I'm sure many guild officers are pondering over this information, and many guild members wondering what the result will be, so I thought I'd bring it up here.
How is everyone managing the distribution of the Nether Vortexes now dropping from trash?
They're bind on pickup. They're needed to make level 3 Smithing weapons, the new BoE belts, and I think some of the new BoP boots.
The drop rate now isn't entirely clear, but so far we've killed Void Reaver in TK, and everything except Lurker (fix plz) and Vashj this week, and we've gotten two Nethers. Both have gone to a warrior for his lvl 3 sword thus far. But now I can craft that very nice rogue belt whose name escapes me, it dropped off of Leo's trash.
What we can't decide is how to adjucate A)the cost and B) the priority.
As a guild we use silent bid DKP, winner gets item for 2nd highest bid +1. We do common sense loot restrictions and MT defaults for double min when it's big enough an upgrade to justify it.
Bidding seems like it's going to end up costing some people more DKP than it should. There is also the matter of items like the belts where the recipient of the item isn't the one that needs to loot the vortexes. And if no one present needs one, they need to go somewhere for future use. You have smiths that might change weapon types, crafters that might make more belts, etc.
How are your guilds doing, how do your guilds plan to do it, or how would you do it? The goal is to create the best balance of fairness of distrubution (with respect to PvE relevant upgrade + priority of acquisition) and cost (these shouldn't cost much more or less than normal items).
I'm a big fan of simplicity. Would that much drama ensue if they just cost 0 DKP and everyone did /random for them, assuming they were crafting an item for use in a raid setting? Then that person gets all future drops until they have enough for their upgrade and everyone else rolls for the next drop. Long term you'll have more vortex drops than you can use for personal crafted items, so maybe integrating their price into a point system is more hassle than it's worth.
Prioritize to your armor smithing tanks first. Then figure out who would make pve items vs. pvp, and let pve item makers /roll. People making 2handers for pvp should definatly be prioritized last.
The argument I've seen against just using /random is that people can then fill a slot with their crafted item "for free" (in DKP terms). So not only do they have a great weapon, but they have more DKP to spend on other slots than someone who had to bid on a weapon. That's where I see some potential for drama.
Assign a cost to the weapon/item itself, charge someone the full cost on the first nether and then let them get the number needed for it. It's how we used to do Bindings/Splinters and it seemed to work (and people still paid DKP for them, even though it was never "guarenteed" loot).
We're just assigning them on highest upgrade pretty much, but then we don't have a DKP system at all so I guess that makes it easier.
If the regular sidegrade non crafted boots cost 20 DKP, then the crafted ones should cost 10 or 15. They're free sidegrades to one another if they've put the money into crafting the cheaper ones. The idea being you get the same item, but the crafted ones cost slightly less because you're putting 1000 gold into them as well. Thats our theory anyway. I could also make a case for charging them the same amount, but it seems unfair.
As for nether vortexes, we charge near-zero dkp for it and allow full completion of one item before moving to the next person.
If someone gets a t5-caliber weapon via arena points, do you charge them DKP for that too?
We /random for them among people who have legitimate PvE uses (i.e. not the paladin who wants to make a Stormherald), and once someone has one, they get priority on later drops until they complete their item.
Honestly, do you have 15 blacksmiths in your raid? Sure, everyone wants to make their weapon first, but a month from now, you'll have seen enough for everyone, most likely.
In my view, the job of a loot system is to regulate access and distribution of highly-desired items that are in short supply relative to the demand for them. I don't see Vortices as fitting that description.
Yeah for the most part you should just have an open discussion of what the nether vortexes are going toward. I just took the first two without much debating considering I'm the MT and they went toward my tanking BP.
Edit: armory is screwy atm, ancient bulwark of kings.
Yeah, our first two went to a warrior for his BP. The next ten are going to end up going to two of our DPS warriors to create excellent weapons that they'll use full-time for quite a while.
After that, demand drops off quite a bit. Some people would take them for PvP or farming use. We'll probably use a few to make BoE epics that have real raid utility first, and then use subsequent Vortices for fund the guild bank or for people's non-raid use.
Most of the work done for the Tier 6 Specialization items came from getting Blacksmithing up to 375 and crafting the Tier 5 weapon. Getting the Vortexes, especially now, is trivial in comparison when it comes to real-time investment (not man-hour investment). Do you charge your local Tradeskill person DKP for a raid-drop only recipe? If the answer is yes then by all means charge for the Vortexes. If not, roll em up.
Originally Posted by Praetorian
i.e. not the paladin who wants to make a Stormherald
Same way we do nethers - need before greed. If a rogue has all the other materials required for the belt, he rolls, the crafter loots. If it's for a BS weapon and they have all the requirements met for it, they can roll too. Once nobody needs, then you can roll for greed (though I really think at this point with Guild Banks coming spare Vortices should be going to crafting BoEs sold by the guild, but that's just me... ...)
This is literally impossible. You only pay what it's worth to you, that's the whole point.
While I don't agree with this, it does seem like one of the tenets you have to hold when using a bidding-based DKP system is that "What someone is willing to pay for an item is ALWAYS what's that item is worth". Basically, if you're using bidding for DKP for everything else and you really think it's a good idea for your guild, your goal should be able to fit the vortexes into the bidding system as neatly as possible.
Now, part of the problem here is that vortexes can make different items. You can use 5 vortexes for a weapon, 2 for an armorsmithing BP, or 2 for other miscellaneous crafteds/etc.
Obviously this creates different perceptions of value. That guy who's working on his weapon upgrade is probably going to value nethers higher than people who want the BOE belts/boots.
Look at other precedents in your system for this sort of behavior. Some tier 4 items are better for certain classes than others. Does your system put a check in on inter-class bidding? Or do warriors and priests both bid on equal footing for every tier 4 token that drops?
If classes bid on equal footing, it may just be best to let bidding go as normal on vortexes. Remind people of all the usual things that you do when you're making a decision that gives them no special advantage (hey, they're dropping a lot more commonly now, we'll see a lot of them, everyone gets their item eventually, they drop in TK too, etc) and hopefully the grumbling will be kept at a minimum.
Of course, vortexes will still fluctuate drastically in price. For the 5 nethers for his 2H axe, a warrior might pay 5DKP, 10DKP, 5DKP, 7DKP and 80DKP (there was a mage in the raid that night who only needed 1 nether to complete his belt). But that's just a function of your bidding system - if you look at specific items the item cost probably already fluctuates like that...particularly, again, on the crossclass items like tier 4 tokens (they may go for a whole lot on nights where you have more warriors than usual and they get bid up quite high, then less on nights where you have many priests, who have less desirable tier 4).
Now of course, you need a system to adjudicate between two people who both need only a few nethers to complete an item, and have already paid full price. You could random, give all the nethers automatically to the person who is paying more per nether, fall back on attendance...I don't know. Think about what your guild puts the most stock in and go with that.
If no one is present on the raid who would wants a nether-made item, have the remaining people with desirable (i.e. if you have a leather caster DPS belt recipe but no moonkin druids in your guild - or one moonkin druid, who already has the belt - that is no longer a desirable recipe) recipes for guildmates random for it. If there are no remaining desirable recipes, have crafters either give some gold to the guildbank in order to purchase the vortex to sell outside the guild for profit, or assign the vortex to one crafter (presumably, the one with the most profitable recipe) and get him the other mats to make an item for guildbank profit.
Obviously in the early stages - where you can anticipate getting a few more good recipe drops - you may want to assign nethers to high-attendance crafters with the expectation that they'll be getting a recipe or two in the future. It does seem like the recipes are fairly common though, and assuming you raid regularly I don't think I'd wait too long to shift into only giving the nethers to people who already have recipes.
Anyway, that's a bit rambling. It's hard to say what will work best with you - there are a ton of bid-based systems out there, some with more regulation, some with less, and you didn't flesh in many of the details. Ultimately the most important thing, as people are always saying about DKP systems, is to find something that works well for your guild. Think about what will make your people the happiest, and go with that.
If someone gets a t5-caliber weapon via arena points, do you charge them DKP for that too?
.....
In my view, the job of a loot system is to regulate access and distribution of highly-desired items that are in short supply relative to the demand for them. I don't see Vortices as fitting that description.
I don't see that as being a legitimate analogy. The arena weapon is acquired entirely outside raiding, whereas the upgraded crafted item uses raid drops. Our policy is to price the item they're being used to make (less than an equivalent drop, however) and cost that many vortexes at that price.
As for how you define the vortexes...again I disagree. We've gotten two Vortexes in two nights of raiding this week. We certainly have a much higher demand for them than we have a supply, and that demand will only go up as we get more patterns for crafted items.
We charge 5 DKP per vortex. The highest DKP person that wants them pays for the number they will need up front (e.g. 25 DKP for their weapon) and then loots the next 5 that drop. We charge because it's unfair to people who are not crafters that they are essentially getting free raid loot while everyone has to pay DKP for theirs.
Wow, kinda surprised by the number of people echoing this. The tier 3armorsmithing BP didn't seem to be so awesome for tanking (yes, high AC, but comparable stam to anything else out there and no block value/defense/dodge like tier 4 tanking BP or panzar'thar) that I'd automatically go to armorsmithing tanks first.
Our warrior who got it wasn't a tank. He's hybrid Arms. He rolled against another hybridy warrior present who would've used it for an axe. He won the roll on the first Vortex, and got the second automatically.
Originally Posted by Elendril
I don't see that as being a legitimate analogy. The arena weapon is acquired entirely outside raiding, whereas the upgraded crafted item uses raid drops. Our policy is to price the item they're being used to make (less than an equivalent drop, however) and cost that many vortexes at that price.
As for how you define the vortexes...again I disagree. We've gotten two Vortexes in two nights of raiding this week. We certainly have a much higher demand for them than we have a supply, and that demand will only go up as we get more patterns for crafted items.
Sorry, I should've quoted what I was responding to. I was more addressing the specific idea that it'd corrupt a DKP system if someone got good loot for no DKP from another source.
I guess I'm also projecting forward to farming Vashj/Kael, and a time when we get 7-8 Vortices per week, like clockwork. In any event, the flipside of the issue is that for every warrior who is a blacksmith and gets "free" loot, the warriors who aren't smiths also enjoy not having to compete against smiths on more traditional raid drops.
When our first World Breaker dropped, there were a couple of smiths, and one nonsmith. The nonsmith got it uncontested, because the smiths had their own alternatives. I don't see the unfairness in it, I suppose.
Wow, kinda surprised by the number of people echoing this. The tier 3armorsmithing BP didn't seem to be so awesome for tanking (yes, high AC, but comparable stam to anything else out there and no block value/defense/dodge like tier 4 tanking BP or panzar'thar) that I'd automatically go to armorsmithing tanks first.
Yeah cause 1825 armor and max stamina with a lifegiving gem, suck for tanking.
Defense is about the least valuable stat for a warrior once it is past 490. I think i'm sitting over 500 defense still, and my unbuffed HP is well over 17k now, with 17k armor to boot. Defense/avoidance? Who gives a damn. Use those on the 1 fight in the game that requires healing efficacy.
As several others, the smiths rolled, and the person who got the 1st now has 3. Once he gets done, it seems likely we will use them to make whatever the next best item for someone is at that time in a systematic way, probably a belt of battle for our dps war, followed by a pair of level 3 armorsmith chests.
Yeah cause 1825 armor and max stamina suck for tanking.
I'm not disputing that it's an upgrade...not at all. I'm just surprised people think it's a big enough upgrade over Warbringer/Panzar'thar that it's worth handing specifically to armorsmiths first.
As a tanking armorsmith I'm pretty excited about getting mine, but I don't know that I'm so excited that I'd tell the weaponsmiths to stay out. Or is it the two-nether (as opposed to five-nether) cost? That part is certainly nice.
2 nethers is quick, and gets you a noticable boost, so seems a shoo in.
I'd personally pass nethers all day long to people getting the breastplate at a cost of 2 nethers each. Weapons cost 5, I'd rather have 2 bps than "almost" 1 weapon personally.
In any event, the flipside of the issue is that for every warrior who is a blacksmith and gets "free" loot, the warriors who aren't smiths also enjoy not having to compete against smiths on more traditional raid drops.
When our first World Breaker dropped, there were a couple of smiths, and one nonsmith. The nonsmith got it uncontested, because the smiths had their own alternatives. I don't see the unfairness in it, I suppose.
That was the basic conclusion I came to as well-- DKP systems should encourage behavior that benefits the raid as a whole. I remember this same argument coming up among the rogues in my guild back when the PvP system first game in. Our server's first High Warlord, Clownboat, did an obscene amount of PvP for amazing gear. As a result he barely needed to spend DKP on anything, so the few things he did need, he always got first. Some people thought it was unfair he always got priority because the PvP system made him not need most loot. But others pointed out that if he wasn't doing PvP, he would just be taking more loot that filtered down to the rest of the rogues. One rogue in pimped PvP loot means the raid loot isn't spread as thin.
I don't see the need to charge people for the stuff they do on their own that makes them a better raider. And while the nether vorticies do require a raid, 99% of the crafting effort (skill 1->375 and collecting other materials) were done by themselves.
Why, so they can make a DPS chestpiece to tank in?
Quigon summed it up pretty well a few posts up.
My guild uses a loot council in order to distribute Vortices and a lot of our Warriors are on top-rated Arena Teams, mostly in the 5v5 bracket. Our first 5 Vortices went to a Warrior to help him craft his Stormherald, we happened to get four from just the trash in High Astromancer Solarian's room. I imagine the next 5 we get will go to another Warrior to craft Bloodmoon as well. Seeing a lot of the excellent craftable pieces is reason enough to merit crafting Red Belt of Battle and Belt of the Long Road for PvE purposes, and as Praetorian said I think raiding guilds will have most of the Vortices they need within the next month.
I also think the BoE craftable pieces are going to be an excellent source of income when guilds do start banking the Vortices. All in all I've been quite pleased with the new material.
Yeah cause 1825 armor and max stamina with a lifegiving gem, suck for tanking.
Defense is about the least valuable stat for a warrior once it is past 490. I think i'm sitting over 500 defense still, and my unbuffed HP is well over 17k now, with 17k armor to boot. Defense/avoidance? Who gives a damn. Use those on the 1 fight in the game that requires healing efficacy.
Which fight?
Also, "efficacy" doesn't mean "efficiency." </kaubel>
05/24/07, 4:20 PM
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