Been trolling for a bit here, much better place to get some constructive commentary than any other forum I've seen.

As any guild inevitably does, we recently had some discussion on the merits of changing our (mostly) open bidding DKP system to a class based "priority" system, where non armor items such as weapons and trinkets would either be completely restricted or at least restricted to a certain class for the first drop only. Lots of mixed feelings on this obviously. While it looks like we're staying with our current system for the time being, there were certainly people unhappy with the idea of open bidding with an "honor system" where people will refrain from bidding on items over certain classes - such as a druid or shaman bidding over a warrior on an item for feral or enhancement builds.

The obvious arguement against letting someone bid on whatever they want is that someone would take an item as a toy and screw over the class the item was "designed for", which then forces that class to spend exorbant amounts of DKP to secure the item every time. On the other side, the item priority system greatly restricts classes such as Priests, Druids, Shaman/Pallys from items that enhance their enjoyability in things like farming, PvP, etc etc. That doesn't exactly help with progression in instances per se, but it equates time spent raiding to reward. Our guild has downed C'thun now multiple times, no real problems in any encounter till Naxx comes out so its not like one particular weapon/trinket will make or break our raiding at this point.

I'd like to solicit some feedback from this forum on how you and your guilds view the issue, and what you've done to solve it?

Class restrictions in an open bidding system serve mainly to make things cheaper for those classes that can successfully argue priority - leaving them with lots of dkp to bid on other stuff. Which means they have even more to spend to beat out the other classes on things they want where they couldn't argue priority. It is a pretty sweet deal if you can get it. In other words, they are a lot like the government trying to control a free market based on lobbyists and bound to create as much or more drama as not having restrictions. The counter argument to what you describe (people buying toys and screwing over members of a class in "need") in a closed system is people on the privileged class list collecting their own toys because they can get them super-cheap (since class restrictions limit the pool of competitors, the whole open bidding concept has gone out the window) rather than because they actually need them.

Honestly, if people are really concerned about progression and gearing up the guild as quickly as possible they should go with a fixed price, zero sum dkp solution. That way you get the right gear to the right people to advantage the guild. With a fixed-price system, even if you successfully argue class priority, it still costs you the same to buy the item as anybody else so you'd better really want it. Instead, people try to promote the concept of open bidding and then slap all kinds of restrictions on it to turn it into a half-assed facsimile. We had the same discussion in our guild. Somebody actually argued what amounted to "I don't want a fixed-price system. I like the idea that I can bid on what I want and items go for different amounts every week depending on who is there. I just want to restrict who can bid against me."

We put items on priority for a little while; once they've dropped enough, or once we're past them, they're taken off priority.

When we first started, we *needed* Fangs of the Faceless to go to our dagger rogues to up raid damage. Now? Hunter item (I think I *once* asked a hunter to pass on a Fang, because the rogue who would otherwise get it is an Aussie and rarely gets to raid with us, while the hunter is one of our top attendance players - he would get more use out of it, but he'd also see it again fairly soon. He wound up with a CHT on the next run anyway.) Similarly, you want your first few Spineshatter going to tanks who're still hunting tanking weapons - after that, open it up. OEB? UTB? Ashkandi? DPS warriors first, but eventually your paladins and hunters can have em. Once you've seen a few drop, open season.

Then, once you're *past* them, open season as well. We're farming Nef and progressing through AQ40. Our DPS warriors don't get priority on OEB anymore; why should they? They have better options, and our paladins and tanks like 2-handers too. UTB is in the same boat at this point, since all our primarily DPS warriors have theirs.

But mostly? Priority doesn't come up. It comes down to everyone understanding that you gear for raiding first, farming/PvP second. You'll get your feral/shadow/Consecrate gear eventually; you'll get it faster if the DPS gets the DPS gear, the healing gets the healing gear, and we move forward.

edit: We do use a fixed price system. Bidded systems are broken inherently, and class priorities inside bidding systems just breaks them even worse.

^^^^ This mirrors my thoughts exactly.

Any priests in EJ who want an Oracle set for PvP or leveling to 70 will have one. But going into Naxx, having rogues clad in full Deathdealer is much more important. We have druids with Boots of Shadow Flame now, once Deathdealer came onto the scene. Previously, though, they were rogue-only. And so forth.

Oaken - Nice analogy, I like how it works. Not sure how the zero-sum gets the "right gear to the right people" however. While I understand the workings of a zero-sum DKP system, I'm not seeing how that solves both open bidding and priority based system's drawbacks. Drawbacks being: open system - shaman takes some wicked 2H axe/mace over a warrior; Priority system - "hybrid" classes aren't allowed to take anything that doesn't reflect their raiding role.

Kalman - thats the point of the post really, our guild no longer *needs* any particular item. C'thun is effectively on farm now, the only thing we haven't put time into are Visc and Ouro, and those fights will not be won by particular armor/weapons/accessories going to certain people.

Praetorian - totally off topic but I think you and I have the *exact* same set of gear based off your avatar icon, to include the legendary bug. Creepy.

But you "need" the stuff for Naxx, is the point. Once there are better alternatives available to you in Naxx, that's when you loosen priority on the last tier, in my view. You want every single Pugio or Femur or Dark Edge going to people who will contribute the most DPS on raids; you want your AQ tokens being used to give your rogues Deathdealer rather than your priests Oracle. Because even if you can beat C'Thun and Ouro and Visc now, when you go into Naxx, you'll be back to trying to catch up to the gear curve. That DPS will matter.

Fixed Price, zero-sum is better than Open Bidding at giving you even distribution of loot. This is the problem it solves. The Fixed Price is the important part - it means things are priced based on their relative worth and everybody pays the same for epics of similar worth. Zero-sum is just a way of keeping inflation from munging up the system. So with Fixed Price you get a fairly even distribution of loot across the raid. Open Bidding does not give even distribution - depending on how smart you are at knowing when and where and how much to bid, these systems will give you very jagged loot distribution.

Fixed Price systems don't solve the class priority problem. In fact, they usually seem to require class restrictions. But if you really care about getting the "right gear to the right people" a system with fixed prices (even distribution) and class restrictions is best at doing that. And yes, you will run into the hybrid problem feeling left out issue.

I think the solution to that is what Kalam and Gurgthock describe - class priorities stay in place until they aren't needed anymore. I think most people who play hybrid classes would be fine if they aren't first in line for Ashkandi or Boots of the Shadow Flame - as long as they thought they would get a shot at them in a reasonable timeframe. My guild has Open Bidding with - technically - no class restrictions. But of course in practical terms due to the fact that people want progression and people apply social pressure, there are tons of unwritten class restrictions. I would trade it in a heartbeat for a system like Kalman and Gurgthock describe. Ours pays lip service to being both open and progression-oriented but does a poor job at both.

I'm on the same realm as Oaken and we also use an Open Bidding system, there are some caveats as there are caps and rolls involved but it's still basically open bidding. I also would trade it in a heartbeat for a fixed price system. Having a class mate have double the points as you even though he has 60% of the lifetime earned points just because he got everything for little to no points is extemely lame. Also is a constant source of friction as the outcomes from night to night on bidding can vary widely.

Do yourself a favor and don't even consider Open Bidding.

Pretty much the same system we currently have. No real restrictions in place other than some unwritten, unspoken understandings about things. The problem is that when someone challenges that unwritten thinking, the reaction is "oh wait, you can't do that" and thats when people start being pretty nasty towards each other. We discussed for awhile of having an "open bid" priority system (not that its really open bid at that point) but that just became utter confusion and anger. How do you decide priority between warlocks and mages on an item? What in gods name does a shaman get to put priority on? (The 2 shields that nobody else would ever take anways?) Who gets priority on healing rings, necks, trinkets?

That is potentially spite bidding. If youve got that happening then things could go downhill fast. Im really not sure what id suggest to stop it apart from class priority or fixed price. Seems like a recipe for disaster.

Maybe the softest option would be to cap max bids for off spec loot so that:

a) People are spending more points on progression type stuff.
b) If a priority class wants it they can pay a 'fair' amount which cant get inflated out of spite.
c) Surpise off spec bidding will not cause drama. Allow a person who feels they need the item and will use it to go negative for a time to meet the mimimum spend if needed. Just avoid having some of your guys try and ambush others.

Healing items are healer priority. Our first Rejuv Gem went to a druid. Our second to a paladin. Who was also our first Sulfuras winner. Our first Pure Elementium? Paladin. Etc. I'd assume shaman also get included in healing priority. The idea isn't to be overly restrictive on items - the idea is to keep them where they help the raid. Healing gear helps on most any healer, but DPS gear helps most on the DPS.

Warlocks vs. mages, unless there's a strong argument for priority one way or the other, the items are put to both of them and they can work it out. Same for DPS items: Drakefang is war/hunter/rogue (even though I think it should be priority for melee DW... I don't always get my way), Prestor's is rogue/hunter, etc. It isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing, and it avoids stupidity like a resto druid taking a Drakefang for grinding with, when the rogues are still enjoying their BHB/Royal Seal combos.

how is raid value variability less 'fair' than item value variability?

So by your thinking then everybody should just pass until the morons pay full price?? Please explain to me how this promotes guild values and goals. Sounds like it's everybody for themselves in regards to loot where even if something is an upgrade you don't loot it unless it's for cheap. I'm sure your system is like mine where the first 1 or 2 times an item drops it goes for a lot then after that it goes for nothing and points inflate like crazy. I somehow doubt your comment in regards to that one big item dropping restoring things to normal. More likely it would take 2-3 of those items for 1 person or more to get back to normal.

Honestly your post was just incredibly asinine. You added nothing to the discussion and bashed some people who have done nothing but positive things for discussions on these boards. Hopefully this is one of the last posts I have to read from you.

Acting like jerks? Might be.

There's no reason to make most healing items anything other than healer priority. We prioritize armor to the appropriate level of armor first (cloth goes to priests first, leather to druids, plate to pallies), but for rings, trinkets, cloaks, it's free for all for the healers. Sharpened Silithid is one of our stranger priorities: it's pally/lock/mage copriority.

Priority isn't (at least for us) about making sure the absolute best class for the item gets the item. It's about making sure that initially items go where they'll benefit the raid, not necessarily the raider. When an item is no longer really benefiting the raid (if that rogue is going to get a CotBD next week, does he really NEED a Brut Blade over that hunter? If he's almost at his Pugio, let the hunter have the CHT!) then it can go elsewhere.

But, hey, we're weird. We banned anyone who isn't a caster from getting the Hakkar heart, but our first few ALL went to healers. They like it. Our tanks like it. Everyone's happy. We must be doing something wrong.

The one key to priority is to keep your priority the same pretty constantly. Don't change it when something drops and raises a big stink. If they want to make a big stink the day after, let them, otherwise let it be.

Hm. Lot of interesting thoughts here, thansk for the comments.

Go for bidding because then your 2 druids and warlocks in the guild can get all of their set pieces for 1 point a piece

We used to have closed bidding with no minimum bid (to avoid gear rotting) originally, now it's with an added priority system were 1 or more classes, or even speccs getting the different levels. In addition, even if you're not first pri, you can outbid them if you bid (aprox) 3 times as much as them (to avoid people picking up 1 point dust collectors). However, we're wholly focused on Naxx, so the priorities reflect this, and the council will at rare times step in to ask (nicely) for someone who won an item, to pass on it to someone else, who might not have had the points for it, etc). It all works out fairly well in the end, even if it is wastly more complex then it was when we started with onyxia way back when.

edited to add: I think I lost my point in there, the point was that it should be flexible enough to be bent at times to ensure the overall improvement of the raid/guild. (Easier if your guild consists of just enough people to fill a raid on a day with some absences, then if you have 200 accounts all eager to raid in 1 raid group).

The thing I have never understood about a bidding system:

Why wouldn't the people bidding just discuss before they bid, decide who gets it, and then have it sell for cheap?

I really don't see this as a problem with a loot system as it is with a specific person or if your random number generator is having PMS this week.

Because open bidding systems assume you're all ego-driven Narcissistic bastards that are smart enough to bid in the most efficient manner yet dumb enough to not collude. In theory you only achieve parity when every raid member is in perfect competition with every other raid member and there is no relevant private information during the auction that can skew behavior. Fairness is achieved through that form of friction, otherwise you get screwed with regards to artificially-underpriced items and dkp that is then instead horded to outbid classes that have a broader itemization field. Warlocks colluding for set pieces and then taking their appreciated dkp into the open field for trinket bidding, for example.

I think the theory is that if you're organized enough to collude, you're organized enough to put the raid first and not have petty squabbles over loot.

Most guilds have safeguards to prevent this from happening regardless like different item brackets, etc.

Many guilds have anti-colluding policies because of this, while others it's the accepted practice. Generally it's that if you can trust someone to stick to the colluded bid, then they wouldn't be trying to cheat the system in the first place.