetted them, and couldnt vouch for the presence of any integrity or reliability -- the promise of a "damage deposit" was a convenient method of due diligence. But the success of the Alt-25 grew to such a level that it was eventually staffed by all DoDers, and GDKP gave way to a simpler solution: Need Before Greed rolls, with one Need per night. As soon as you "Needed" on an item (and won), that was it -- you were relegated to Greeds for the duration of the run. I wasnt particularly fond of NBG, due to the randomness of the roll and the fact that it had no memory; players who had raided since forever could lose to the newbie of the week. But, it wasnt the loot system that the 25-Man used, and I was fine with Mang using it in Alt-25; if anything, the DKP system of the 25-Man progression team acted as a carrot for those driven to get out of Alt-25 and to one day be a part of the guilds historic first boss kills.

As sound as our progression teams loot system was, there were still problems creeping up. The first-round bidding system I developed as as a perk for the Elite rank had backfired a number of times already. The last time it bit me in the ass was when an "alt" or "off-spec" bid ended up winning an item, denying it from a player who was bidding for their own main spec. At the start of 3.3, I amended the system to allow players to categorize their bids by adding "off" (eg. 20 DKP off), and any off-spec bids would be cast aside if even one main spec bid was on the table. But that wasnt the end of the problems for our loot system -- very quickly into ICC heroics, more loopholes were becoming evident.

"Crimson Acolyte"
Artwork by Nancy Cho

Loot Fears Float

Players like Deathonwings the shaman had no main spec. Each week, players like Wings flipped back and forth from Elemental to Restoration, an incredibly helpful type of player for a roster in a guild like ours, as they could fill a variety of needs at any given moment. We called these players "floaters", floating from spec to spec as the guild needed them to. As expected, some floaters were good enough to qualify -- and eventually arrive at -- the distinguished rank of Elite. Once Elite, Wings fully expected to start 1st-rounding bids on some of the most top notch items falling off heroic ICC bosses. But...for what spec? Was it fair for Wings to 1st-round items that were Elemental and Restoration? Of course not! But the alternative was to forfeit his ability to 1st-round...which was one of the primary reasons guildies pushed for the Elite rank in the first place. Floating as a reflection of roster need should not have come with a penalty...but it did.

Another type of floater caused me great concern as well, but these players had more selfish intent behind their decision to change specs. These were the players who had simply grown listless, requesting a change to help alleviate the doldrum now apparently baked into their everyday raid life. Id suffered this first hand, so tried to keep perspective when players came to me about expressing their need to switch to a role that was more exciting. And I had no problem with purposeful role switches...until it came time for them to leverage their 1st round bidding rights as an Elite. I became painfully aware of this loophole when it affected me directly: the night Omaric attempted to bid 1st round on a freshly dropped heroic Deathbringers Will -- a trinket long sought by pure DPS classes that had been waiting patiently. I wasnt particularly happy with Omarics decision to seek the trinket before other non-floaters had their shot...but there was nothing in the rule book that said he couldnt. My recently promoted 2nd-in-command, Sir Klocker, confirmed the issue in a forum topic expressing current concerns...and it had been going on longer than I cared to admit.

There was no such thing as the perfect loot system, but I often daydreamed about what that might look like. I theorized that it would be a DKP system that weighted your earnings based on the role that you played. In this alternate reality, a player would keep four pools, separated by role: melee, ranged, healing, and tank. As raiders toppled bosses, logs were generated and uploaded to sites like World of Logs, and a breakdown of their contributions would appear there. In my minds eye, I foresaw a report that read like so:

Tank / Melee / Ranged / Heals
-----
Bretthew: 98/2/0/0
Mangetsu: 0/0/100/0
Wfredlund: 0/12/0/88
Mature: 48/52/0/0
Gunsmokeco: 0/0/0/100
Deathonwings: 0/0/76/24

If such a magical tool existed, breaking down an individual players contributions, bids on specific types of loot would be far easier to manage. If Wings saw an exceptional elemental staff, hed know that hed have 76 DKP to bid on it...1st round, if he so chose. Likewise, those who took to a new role out of boredom would be free from facing the wrath of the fellow guildmates as being deceptively evil with their 1st-round bids. A player freshly floating from tank to melee, for example, would have no melee DKP accrued at that point, and would have to work towards it from scratch. If such a loot system could be, no player in my guild -- regardless of rank or contribution -- could argue it was unfair: players bid exactly what they earned, and their earnings were exact reflections of level of contribution.

It was a wonderful make-believe system. The problem with it was primarily the make-believe part. Could I build it, I wondered, perhaps as a plugin to eqDKP, or maybe even reach out to the owners / administrators of World of Logs. Maybe there was a set of rules we could come up with to determine how to break that analysis down, displaying it in subsequent reports. But it ate away at me. This is too complicated, too much to administrate. Theres no guarantee the people at World of Logs will ever get on board with this craziness. Keep it simple and compartmentalized within DoD. So, back to the drawing board I went.

Contributions vs. Consistency

A sample of Hanzos notes during one
of several attempts to theory out a
better loot system for DoD

"Ive been pouring a lot of energy into a theoretical new system Ive come up with. And I need it picked apart. Can I forward you my scribblings?"

"Sounds good."

I flipped over to Google Documents, and shared various drafts of my high level concepts over to Cheeseus. The loot system centered around an emergent behavior of players wishing to fill multiple roles, "floaters", and how they would be handled fairly when going up against players uninterested or unwilling to do so. My initial idea was to split DKP into four pools, then using a custom tool to analyze raid reports would subdivide the players earnings appropriately, weighted by the percentage of contribution per role. A player that tanked 100% of the raid, therefore, would receive 100% of their DKP in the tank pool, and would only ever be able to use that pool to bid on tanking items. But there were problems with the concept from a practical standpoint.

Administratively, four pools were too much to track and too confusing for the player. Furthermore, no such "custom tool" existed to perform the calculation telling me that Drecca and Bretthew had both earned 100% of their pool as a tank, while Deathonwings had earned a 50/50 split of ranged DKP and healing DKP. Most importantly, what would stop greedy players from simply switching to whatever role they felt like playing, just to scoop up loot? After having earned a healthy amount of DKP in two pools, selfish players were free to "go to town" on whatever dropped, not caring for a moment what was being denied to the rest of the roster. It was a self-serving mentality that harmed the non-floaters in the long term.

My second pass felt much closer to the mark. I had to shift my mentality from rewarding your contributions to rewarding your consistency. If people were going to switch at the drop of a hat, I was fine with it, but the switch needed to come at a cost, which meant losing the right to 1st round bid (if they were Elite). Over time, they could earn the right again, a concept I sketched into my notes as a yellow bar growing into a green one. Hence, consistent players in a particular role were green, while floaters remained a neutral yellow. Both had upsides. Green players earned the right to 1st-round bid, and yellow players would never have to bid off-spec on anything -- to a floater, all loot would be main spec.

Cheeseus got straight to the point.

"Overall, I really dont like the way this reads. So youre saying that if Dalans decides to come back and fill his old role of tanking, that Mature...who was tanking in his absence...now has to pay the penalty of switching back to DPS? Sorry Dalans, Youre an asset to the organization, but youre not worth the 458 DKP I�m going to lose as a result of your return."

His comments continued to flow in.

"The 1st round bit seems very counterintuitive. Why would an Elite, who has proven himself as quite capable of doing whatever is needed, want to remain neutral in bidding? Theyre just like everyone else now, except with more responsibilities."

I took that as the "no off-spec bids" perk wasnt enough of a game changer.

"A non-elite can main bid on any role theyre neutral to, any role theyre switching amongst."

"So why would they want to go green? Alternately, why would you, Hanzo, want to let an up-and-coming DPS Death Knight...bid on tanking gear? And your most capable people, who would only benefit from being green, couldnt be used for any other role.�

Cheeseus continued to poke holes into my theoretical loot system until it looked like a used kitchen sponge.

"I know people wouldnt want to be neutral. The point is...they are now. This is how Deathonwings, Omaric, etc...are treated today. I dont want to have to go to them and say I need you to pick a role and stick with it, because its not fair to the others. I want a system in place where I can say, Do what you want, and what you do defines what you get. In my eyes, that is the path of least resistance and gives them the greatest freedom."

Cheeseus remained unconvinced, "Right, but why should a potential Elite...who is giving up his rank...be punished further? They already cant raid consistently, am I right? They should be motivated to raid and excel, not threatened with a loss of perks if they are unable to keep it up."

"Because Elites that have done that to me already dont care!! Hey I got everything I needed, Im off to go skiing! Oh, hey, remember me? Im back now, I just broke my legs in a skiing accident...remember I used to be an Elite?? I can still 1st-round shit, right No! There needs to be some repercussions to coming and going as you please!"

Cheeseus loosened his stance, "OK, Ill rethink that a bit more. But overall I still think that something is missing, this needs a bunch of work. Personally, I still think you should go loot council, but thats just because Im pro-communism ideology. It fits the raid mentality well, everyone contributes, everybody gets a slice of the pie."

I glared back at the instant messenger window with narrowed eyes.

"Ill never go loot council in DoD. Ever. Too easy to manipulate by those in power. Too easily corruptible."

"Oh, I know. It would never work, just as communism would never work in the real world, but if you look at it on paper, isnt it an excellent idea?"

It would be...if we were all the bestest of buddies in real life. If we had to face one another the next day at work, have to deal with the fallout of making a horrible decision the night before. To be made to feel guilty about being selfish and dishonest, and to have that paraded around the office until we learned our lesson. Be excluded from social gatherings, to not have our phones calls answered or our emails replied to when we decided to take whatever the hell we wanted off of bosses. Yeah...then loot council would be fantastic.

How wonderfully simple World of Warcraft guild leadership would be if people could be held accountable for their actions.