Hey, I was just discussing the DKP rules in my guild with the GM, specifically relating to the carrying on of DKP from one instance to the next. There are a number of options in how to handle this that are widely known, (Instance DKP caps, Carrying over DKP to the next instance or seperating the dkp from one instance to the next). All of these options seem to have a negative attached to them, for whatever reason. During this discussion I came up with an idea both of us had not heard of before.

The idea involved increasing both the DKP earnt and DKP per item significantly as the guild progresses through each boss. For example;


Serpentshire cavern:
Total DKP earnt from bosses: 15
Average item DKP cost: 20

Tempest Keep:
Total DKP earnt from bosses: 20
Average item DKP cost: 30

Hyjal Summit:
Total DKP earnt from bosses: 40
Average item DKPcost: 60


This is obviously just an example and is not balanced to the actual difficulty of the instance. However, it shows how the dkp earnt would increase in higher instances, while lower instances slowly phase out as their dkp becomes insignificant and loot useless.

This idea seems to have little negative points. Unlike an instance cap it does not encourage people to stop raiding "lower" instances just because they've hit the cap and therefore leave others in the guild short. It allows people who are working on the current content to recieve the benefits but also recognise past efforts without leaving those new to the guild too far behind.

I'm sure this idea has been thought of by someone else and is probably in use by various guilds, but what I was looking for was opinions on this idea. Are there any negatives we are missing or is there something else that might be a better option for the guild?

First, there's been a bunch of discussion on loot systems in the past month. If your guild is seriously discussing loot system modifications, I recommend all of these threads. They're generally short reads and there's a lot of good information in them:

Need help with possible abuses.
Guild DKP system a disaster? Help!
A new DKP system - Balance for Hybrids?
[DKP] Repricing items in 2.1

Regarding your question in particular (scaling points with demand for loot), this post seems to describe something similar: Guild DKP system a disaster? Help!

The idea is:

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

Where X is some fixed value (maybe 10). It assumes an auction system, but the same concept works in fixed price. Award price/raid_size points whenever someone buys an item, 0 points when an item is sharded.

So as a boss's loot is needed less, the value you gain from raiding that boss decreases. I mean, that's why you're scaling the points, right? Because presumably loot from later bosses is more useful than earlier? If that's the case, it seems simplest to link the price to actual demand for the boss's drops.

The benefit of scaling this way rather than inflating prices for future instances is that it's more precisely linked to the actual demand for the items. And it prevents inflation from adding points for truly worthless bosses. (ie. your raid should get 0 points for killing Maulgar if everyone already has T4-5 shoulders. Even giving 10 points is too much.)

Thanks for the reply, I think we were more discussing a way to avoid people skipping raids due to an instance cap, or split DKP system. While the above system does provide something similar to what I mentioned, I think we were trying to avoid placing a zero value on any raiding while putting more value in the current content rather than the older stuff.

There's still going to be a few people in the guild who want stuff from earlier instances, however people will not be willing to help them out if they are almost guaranteed no dkp (95% of loot going to rot, 0dkp).

The reason we liked my aforementioned idea was that it puts emphasis on newer content which pushes progression, but still provides a reason for the more established raiders to go back and help those not so fortunate to gear up in earlier instances.

Thanks for the links, definately a lot of different opinions on the topic