If people are showing up late in order to not go to MC but still get DKP... then its not the DKP system at fault, its horrible leading. People who show up late solely to be considered overflow really shouldn't get DKP, especially if its on a consistent basis

Thats pretty much how we run it for every raid. If your not on time then you dont get the DKP for that run. The only time you do is if you sub in for someone else during the run and the subsequent kills thereafter.

I didn't know anyone gave DKP for not raiding under a zero-sum system. How does that work, and really, why?

Because in order to raid successfully on a frequent basis, you need more people on your roster than 40. This allows for people to miss a night or 2 and for the guild to continue to pogress and raid at a constant schedule. If 43 people show up to a raid, 3 aren't going to get to go. Why should those 3 not get DKP when they showed up on time, and it was just arbitrary decision or luck of the draw that prevented from actually getting to go on the raid. You are punishing people for an in-game mechanic that none of us can control. Which would be stupid.

just as a disclaimer - our system is not zero sum and has experienced our share of inflation problems (which we have attempted to correct in various ways, but ultimately we're shifting to new dkp for naxx). we give DKP for 'sit outs' on raids where we have more people who want to raid than legitimately can. it both helps keep people happy and raiding and in the guild and lets you gear up more than 40 people when gear would otherwise rot.

They weren't late. They were on time but the raid was full because they timed it well enough to log in as close to the start time as they could.

That's when you need to lay down the law for those people.... Raid starts at 8, raid forms at 7:30, and if you aren't on at 7:30 you don't get an invite, period. People are going to exploit your system no matter what you do if there is no moderating going on, your guild officers need to take it into their hands and make people understand.

Alternately:

Invites go out at 7:45. If you're not online at 7:45, you don't earn standby DKP.

okay, and if 50 people are online at 7:30? the 40 people who were online at 7:15 get slots?

the point is that realistically, effective raiding guilds need more than 40 active members, and sometimes there will be more than 40 members who want to come to a raid. what do you do? say "tough luck", and only take 40 (determined by whatever means) and give the leftovers no compensation, or do you create a system that will keep everyone satisfied so when you suddenly have members go on vacation/get sick/busy with work or finals or whatever, you actually have the numbers to raid because those 'extras' didn't quit the guild because you 'laid down the law'?

I'm more curious how you don't break the zero-sum system. Split DKP spending by 50 instead of 40?

Obviously.

/random within classes/roles for your available slots is the only fair way to do it.

'fair' and 'reasonable' in this case are quite different things. there's a reason people have DKP systems instead of /randoming for loot too, and it's pretty close to the same reason. we use an attendance system that gives priority on spots to people who have been to the highest % of raids in the past 60 days, with a sitout system that lets other people get in and awards full DKP for the run to people sitting out.

I just let classes decide it among themselves. If we have 8 rogues available, I'll tell the rogues, "Hey, I want 6 of you" and let them figure it out. If they can't, or I find the result unacceptable, I'll decide myself, but that hardly ever happens. Usually a fair rotation isn't hard to come up with -- people who are BoN capped can sit out for those who still need rep, people who aren't up for any drops can sit out for those who are, people who've gone every time recently can sit out for those who haven't, etc.

Yeah, "only fair way" wasn't a good way of putting it.

It's a way. Attendance has the problem of rich-getting-richer.

Gurg's way is probably best; I know that when we get asked "So, which rogues feel like going to MC?" I am the first person to say "Not unless I absolutely, absolutely have to."

We have broken our zero-sum in the short term to award points for attempting new content, as well as keep standby players from getting left in the dust. We rezero our system every month to keep some semblance of a zero sum.

Whereas a player in a raid is going to be getting at least 1/40 of the boss kills value, we have anyone outside the instance (or logged out at the instance on an alt) at the time of a boss kill to page the raid leader. Those people recieve 2% of the boss kills value (or 1/50).

This keeps the standbys who would normally be in the raid if there was enough slots able to stay in the running while providing incentive to actually raid as opposed to everyone being martyrs and giving up their slots (which can happen using a simple "50 man raid" solution to standby)

I'm still trying to think of a good way to handle this from an admin perspective. If I'm raid leading it's kinda hard to see who's satisfying the criteria for earning DKP when they're not in the raid. I really need something to make that easier. How do others go about this?

That doesn't really sound like a problem with the dkp system itself to me, as much as the way you handle raid invites and player rotation. I'm surprised to see so many guilds decide who goes on a raid and who has to sit out only just before the raid, as I can see it delaying raid start as you argue who's going, and causing problems when you can't even know if there will be players available on a given day or not. We used to do that and it just lead to problems as people would cancel appointments or take time off for raid evenings only to find out they'd have to sit out, not to mention that it's a bit hard to be objective or fair about player rotation when you have maybe 30 minutes before the raid to find out who's available and who should go.

Nowadays we sort raid signups a few days before each new raid week, so that people know days in advance which raids they are going to attend, and I have to say we've never run into problems like this. Sometimes it means that we won't have backups since the people who aren't scheduled will go do something else for the evening, but it's very seldom been a problem, and has solved a load of problems described here and in the guild management thread. People don't need dkp to be kept happy, fair rotation does that, as well as the fact that they know well in advance when they have evenings off. It has a lot of other benefits aswell imo but it's offtopic to the extent that I'll not rant more about it here.

Anyway, imho in general giving dkp for anything other than actually participating on raids is a bad idea, because people will try to find ways to abuse it, and it creates uneven dkp distribution, which will eventually lead to arguments, guild drama and other crap made of things that make even the cuddliest of furry creatures burst into tears. If you need to have additional incentives, let it be something else than dkp, keep your dkp system pure.

There are a couple problems with signups (we use them, for the record - signups go up on the forums once a week).

If you always post them at the same time, if someone absolutely cannot sign up at that time, they either get screwed or have to get someone else to sign up for them, which is not really desirable. And if you stick to the order of signups, that can cause problems too, like if your "best" players wind up delaying sign up and are last.

We fixed the second problem by saying that on learning content, signups are guidelines and officer discretion will run invites. We fixed the first problem by... actually, we still do a once weekly signup, and it still sucks.

I post signups well in advance, give people tons of time to sign up, and then post a group the day before the raid (or day-of sometimes). Order in which people signed up is irrelevant. If it's a farming run, I'll just post a 50-man group. For learning, I'll post a specific 40 plus substitutes separately.

We have class officers decide on player rotations based on availability, player skill etc. with the goal being a fair rotation for everyone in their respective class in the long run, without sacrificing chances on progression. An initial raid schedule is done before each new raid week, but if players can't know their availabilities before later, the class officers will wait till 1-2 days before the actual raid and decide the participants then.

It's worked very well for us, we always have a list of people going on each raid at least 1-2 days before the raid, and as long as class officers handle rotations fairly, things generally work out pretty well. Players can sort their availabilities and everything related directly with class officers, which, I believe, makes it a much more conversational system than a pure sign up system. First come first served sounds not much better than no sign ups at all imho.