As a guild we are in the process of moving away from a DKP system involving reward for kills & attendance and open bidding for loot distribution, to a ZeroSum DKP system using nurfed values and many of their rules (upgrades etc).

As background one of the major rationales for the change is that the original system has not met the aim of ‘fairly’ awarding loot as a result of attendance commitment etc. who has the most DKP has been a function of who has had to enter a bidding war for the first drop vs gaining a drop for minimum DKP.

This leads me to ask for opinion on two differing issues.

1) Translating current f00gs (DKP) from the old to the new system vs resetting everyone to zero.

I support resetting everyone values to zero to ensure ‘fairness’ on items going forwards, using the argument that the existing totals are skewed, so to carry them forwards just introduces the inherent problems of the old to the new.

As various people don’t like that, the alternative suggestion is subtract the average value from everyone to create the zero point for the system and divide everyone’s total by X. Of course the value of X is hotly debated, but we can’t for example bring in a person with 3000 dkp lead to the system if a typical T2 drop will costs 20 foogs – if we do they will never move down the table (especially compared to others on -800 or so after conversion).


2) How to handle T2.5 drops that don’t directly benefit the raid

We currently have no loot priority (bar the MT). We do however ask class officers to ‘advise’ their classes and in the main (but not always) such advice is offered and heeded.

However as we start to look at AQ40 I can see (as an example) that the paladin avenger set is geared around damage. As we have no retribution paladins I would from a raid perspective like to see the drops going to a class where the item will impact the raid, such as rouge. In the case of a class set I cant see many of our paladins electing to pass on these drops – how do other guild handle this issue ? I have a concern that if not handled well we will either end up with less progression due to item distribution, or a dissatisfied class – both of which I want to avoid!

Any applicable comments welcome, especially from anyone who has been through such a transition of loot DKP system

1a. Don't worry too much about being absolutely 'zero-sum', even in a technically zero sum DKP system.
1b. We were throwing around using NDKP values and converting, and we came up with an idea to take some average difference multiplier and divide by it. So if a priest T2 set in your DKP system is 1000, and using the new one is 100, divide everyone's DKP by 10.

2. We don't have any special rules with 2.5 other than say, if you complete your set with it you get it or something.

My guild will probably move to a new DKP system and reset everyone in TBC, which is only months away, so you may want to stave off changing until TBC /shrug. Depends on how much your current system is failing.

One thing I want to do is set elligibility to roll based on 30day attendence * DKP accrued. So if you have 1k dkp and 80% att, you can roll to 800, but someone with 900dkp and 100% att can roll to 900. I always thought that was a good idea to motivate people to raid even if they were comfortably sitting at a high att.

Combining DKP with rolling? What the hell?

We had to do the same thing, and wound up doing it around the time we were moving into BWL from MC.

So we just said "The hell with MC, it can remain screwed" and started BWL and onward on a clean slate with a rational system. Eventually we converted MC to a fixed-price zero sum system - it was never balanced, so it's still screwed, but it's a little better. Plus, it's MC, who cares.

So I guess my suggestion would be pick an instance and start from zero for everything from that instance on.

We recently reset our MC points (reason doesn't matter too much). However, we gave those with enough positive points a "token" that they could use in the zero-sum system. Basically, if I had 100 DKP in the old system and Hunter X had 90, then I could basically pick up a hunter item over him. At that point, I'd lose the token and pay whatever DKP value was assigned to that item.

Those who had negative points were just set at 0 with no token.

This requires two spreadsheets, one for token value and one for actual points. However, the advantage is that those who had significant DKP still get whatever item they want first. Meh, whatever, we're in BWL now so our core doesn't care too much about MC.

I wonder how you guys manage such systems, pen&paper (or the equivalent, excel spreadsheets)?
Honestly, for me that would be too much work.

Yeah, we did that for Naxxramas.

The DKP system is horrible. All it does is anger new recuits, cause drama, and provides excess work for those who must calculate points. It is a shame that everyone uses it, because it really is flawed.

Currently in our system, someone has to have 75% or whatever of your DKP, and then they roll to however much DKP they have, and you roll to however much you have. It's nice in that it allows a larger audience to be elligible and have soemthing to look forward to, even if it isn't as 'fair' as DKP.

To borrow from Churchill:

DKP is the worst form of Loot Distribution system except all those other forms that have been tried.

You don't need a system to distribute loot. You need trust with your guildmates.

I will get right onto trusting my guild mates, when WoW comes built in with a lie detector.

So you are basically saying that you trust everyone in your guild to decide what items they need more than other people, how in the world do you decide who needs gear more when its an upgrade to multiple people?

I think the best thing about DKP/attendence is that it gives a tangible reward to everyone on the raid. With officer loot they notice you're there(especially if they track attendence), but you don't really 'Oooh' as much when say, a warrior weapon drops that your MT picks up to use in PVP, giving you a considerable amount of DKP.

If you raid, and distribute loot, your guild has a system, whether it's been laid out in text or not. DKP is just one system, and it doesn't necessarily imply mistrust. It just makes sense if your guild is the mathy sort that would prefer to track things as opposed to loot with your heart. I'd prefer that the guild I raid with use DKP for the same reason that I balance my checkbook. It a little bit of bookwork that eliminates a proportionately larger amount of easily avoided heartache.

I'm not saying that I trust everyone on a personal level, but on a loot level, yes. Members of the same class in the same guild should have an understanding with one another on who gets what loot and who gets it first. Seniority, Attendence, Upgrades, and # of Loot recieved all comes into play. It is really up to you and the members to talk with one another and say "Well so and so was here all throughout AQ40 and took no loot at all, thus he has a priority over Tier 3 than myself and everyone else in my class" or "I really want Such and Such for a weapon so I'll let So and So take these armor pieces over me". Then when the final decision comes into play, you know that the right decision was made. It's important not to take loot personally. My guild has the final decision come down to the officers. Do I trust every one of my officers? No. But I do know that when it comes to loot, they let personal grudges slide.

DKP allows for any person to do whatever the **** they want. Long time sword rogues can turn around and say "Well, I have the most DKP, I want this Death's Sting." These situations happen all the time in a DKP system. Whether its Sword Rogues taking a Dagger, Dagger rogues taking a sword, a Paladin taking a Hand of Rag, a Paladin taking a DEoI, A Priest taking shadow gear from warlocks, Tanks taking 2Handers and the list goes on. I've seen DKP situations like this happen ALL THE TIME. It is total BS to have this happen. DKP even lets loot people can use rot or be disenchanted because they want to "save points". A successful raid needs loot to be distributed evenly.

How often do you see faults in the DKP system where you see BAD players get AWESOME loot. I've seen a Paladin with 4 pieces of Redemption, the rest judgement, C'thun mace, ouro shield, and end game rings/trinkets. Then I see another paladin in the same guild with a mix of Tier1 and Tier2 and I say, "That's DKP for you".

DKP is a word applied to a number of different things. Many of these things prevent the issues you're talking about.

(incidentally, there's nothing wrong with a sword rogue deciding they'd like a change and going daggers.)

DKP really does fall into the Churchill doctrine.

(BTW - your guild? Uses a form of DKP with irregular values for attendance, upgrade policy, seniority tiers, and item price, and relies on everybody thinking the same value for these things. You could write it out formally if you thought about it and have something that functions exactly the same, except doesn't rely on people agreeing.)

Thats disgusting to think you would agree to something like that.



A form of DKP? No
There are no points, no bidding scheme, no real track records to maintain. Attendence is important, we have recently begun to keep records of it. However, unlike in a DKP system, should the officers decide that this person is better deserving of the loot rather than the person with the best attendence then that is the final decision. Basically, you can't take everything into consideration, it's just too much. Every decision isn't the best decision, but you will never see a decision that will hurt the raid like the DKP system allows

What a dumb post. Your post amounts to "I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about but my anecdotal evidence of something I don't even understand clearly indicates I'm right." Perhaps you should travel back in time 4 months, make the arduous journey to the official forums, and make what will undoubtedly be your fifth thread on the topic of how C'thun is, in fact, beatable, and that people need to just try to kill ouro first! Or possibly, the Un'Goro power crystals! Or maybe talk to the leashed dragons! The possibilities are endless! What you're doing here is no different.

Once you stop frothing at the mouth about the horrible injustices that DKP doles out "ALL THE TIME," you may want to think about what it actually is.

Implementation is everything. Stop being stupid.

I -know- I'm going to be the only one in this thread to say this, and maybe it's because of my guild, and our specific wierdness....

But why are you switching?

We're not nearly as far as many people on this forum, and there's so much hate towards the DKP system.....but we really like it, and ours is simply attendence/bosskills, with increased rewards for early/hourly/kills on new content.

I've found it always tends to reward people very quickly who show up and loot- and it gives people a very specific choice in the way that they choose to spend thier DKP. Bid small, accumulate your full set quickly? Bid minimum, saving your DKP to unload in one burst on that dream item?

We've had a bit of loot drama here or there, we had class locks for a while, but overall the fact that a person can always point to themselves as an issue (man, if it'd bid 2 points higher...if I'd gone a little cheaper on that BWL sidegrade...if I'd made 1 more raid..) seems to keep the drama to a minimum.

It sounds like my guild's using the same system you are, and we even recovered from a (full) DKP crash not too long ago, after people took a vote and decided not to go with zero sum DKP or officer loot, so apparently we're happy with it.

Have you considered moving from open bid to silent bid? It's still weak to various sorts of colaboration and the like, but it 'feels' like it works well.

Summary: Informal attendence based points system, subject to poor record keeping, overridable on a whim if officers feel like going to a Loot Council system. Taking an upgrade has no oppurtunity cost besides social pressure.

Like communism, Loot councils are great in theory, but in practice, no leader is completely fair, impartial and universally benevelant enough to make it work.

Dont confuse DKP with looting rules. All your issues with dkp are actually loot priority problems, something that your guild should resolve before getting the said items. IE Sulfuras is a Warrior only item.


God help people actually that went swords in MC and now realize that daggers give a higher sustained dps.

Your right, calling out "The DKP System" was a bad move on my part. I know a lot of people use forms of/variations of the system that work well. It is an injustice on my part to be so stubborn to that fact.

However, my greatest qualm is the fact that you can blatantly see flaws in some of their guild systems. Simply because they run a "Most points gets the item" type of system. You see it all time, on every server. If I see another paladin going around with a DEoI, I just don't know what I'm going to do.