We run a standard instance by instance DKP system.

Gruul's Lair (both bosses) are worth the same as Mags is. This will change for SSC of course. We'll probably block out nights or do it on a per boss basis. But for now, the Onyxia style instances we're just handing out 50 DKP to everyone for.

Also, as a general rule, we never shard things unless it's literally not an upgrade for someone. We'll make decisions when an item drops. For example, a pair of mail boots with spellpower/hit rating dropped. Our Shaman took them because he didn't want to see them get sharded. But we didn't charge him a standard non-set piece fee of 150 DKP for the boots. We charged him 75. Why should he be penalized in getting the gear he really wants (T5) and screw our raid by sharding gear which contributes to raid progression? If you don't work on lowering the price of garbage people don't want, people just pass on everything until that sexy weapon drops. But along the way, it weakens raids.

I don't like black & white DKP systems. As a whole, I think guilds should trust their officers enough to know we're working in the best interest of our guildmates to progress. If your guild doesn't trust you, I'd say that's a much bigger problem than any DKP system anyone could come up with.

When we were raiding into December of last year (killed up to the Instructor in Naxx), we did not have a DKP system in place either. Each class was responsible for coming up with the method in which to distribute their class-specific loot like T1, T2, T3. The Priests were just doing a generic rotation and we passed if it wasn't a big upgrade when I became the class lead, but I intended to swap it to a wishlist style like our Warriors were doing come TBC. I really liked this method, but then again this was my first experience with a raiding guild and I haven't yet been involved with DKP.

The thing I felt was a big problem was non-class specific loot and hybrids. That gear distribution was decided upon by officer discussion and /random, and it led to things like most of our rejuv gems going to the Priests just out of sheer luck. I had to argue a lot to try and get +dmg upgrades for our lone Shadow Priest (which is humorous hearing about raid compositions now). If I were a GM, I would definitely let the classes determine their own method for class-specific loot again but I think I would have some sort of mathematical system for the rest of the loot, even if it were a simple modded /random based on attendance. In my opinion bidding for loot in what is supposed to be a cohesive team just makes it feel so impersonal, almost a mean-spirited competition compared to something like friendly dps contests.

Is it off-topic or irrelevant to chime in that DKP systems seem to only hurt a guild?

Guilds need gear directed towards certain people in certain rolls, and not doing so hurts progression and gets everyone less lootz. Basing your reward system on solid numbers and "currency", then making exceptions, will piss people off. But if you don't make exceptions it'll hurt progression. And figuring out DKP values and crap is a full-time job.

Our guild was 350+ members, and our DKP database was HUGE. One day we decided that farming MC and BWL until 10 tanks and 80 healers were geared up was really really boring.

Our guild changed focus, told everyone we were "progression oriented" (which absolves just about every decision made by the raid leaders) and dumped DKP entirely. We had class captains that knew their class and had access to officer chat to discuss who will be rolling.

We ranked people in the guild as "main raider" and "casual raider", and had people of different specs in each class in each rank. So in our "main raiders" we'd have 2 dps warriors, 3 prot tanks, 2 hybrid tanks. Main raiders always got priority in raid invites, and gear was distributed based on spec and how much of an upgrade it was.

Everyone was SO skeptical about moving away from DKP at first, but it worked out SO much better and everyone was MUCH happier. Also, if people didn't want to go to raids, or wanted to let others in for bosses they didn't need anything from, they weren't forced to attend if only to stay competitive in DKP.

Well just thought I'd come back and give a little update..

We talked about it and decided to use an open bid system. Points are rewarded for boss kills/progression nights, etc.. when loot drops bids are opened and must be put in raid chat.. you must bid at least 5 higher than the previous person to oubid. If several people are raising each others bids for 30 seconds or so, the minimum raise become 10.. this continues until 1 person is left. No one can go negative or bid more points than they have. (except for tanks)

We felt this system would be the most fair as it allows people to pay what they feel an item is worth. Therefore sidegrades and the like that no one really "wants", goes for dirt cheap.. while the first couple new drops will always tend to go for a sizeable chunk We're hoping this will combat any inflation as well as provide a relatively fair and balanced loot distribution

Officer intervention can happen for any piece of loot... for example if someone with a really low raid attendance tries to outbid someone with <90%, not gonna happen. And of course the usual logic when dealing with cross-class loot that is obviously superior for a certain class.

Basically it just comes down to
1) Is loot done relatively fairly, with guild progression being the number 1 objective of distributing loot.
2) Is loot fast and painless, and does everyone feel they are rewarded equally for their effort



So far this system has worked out pretty smoothly. No complaints so far. Loot is fast and painless and everyone tends to get what they want for the price they are willing to pay. It's not totally perfect, but no DKP system is. However it's a hell of a lot more fair than the DKP we were using before.

I've come to appreciate bidding systems.
Regardless whether it is fair or not, it places responsibility into the hands of the players themselves. If they didn't get an impressive item, it is because they decided themselves they didn't want to spend the high amount of dkp. If they got one item, and someone else got 3 cheap items, it was their decision to go for the shiny show-off sword. I think there will be less bickering, because ultimately you can always reply "if you are not happy, you should have used your dkp differently".

Inflation can be solved with bidding systems in a simple way. When progressing through an instance, slightly increase dkp on wipe nights and first kills.

Suppose you reward 10 dkp for killing a boss, 30 dkp for first kill, and 20 dkp for a bunch of wipes. Everybody will be happy to get the 30 dkp for the first kill. Then move on to the next boss and get more dkp. After 2 or 3 weeks you might have killed 2 more bosses. Everyone perceives that things are getting harder. Now you give 30 dkp for a bunch of wipes. And 50 dkp for the first boss kill. Subjectively everybody feels they deserve the extra dkp, because boss E is so much harder than boss A was. But the result is that old dkp actually becomes less valuable. This encourages everybody to bid more dkp soon, and discourages hoarding of dkp.

Officer assigned loot might work in small groups. But in bigger groups, even if the officers are very smart and very honest, you are bound to have a few dumbass raiders who do not have an intelligent or honest view on loot distribution. And they are the ones who will cause drama. "If you are unhappy, you should have spend your dkp in another way".

My favorite idea for combating inflation in bidding systems is this:

Each boss awards 1 point per piece of loot that people paid 10 or more points for.

And that's how you get points. Maybe add 1 bonus point for showing up on time and some fixed sum on boss attempt nights (5 points per 2 hours of attempts or whatever). As a boss is killed more, the loot off him becomes less useful, so the points he awards will drop. If most of the loot is cheap, that's a sign that boss isn't that important, so you should only do him if he's fast.

Also, 10 points isn't some random number. The average price of an item in this system will be around 30. That's because you'll give out on average 30 points for each useful item (25 plus 5-ish on the bench), and the total number of points into the system must equal the total number of points spent. A bid of over 10 points is enough to prove that there's multiple people with interest in the item.

To try and combat inflation in our open bidding system, we simply have several payment rates with our current hardest content getting the highest hourly rate and so on down the line, the new drops in the hardest content will be in most demand and will thus go for most points and people can't stockpile too many points from the farm content since it doesn't pay as well.

Hey we are kind of in a unique situation right now. As of last night our EQDKP system was hacked, all documentation deleted. This was done by someone from another server to one of our applicants in hopes he gets gkicked, (I know pretty low). So right now were pretty much out of a system for raiding. Are their any ways to make your dkp system more private? Also any other tips on what can be done would be greatly appreciated . Kind of a mess though and I hate animosity.

Edit: Well it seems it was hacked, apparently this guy was hacking any available ones he could. SO BE careful. Make sure to make back-ups. He was in a IRC and asked for guilds that used EQDKP ours and another were listed both got hacked. Just figured I would put a warning out.

We use the same thing but were not exactly 0 sum. First time boss kills get double dkp so Items looted/number of people in raid *2. Also we give dkp to standby.

Well honestly most of our officers I think wanted to avoid zero sum because
1: It's kind of hard to understand for the average person
2: It doesn't reward time spent, wipes, etc.. and any variation you put into the system can throw it completely out of whack.

We like the open bidding because I think it encourages people to actually spend their points wisely for major upgrades. The majority of our people are pretty sensible in terms of loot decency and everyone tries to plan or map out their upgrades.

As its set up now we reward:

2 points for being ontime at start of raid
10-15 points for boss kills
double that for first time kill
and about 10-15 points per hour spent while learning new content. (wipefests)

I suppose the numbers could be adjusted some. But if inflation ever becomes an issue we could always try like what you guys are saying - the really hard stuff is worth more dkp and farm mode instances are worth less. Also could implement a decay rate if you dont spend dkp.

Anyway, I think bidding systems are among the most fair.. as it allows you to reward the hardcore raiders, while still giving everyone their fair share.. and allowing them to choose when or how much they pay for their loot.