I’m thinking about founding a guild a few months after the release of The Burning Crusade. It will have a largely different basis than most of the guilds that exist today in so far as it will be focused on succeeding at PvP. We would PvE since skill can only overcome so much of a gear disadvantage. Since I can sit back and theorycraft about how to structure such a guild, I wanted to post my idea for a loot system for feedback.

By having a clearly written, clearly explained loot system substantiated by the thought that went into it, I hope to avoid the tensions and politics that can divide, even bring down guilds. Being upfront and clear will limit the ability to protest the system based on its “fairness" as it is something they will have implicitly accepted upon applying to the guild.

Once people have considered my assumptions, I’d be eager to hear their criticisms of the system, how they might handle the situation differently and any areas which I failed to address. I've given other aspects of the guild's structure some thought, but purposefully left those out as to keep the conversation focused on the loot system. Because the loot system is based on other aspects of the guild, some of which I haven't stated, things might not make sense to other people as much as they make sense to me. So just ask.


Assumptions:

-The guild will consist of people who’d rather PvP than PvE
-The guild will never require people to spec in a specific fashion nor mandate attendance at a guild PvE raid
-The guild will concentrate its energies on 10-man instances, only moving up to 25-man instances if there’s a collective guild will for it and the manpower to do it
-While I will serve as GM, I won’t necessarily lead PvE raids myself
-There are talented raid leaders out there who are willing to work with non-raid specced individuals assuming a) these PvPers aren’t idiots and b) their efforts as raid leaders are recognized


Description of system:

The system will be a unified zero-sum system with modifications. These include the use of point ceilings, learning incentives and role modifiers.

Zero-sum:
The zero-sum system strikes me as a fair way to prevent DKP inflation, track PvE contributions and distribute loot. As for point values, I see no reason to reinvent the wheel and will adopt someone else’s values. As long as the points are quantitatively grounded, such as ilvl value times slot modifier with some allowance for subjectivity, we should be fine.

For the sake of simplicity, we’d use one pool of points instead of breaking them out into different pools for different instances. Also, we won’t restrict items to specific classes; if the hunter can afford it, it is a hunter weapon.


Point-ceilings:
To prevent people from stockpiling points as well as to prevent the “rich get richer, poor get poorer phenomena," I’d use point ceilings for instances. Using arbitrary numbers and current instances to illustrate, there’d be a 1000 point cap on the points you could earn off of MC, a 2000 point cap on the points you could earn out of BWL and a 3000 point cap on the points that you could earn out of MC. Anyone who is at the cap won’t be calculated into the numbers when it comes time to distribute the value of any purchased epics.


Learning-incentives:
While giving out points for learning an instance isn’t very sum-zero it, being a slave to the system strikes me as the tail wagging the dog. We’ll set up some sort of guideline for occasionally awarding learning points. I read a very well-made argument that incentive points can encourage playing below your best and stretching out learning period for as long as possible. To avoid that sort of scenario, I’ll leave it at the raid leader’s discretion instead of creating a general rule where people always get points.


Role-modifiers:
As the most radical element in this loot system, I’d add a point multiplier for those individuals who fill specific raid roles. In order to avoid accusations of lining my own pockets, I’ll exclude myself from all modifiers no matter which roles I fill.

What do I mean? The raid leader will have a role-modifier of 1.5 which will translate to him receiving 50% more points than the other people in the raid, all other things being equal. The bonus isn’t set in stone and could be lower or, more likely, higher.

Why? Raid leaders literally create wealth out of thin air. And yet the task of coordinating a large number of people, handling the logistics and continuing failure after failure is thankless. This strikes me as wrong and this is my attempt to correct the situation. It is my belief, through and through, that a raid leader’s contribution is invaluable and it is only appropriate that the looting system recognize that.

When evaluating this, you have to consider that the guild I’m designing this system for will consist of PvPers. People will not necessarily be lined up waiting for an invite to a raid. You also have to consider that as a guild rule, specs are not forced on anyone so raid leaders will have to deal with the troubles that come with PvPers.

I also like this system because it scales well. If the guild ends is small, then we’ll have one raid a night if that. On the flip side, if the guild ends up huge, we can have multiple people running multiple raid instances.

As for role-modifiers for non-Raid Leaders, I was thinking of a token bonus for PvE specced players – say a 1.1x modifier - and a larger, non-token bonus for the main tank - say 1.2x or 1.25x. While I’m against guilds telling people to spec one way or the other, I’m quite comfortable with providing an incentive to those who spec in such a way as to benefit the larger group.

I wish you luck with your guild, now on to comments.

The raid leader getting a 1.5 modifier sounds a little strange. Sure, at times the role is thankless, but with only 10 (maybe 25) people to lead, it isn't such a burden. I am against any modifiers.


Since it is a PvP-focused guild, the items gained from PvP are supposed to match the current tier of PvE rewards (at least in the Arena). Your initial idea may be flawed if the CMs told the truth about PvP gear. I am sure your guild would want to hit up instances regardless, just to try out the content if nothing else.

Why penalize people that save points for the one special item with point caps, specially in a null system when the guild is PvP centric. You are penalizeing the people that show up the most and take back the least. If a guild member is initimidated by entering a raid because someone has a lot more DKP then them.. well they certainly aren't much of a team player.

Although I know how most pvp'ers have no faith in the PVP loot system, I strongly believe Blizzard when they say gear obtained through the arena system will be equal to PVE gear. So, in essence, you really wont need a loot system or do any PVE for that matter.

Modifiers for officers and raid leaders is a terrible idea; looking further, modifiers period are a bad idea. The purpose of the new 25 man raid cap is so that you can more easily surround yourself with the right kind of people who share your desires. Look for the right kind of people and don't try to create a system that tries to temper the selfish urges of players; that dam breaks sooner or later.

My observations when participating in a merger between pve and pvp players is that the pvp players were willing to sacrifice potential raid upgrades in order to maintain their point balance for their ideal pvp items. Your system does nothing to address this. Giving the main tank a modifier doesn't mitigate that, because even at 1.5x normal points he's still going to drop off the competitive list the second he takes tanking gear.

You would be far better off creating three loot lists. One of purely PvE centric applications, one of purely PvP centric applications, and one of both.

Good examples would be -resistance gear and feral gear for pure pvp, resists and defense gear for pure pve, generic spell hit gear being considered both for dps classes and pure-pvp only for healing classes etc.

Allowing people to spend their points differently on each. I am just freewheeling here and have no suggestions on how to maintain that sort of a system. If your tanks and healers aren't taking upgrades because they want to remain competitive for cross-class pvp gear, then you're not going to be able to sustain true progression into better loot.

Also consider that I'm going to leave it to PvE raid leaders to handle the logistics, politics and details of PvE raids. Any whispers of "Why don't I get to raid today?" and all of those other things will be set squarely on the shoulders of the raid leader. Making sure people have proper consumables, are on vent, distributing loot, entering it all into the record keeping system, designating who is on stand-by: all on them. If that's not enough to convince you, then we'll have to agree to disagree.


This appears to be a commonly raised point. You only get so many points out of the arena system. How many you get is based on your ranking. Once you hit the minimum level of games, which is set to shockingly low 10 as per a designer's post, there is no correlation at all between time invested and points. Remember that with the Arena system, you don't reach a certain reputation level and then purchase things with gold like you do today. Instead, you earn points based on your standing and then use those points to purchase gear. So while the PvP gear will be comparable, your access to it will be most notably limited.

So yes, PvP gear might be on the same quality level of PvE gear, you can only get so much PvP gear at a time. PvEing will provide us with additional sources of gear, allowing to fill in gaps that we can't cover or don't want to cover with our hard to come by PvP points.

Consider further the fact that gear and skill aren't mutually exclusive. For Great Justice/Team Awesome has/had an amazing core of PvPers who decided to PvE to fill their time because they couldn't find any decent competition. So if we come up against people who are equally skilled, gear is going to have an outsized role to play. And given the matching nature of the ELO system, we're going to run into difficulty competition on a regular basis.

Simply put, I'm not willing to rule out any reasonable source of gear prematurely, which is why I'm designing the guild for PvPers willing to PvE to support their PvP habit.

Well, you'd want your raid leader to be one of your most consistent raiders. He's going to be earning consistent points via attendance, seeing as his presence determines that the raid is going to happen at all. Artificially inflating that number, especially given that he has control over who he gets to bring; it just seems like a powderkeg.

I'd suggest you worry more about how you're going to organize your PvP than PvE.

Given the smaller groups of PvP instances and lack of dependence on a specific schedule, you really need multiple quality leaders and guild cooperation to run effective groups at different times of the day, balance multiple groups when more players than a single instance allows and fairly prioritize group transitions.

These are big issues which go overlooked in otherwise successful if not outright dominating PvP groups.

If Blizzard is as committed to PvP as they say they are, the PvP rewards in TBC will be comparable with that of PvE for the purpose of PvP and the entire issue of PvE for a PvP guild will be avoided.

Also, as others have said, I think the modifiers are a bad idea and some form of item restrictions/priority are a good idea.

One time I founded a one-person guild so that when people saw me they'd see "Igniferroque <Plays Poorly With Others>". So I'm going to try and avoid the whole "be a team player" argument. I've only seen it wielded for unattractive purposes.

I'm basing the guild on respect of the individual. People can spec how they want and they can spend their time how they want. They can PvE and PvP with whomever they want, in-guild or outside of the guild. But for that privilege, they make certain sacrifices. They can't assume they're going to be part of a guild that will be the first to take down Illidian. Since I'm giving raid leaders a fair degree of independence, they can't even assume they'll get into PvE raids unless they can merit getting into that PvE raid.

My goal for the guild is to provide a place for mature, competitive and capable PvPers to do some light core PvE raiding, make money to fund their PvP habit, and find others to PvP with. And by setting goals low, I can keep my recruiting standards high. This will prevent me from having to tolerate idiots or incompetents who not only inspire me to physical violence, but lead to the downfalls of guilds as suggested in this thread: http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=6791


To get back to your point, I'm not interested in penalizing that person who wants that one special item. However, I'm willing to sacrifice that person's convenience to prevent point distributions to hopelessly favor some people and sink others right to the bottom of a hole that they'll never climb out of. If this doesn't appeal to you, then again we can agree to disagree. I don't need a system that appeals to everyone and if the cap is too much for one person to bear, then so be it.

That being said, people who fill special roles like raid leaders, main tanks or certain PvE-specced classes will have some kind of larger ceiling to allow them to take full advantage of their role-multiplier.

A 50% bonus would basically mean that person would be able to take basically any item he wanted. Good luck getting 24 other people to showup with that.

Quite the contrary. I'm designing a system that will harness the selfish urges of people.

Raid leaders do not grow on trees. And being able to show up for a raid, do your small little role with no burden to think of the big picture is a luxury far too many people take for granted. I will not.

"Fairness" doesn't persuade me very much. And people demand much more fairness from this game than they receive in real life. I choose not to cater to that. By setting my expectations in the way I have, I won't have to.

I believe in the "rainmakers" of the world. I recognize that there are people who are so talented, the things they touch turn to gold. Gifted raid leaders literally create wealth for other people. And those are the people I want in my guild.

I don't see the point of running a guild if you are going to run it that way.

For example, if you have a guild group going and you could really use a 2 people to even out your group balance but, the two people who fit the role perfectly are playing with other people at the moment. I would fully expect those players to drop what they are doing and come join the guild group or be penalized/kicked. If you don't enforce some degree of exclusivity on your members which in turn benefits the whole, there's no point, particularly for a PvP guild.

Why should someone wear your tag instead of someone else's with more structured benefits and/or higher aspirations?

brb giving myself more dkp.

I'm not sure how I'll address the main tank issue. Theoretically the role-modifier is to attract, recognize and retain skilled main tanks, not so much to compensate for the fact they have to purchase so many sets of gear. The saving grace is that by setting my PvE expectations low, a MT with less than ideal tanking gear will still be good enough.

I'd be against creating three different loot lists as it adds complexity and subjectivity to the situation.

For resist gear, I'd be open to the way EJ handles it. They increase the cap on individuals by the value of resistance gear they've purchased. I don't know if this will translate well, but we'll have to see how important resistance gear is in the smaller instances.

Correct, and neither to valuable teammates that trust your judgement and know you're leading them torwards a greater good in some form.

Could you help me parse out this sentence. Multiple PvP instances? Lack of dependence on a specific schedule with regards to PvE or PvP?


Our access to PvP gear will be limited. Since this seems to be an under-appreciated fact, I'll try to find a link to the developer's quote.

He'll only need to get nine people to show up and if it wasn't for his efforts, there would be no loot for anyone.

If you think back to the WoW forums when they announced that raid sizes were capped at 10 and 25, one of the main arguments was that there wouldn't be enough raid leaders to go around. Perhaps your 24 people should be focusing on getting themselves into a raid group.

How much experience do you have being a member in a successful progressing pve guild?

I think you severely misunderstand why players raid, or even why they join guilds, and becuase of that, your system just isn't very appetizing for players who are looking for a guild.

If you are going to live off of and promote the selfishness of your players, then you better be #1 on your server, otherwise they're gonna jump guilds as soon as they get geared.

Had you actually taken the time to read my post, you would have seen I'd exclude myself from any modifier bonuses no matter what role I play. Did you have anything constructive to add?

raid leaders should get a 0% bonus. seriously, there's already enough potential for the perception of impropriety in raiding that you don't want to give people something more to grumble about. raid leadership isn't some horribly thankless job without any perks as it is, and the last thing you need is your members feeling like you're somehow taking advantage of them.

see above. honestly, i think the idea of relying on the selfishness of your players for their motivation, and ALSO expecting them to accept that someone ought to get fully 50% more stuff than they do is just outright foolish, which is why my response was initially just a sarcastic quip.

I'm not sure I understand your point. There are PvPers out there now who don't join a guild that they'd certainly qualify for on the basis of skill. They don't join because they aren't interested in feeling pressure from the guild to spec a certain way or raid on a given night. This guild is for them. I don't see how providing them with more of an opportunity to do PvE raids than they have unguilded is anything but a win-no lose proposition.

If you're saying I'm going to have problems with recruiting, I know that and I can pose my idea for that another time.

I'm not trying to be defensive. You post often and I enjoy reading your posts. I'm just not sure I fully understand you.