This is the equation I sought to erase with the new loot system.
I dont WANT to be better geared than our newer mages. I dont want to collect my 9 piece Frostfire first. I dont want it because its bad for our 40 man raid. 40 man raid, not 12 old vets and 28 newbs raid, but 40 man raid.
I wanted to make a statement, and that statement was, "We loot to raid, we dont raid to loot." Yeah, I like loot. But I like beating content much more, and I feel like I looted everytime we down something we have never killed before, whether I actually loot or not. Looking over the dkp site, I have only looted one item in Naxx, despite us being 7 bosses deep, because I have 3 piece enigma, and all the good mage gear from AQ40. Lots of lesser geared mages/locks needed the upgrades more.
What I did was design a loot system that rewards the raid with evenly spread out items. If that one guy who took all 9 FF first suffers burnout, what happens? You lose all your FF. Not if you gave 5 FF and 4 PH out instead to 9 different people. You lose 1 piece, and have 8 happy people who get to loot equally.
I just think DKP has so many drawbacks. It suffers from weapon itis. You know, the guy with Perditions, Dragonfang, Emerald Dragonfly, CTS, AQR, Maexxna's Fang, Servo Arm, and Death's Sting, and the other rogue, with Brutality Blade, who couldnt afford the other 7 weapons because Rogue A kept outbidding him, and has been building DKP since UBRS.
I know its caught on in the guild, and a ton of people work together to fairly pass on loot/bid only for stuff they need. Recruits have gotten better since. Its too bad the recruit pool is so small on CC.
Maynard, you seem to contradict yourself a bit, the medium guilds have the 'mentality' that drives away new players, yet this 'mentality' (award loyal members) is unavoidable unless you implement another faulty 'mentality', that of zero-sum DKP.
Why is zero sum faulty? You'd have to be crazy to think that a player newly joined to the guild should have the same 'privileges' (loot) as a person who has stayed through others leaving, a person with proven loyalty. Awarding loyalty is a system thats pretty easy to understand, it's common sense, and it applies in real life (beyond a school/college stage, where 'rewards' are indeed based on pure ability/effort, and not time, this is probably why WoW has this 'problem' of unhappy applicants, because it's predominantly played by people of that age type.), so why not WoW; the longer you stay, the more you get.
What you are describing as a guilds laziness to solve this 'problem' can also be described as pure laziness from the applicant. An applicant who bases his decision to stay in the guild on immediate loot prospects is one not worth taking. I've found infact that most applicants who do get a lot of items for 'nothing' and early, (say they are a lock/pally, and thus get a lot of loot) burn out faster in the end. The 'medium guild mentality' of age before youth is at least, readily attainable, and with a clear ruleset: Stay long enough, and you will get items.
Just to add in my own anecdote here as to the 'core of seniority'. I joined a guild a few months back, after my previous guild died. Within 3 weeks i was part of the 'core', within 4 weeks i was an officer, and for the rest of my time in that guild (ive recently quit/taking a break to pursue my career) i was basically the GM. My experience therefore seems (from the replies in the thread) quite unusual, in that i was able to 'settle in' to a guild quickly, and indeed become one of it's leaders fairly quickly. This happened in what i'd call a medium guild too, ie. despite being the top guild on the server (2/3 of naxx), it has the characteristics (dkp etc) of a 'medium guild'. I will say that server transfers transformed a lot of 'top guilds' with medium rules, into medium guilds, simply because competition became apparant.
Finally, i'm always extremely hesitant, of calling leaders 'average' (''Average leadership, average guild.''), i would judge a medium guild's leadership a tougher job by far than a top guild's leadership. You dont need to be a brilliant leader to cruise at the top, you DO need to be a brilliant one to bring a medium guild onto the top. Take this from a person who has been a mediocre leader (Although my pride inserts that im a hell of a lot better now i have 2 years experience of it.) of a top guild and of a medium guild, the results speak for themselves.
the problem being described though is when you attribute seniority to how long a person has being in a guild. all too much you hear guilds say "well they've been here since the start, they were here when we were learning the old encounters".
well here's the thing, a damn good majority of applicants (if they're geared) has done the exact same amount of hardwork as you guys did, just in a different guild. and because they've attributed this time-based ideal to seniority, there's no way that new members can get on an equal footing as older members, it's fundamentally impossible.
that's the basis of the "core" mentality in the guilds Maynard is describing (or at least one aspect =P)
i think the issue is that dkp inflation is not a sustainable long-term system. these so-called "middle" guilds have it intentionaly (they see it as a good thing) because they want to protect the core members from the revolving door of new people. the argument of the OP implies that this is detrimental in the long run, and only exacerbates the root problem of high turnover.
Id disagree.
Our system is a simple "currency, bid" type system.
you get DKP for:
1) Kiling bossess
2) Turning up
3) Wiping on new content.
The DKP is bid in a closed auction, highest bidder wins.
There is inbuilt inflation because to keep things sensible, a boss in Naxx is worth More DKP than a boss in BWL. When we started raiding an average week of raiding might be 10-20DKP, while now it is more like 120DKP. But because of the no-limit bidding, people simply pay more for drops now than they did then. Infact in this sense even zero-sum systems have inflation built in because items from newer content will be given a higher price tag, and therefore the throughflow of DKP will be greater in Naxx than MC (More DKP earnt, more DKP spent). Our first Staff of dominanace went for 1000 DKP, and our first Spliner of Ateish went for ... 1200DKP. Infact most of our DKP leaders in each class have been steady at about 1000DKP for the last 12-14 months.
If anything I would say that zero-sum DKP is far worse than any open DKP system for new people. Because under zero-sum it is perfectly possible for someone to pick up an entire instance set before someone else. That new guy who picked up T1 in 3 weeks is now so negative he will watch your other players loot the whole of T2 before he gets a single item not on rot... how is that somehow more fair, or more likely to encourage loyalty than under our system where items on rot go for 0DKP, meaning that withing 2/3 weeks that player could be winning an item from AQ or Naxx ?
Simply put,
Zero-sum is not the holy grail, and for middle tier guilds encourages someone to turn up, go massively negative, and then move on to another guild. If you really want to follow the OP's drive, and let new members break into that core, you need to have a system where within a month or so a new player could be top of the DKP pile. Ive seen far more players stay in a REALLY BAD guild where they were top of the DKP pile, than really good ones where they were bottom.
I just think DKP has so many drawbacks. It suffers from weapon itis. You know, the guy with Perditions, Dragonfang, Emerald Dragonfly, CTS, AQR, Maexxna's Fang, Servo Arm, and Death's Sting, and the other rogue, with Brutality Blade, who couldnt afford the other 7 weapons because Rogue A kept outbidding him
The drawbacks you describe all are issues using a bidding system, which encourages people to horde points to dump them all on ZOMG weapon upgrades, meanwhile passing on all their other upgrades. Zero Sum, Upgrade policy, Forced Looting and Instance Caps to prevent massive inflation all solve your complaint with DKP.
That new guy who picked up T1 in 3 weeks is now so negative he will watch your other players loot the whole of T2 before he gets a single item not on rot...
I read this as "I got 3 months worth of loot in three weeks since I joined a raiding guild with instances on farm status. Now why can't I get the cutting edge stuff too?" A month of raiding to get to the top of the DKP earned pile seems overly generous to be honest.
How do it benefit your raiding team to let people blow off legitimate upgrades to save points to blow on one big purchase. I.e. All in blue with a Dark Edge of Insanity does not help the raid team.
Zero Sum DKP needs to deal with inflation and ultimately the question is whether the system is good enough.
Bidding on the other hand means you can afford a lot more errors in the system but people can create large problems with eachother. It becomes harder to say 'oh thats because he had more points' when someone gets spite bidded up to force a higher point cost. Or a class signs non compete agreements on items others will not bid on to preserve points for cross class competition.
You may say well if its super cheap someone else can bid on it but there are a number of items where that just isnt possible or desirable. If paladins start bidding up feral leather to gain healing items over druids there is potential for trouble. If you are horde side there is no competition to warriors on dps plate.
Sure these things can be corrected to a large extend by additional rules in the loot system but so can dkp. I even suggested a number of concepts i hadnt seen before in this thread and theres no reason others cant come up with even better ones.
Anyway bidding requires people in your system not be assholes. Which is great if you have a guild like that but not the best loot system to build a guild around.
Avair: as i read it the system in question has no minimum bid for items meaning negatives are not required and a new person can gear up for free from rot items. Still bidding is pretty risky although it is the simplest solution to inflation.
Another potential solution to inflation though inelegant is to force maximum effective points caps or hard points caps while im on the subject. It still requires being subjective in setting the points cap to avoid becoming a /random 100 system when everyone eventually inflates to it but can prevent the massive outliers at the top of a system if desired.
Nezralix: my favourite solution to that right now is to provide a rebate and rezero the system.
Naxxramas guild it's just plain old retarded to think it's somehow justified to expect new members to spend exactly as much time as you did gearing up
I said nothing of the kind. Of course gearing is compressed for new members. That's a win/win for the new member and the raid team.
But it's purely greed for somebody to join a guild, expect to be defaulted a set of farm status loot, then go on to take the only viable top tier upgrades from older members who have been contributing to learning new content for months.
There needs to be evening up point where new members can catch up with real effort and contribution, but 1 month of raiding is way too short, and 1 year is way to long. Exactly what instance caps are designed to do.
Saving all your DKP by getting free rotting loot, then using it to outbid people who had to pay for their sets is not a healthy loot system.
My fiance rerolled in spring 2006 and starting raiding with TR on Mal'ganis after getting frustrated with her horde guild on Archimonde. She got 8/8 t1 almost immediately, then 8/8 t2 before some of the more "established" players in her class due to her attendance, and is competitively geared/dpsing as we move into Naxx. She doesn't have the point advantage that they do, and as a result is lacking upgrades in cross-class loot areas (trinkets, jewelry, weapons) but all in all has entered an established dkp system at a huge disadvantage and thrived.
She had the longview approach, the average guild hopper probably doesn't. Took her 3-5 months to "catch up," depending on how you view it.
But it's purely greed for somebody to join a guild, expect to be defaulted a set of farm status loot, then go on to take the only viable top tier upgrades from older members who have been contributing to learning new content for months.
not necessarily, and it's that exact attitude that creates the whole core mentality in the first place. why do people always seem to attribute that to some kind of heroic badge of honour? but to get more specific, no you didn't learn the content (unless you really were the original people to run the raid dungeons, and 90% of guild aren't) you simply followed the strategies, and more often than not, you're running through instances that have been nerfed to varying degrees since their initial release.
and unless you're talking about a guild with naxx on farm, you're going to be encountering places you need to learn after new members join, and guess what? they're going to be "contributing to learning new content for months" as you say. and one of the best ways of keeping people around to help go through instances you haven't encountered yet is to make them feel like they're on an equal footing as the rest of the guild ie. eliminating the core mentality =P
edit: oh yeh i should add that the original post wasn't about "then go on to take the only viable top tier upgrades", it's about being treated equally (both ideally and statistically through dkp) so they're not in a constant "hand-me-down" position, because let's face it, no one wants to be in that position. would you?
But it's purely greed for somebody to join a guild, expect to be defaulted a set of farm status loot, then go on to take the only viable top tier upgrades from older members who have been contributing to learning new content for months.
not necessarily, and it's that exact attitude that creates the whole core mentality in the first place. why do people always seem to attribute that to some kind of heroic badge of honour? but to get more specific, no you didn't learn the content (unless you really were the original people to run the raid dungeons, and 90% of guild aren't) you simply followed the strategies, and more often than not, you're running through instances that have been nerfed to varying degrees since their initial release.
Yes, because all guilds are glorified PUGs that were thrown together by chance and blindly followed strategies for "free purps." No effort was expended in building, maintaining, or organizing the group and the people at the core are there due to their own machinations.
no you didn't learn the content [...]you simply followed the strategies
Right, because having the strategy guide is the same as having beaten the content. People can just read wowwiki and waltz right through AQ40 to kill C'Thun on the first night.
I'm not arguing for 'core' members to have special treatment. And I would hope your guild has better ways of making new members feel welcome beside bribing them with loot.
But your 'core' members, the folks that have stuck with you for the last two years, and spent their gold/time/evening/weekends learning content, gearing up and helping run MC over and over to gear up new players, have proven their loyalty to the guild. And loyalty is worth something to any organization.
Joining a New Organization
Honestly, every new organziation I have ever joined involves three things at the start.
1) Starting at the bottom and working hard to move up.
2) Proving to a new group of people I'm competent, and not just here for myself.
3) Accepting that I'm the new guy, and I'm going to follow the rules of the house for a while until I'm not the new guy anymore.
This applies to new jobs, fraternities, the military, civic/social organizations, whatever. Why would people expect anything different for a new player when they join a guild?
i am referring largely when people hold the time thing as a badge of honour, it's when that kind of thinking stands in the way accepting new members as equals that problems start arising.
you know, the point of the thread.
This applies to new jobs, fraternities, the military, civic/social organizations, whatever.
All those places facilitate means of new members becoming equal, the whole point of this discussion is that the "core mentality" allows for no such facilitation.
I find no way of comparing this variable : "Time until integration within existing power structure"
between World of Warcraft and almost any real life pursuit, let alone the military, a new job, or whatever.
When's the last time you told your new guild your social security number and address? Face it, this is the internet and with anonymity people can/will do whatever is in their power to be dickheads, often with no provocation or rationale. The reason the "Core" mentality exists and is a factor in the "middle guilds" is typically because of trust (time spent together), not some powerhungry inner-circle looking to stunt their own progression by any means necessary.
This whole thread has been teetering between personal anecdotes and sweeping generalizations so I guess I'm free to toss my hat in that ring as well.
I find no way of comparing this variable : "Time until integration within existing power structure"
between World of Warcraft and almost any real life pursuit, let alone the military, a new job, or whatever.
When's the last time you told your new guild your social security number and address? Face it, this is the internet and with anonymity people can/will do whatever is in their power to be dickheads, often with no provocation or rationale. The reason the "Core" mentality exists and is a factor in the "middle guilds" is typically because of trust (time spent together), not some powerhungry inner-circle looking to stunt their own progression by any means necessary.
This whole thread has been teetering between personal anecdotes and sweeping generalizations so I guess I'm free to toss my hat in that ring as well.
at least not intentionally =P
i understand what you're saying, but i believe the point of the thread was to illustrate that stunted progression is an inadvertant result of the core mentality which arises from the reason you stated "The reason the "Core" mentality exists and is a factor in the "middle guilds" is typically because of trust (time spent together)" (which i happen to agree with as the cause, i just don't believe on creating a false sense of seniority within a guild because of the problems it can cause).
i am referring largely when people hold the time thing as a badge of honour, it's when that kind of thinking stands in the way accepting new members as equals that problems start arising.
you know, the point of the thread.
This applies to new jobs, fraternities, the military, civic/social organizations, whatever.
All those places facilitate means of new members becoming equal, the whole point of this discussion is that the "core mentality" allows for no such facilitation.
You are never equal in those situations. You most certainly do not start off as General of the armed forces when joining the military. You start as a low ranking grunt or officer and are equal to those others who started off at that rank. Jobs, frats, etc. are all the same except no where near as rigid as the military. You don't waltz into a new job and start joking around with people that you don't know only to find out they are offended by how you act. You're new you learn and then move up to be the regular. It is no different then any "Core" group.
This is the only point i'm disagreeing with. If someone has earned seniority (trust, time, effort) what about it is false?
i'm talking about people assuming a higher position in a guild compared to a relatively new person, when the new person comes from a similarly progressed and geared guild.
not to mention, someone could just be plain average and have just been around for a long time, would you consider them "better" to an equally geared recruit who happens to be so much better skilled and/or friendly whatever than the original person?
that's what i'm talking about when i refer to "false seniority".
The amount of time, effort, and dedication that a long-time member has invested into helping the guild progress through the raid instances is just as worthy of note as their play skill, gear level, and personality. Even an average player who has stuck with the guild from Molten Core all the way to C'Thun certainly holds seniority over recent additions who might have better gear or play skill. I can't say as I'd consider that a "false sense of seniority" in any way -- they have invested a lot in the guild and deserve the respect associated with that.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
Then I disagree with the entire premise of the thread.
Top tier and 'medium tier' guilds have the same propensity to have 'core' behavior. The dirty little secret is, top tier guilds can get away with it because they have bigger carrots to offer members who stick around to become part of the core.
Core mentality isn't exclusive to medium tier guilds doomed to suckage. The top guild on our server (currently at Kel'Thuzad) definately displays the kind of behavior described here as 'core'. For two weeks, 'trainees' earn no DKP and loot will be sharded before they get any. Then they become initiates for 8 weeks, get lower priority on loot then members, and have their DKP halved when they become members.
So the real question is:
How long to you need to pay your dues before can earn becoming part of the core?
1 year? Too long. 1 month? Too Short? Never! (Because you aren't a RL friend of the GM?) Wrong anwser. The right answer should probably be around 3-4 months of hard work, you should be a full member of the core.
Well, speaking from personal experience, when a new recruit doesn't have a huge corncob up his ass about loot, performs at a high standard, is personable and gets along well with most of the guild- they don't remain "new recruits" for long and usually work their way into regular rotation.
The issue here is that rarely happens. Guilty (of being an asshat) until proven innocent is a lot safer on guild resources than the alternative, and if you're the right kind of person it won't affect you anyway.
How long to you need to pay your dues before can earn becoming part of the core?
1 year? Too long. 1 month? Too Short? Never! (Because you aren't a RL friend of the GM?) Wrong anwser. The right answer should probably be around 3-4 months of hard work, you should be a full member of the core.
yes i agree with this, although someone Maynard was saying is that with faulty dkp system you never really do make it into the "core". due to inflation you're forever on the backfoot with gear. so even after 5, 6, 7 months or whatever, you'll still be trailing behind the others.
i have to ask, is that really fair? (i don't believe so). and yes i've been in the position of seniority before being up high on the dkp pedestal before, and i didn't think it was fair to new recruits.
I read this as "I got 3 months worth of loot in three weeks since I joined a raiding guild with instances on farm status. Now why can't I get the cutting edge stuff too?" A month of raiding to get to the top of the DKP earned pile seems overly generous to be honest.
It doesnt mattter how you view it.
When 4 weeks later the new recruit twigs he will never win an item first becausee it is mathematically impossible to get to the top of the DKP pool no matter how hard he works or contributes, what do you think he will do ? He will either slack or quit.
Pure zero sum systems do not encourage new players to work hard at being a core member of the raid, the economics encourage defections and slacking.
For comparisson, we took on a new T2 priest, who didnt need any item pre C'thun. It took him 2 months to get to the top of the DKP pool with a 95% attendance record, he is very much a member of our core and he earnt it. So I would say our looting method is a sucess. Under zerosum DKP he would probably be last in line for T3 instead of first, even though he has been on every single Naxx first kill.
The maths of Zero-sum systems simply dont work for any guild that has to regularly recruit to fight attrition.
You may say well if its super cheap someone else can bid on it but there are a number of items where that just isnt possible or desirable. If paladins start bidding up feral leather to gain healing items over druids there is potential for trouble. If you are horde side there is no competition to warriors on dps plate.
Fearl leather = druid priority.
Problem solved.
Hell, just use a hidden bid system, dont have a public auction and players cant bid each other up anyway.
DKP systems only really require 1 thing. A leader with some common sense and the will to aply it.
If you have a leader who will assign your first perditons blade to a mage just because he bid the most DKP your guild isnt going to last long enough for discussions about core mentality to matter. Any system, zerosum, suicide kings, free bid, is open to abuse by assholes, just remove the assholes and stop believeing its a problem with the DKP system.
This thread has hit on a lot of good points and talked about of issues that directly face guilds. How a guild works through a particular situation is a testament to the leadership capability.
I'm an officer in our guild and a while back we saw the theoretical problems that would come as new people joined. Basically the result is a quasi-caste system where the newer you are, the lower you are on the food chain. We used NDKP, zero sum and upgrade pricing. The result of this is that despite the system being zero-sum, people would initially have to buy into the system for large amounts of dkp and later on all their upgrades would be cheaper. When new recruits join, all the old members are paying tiny amounts of DKP for upgrades, and recruits are earning small amounts as a result but paying huge amounts to buy into the system.
The solution to this that we have implemented is fairly simple yet extremely effective. We use a DKP sunset and we did away with upgrade pricing altogether. After 3 months, old raids are deleted from existance. All DKP earned and spent is just gone. What this means is that after 3 months of being in the guild, recruits have fully caught up to everyone else's history. They are on even ground. The 3 months is a slow leadup, every day they get closer and closer to being equals, and then finally they are there. It has worked out excellently for us.
Our basic thinking was, how long is it before someone can be considered the core of our guild? It was mentioned earlier in the thread, someone who was there from the Lucifron kill to the C'Thun kill has seniority, but for how long are they "more" core? Is someone who joined 6 months ago more core than 4 months ago? At that point they've both become "one of us" and it's only fair that they have similar priority on loot, yet in our old system, and the system that many guilds use today, the person who came in later will ALWAYS be 2 months behind. That does not seem fair.
I think this goes back to the original basis for this thread. The people in this thread are arguing the same "core fallacy". If you never let new people into your core then you will be doomed to have a rotating door of recruits who never stick around. You have to provide the means for good players and compatible people to make it into your core. If your loot system, which is one of the foundations of a guild, is designed to keep new people out, then it will make integration very difficult
I still the cure for a medium guild is heavy recruitment of hungry raiders.
I think in a medium guild often times you have 20 people who kick ass and 20 people who are just waiting for the boss to magically die so they can collect their purples.
The 20 people who are paying attention and kicking ass are not the problem, but what do you do about the 20 slackers? Do you yell at them? I don't think yelling by istelf really works? You can talk to them privately, that can't hurt. You can penazline them in the form of points so they take it where it hurts.
But if you have a good recruitment policy where you take extra people that you don't need so that you are benching people for every raid instead of struggling to get 40 people together, then you have the power to say "if you are not paying attention, we will pull you out of the raid and relplace you with someone who wants to pay attention, someone who WANTS to be here more than you do"
If players know they can and will be replaced if they are not paying attention, if they are not trying, they usually will pay attenion. having TOO MANY people creates competion for raid spots. Competion makes people try harder. Knowing there is no competion for a raid slot leads people to be lazy.
Other things that I think can help improve a medium guild is a strong emphasis on individual performance. I don't believe damage/healing meters tell the wholse story but when raiders know that they are being reviewed publicly like every 20 minutes by officers or class leaders I think they feel more preassure to do well. The important thing is not who is on top, or being #1, the important thing is that people are trying to do well, and when a raider knows that they will be noticed if they do not do well, and that there are people benched who can replace them, they generally try harder.
One last thing, I think goals for the group is also a good thing. I think a lot of medium guilds throw themself at a boss over and over with no goal really. I think the leadership saying well we got to 82% last time, lets make sure we get him to less than 81% this time actaully helps, having these mini goals for the raid. Or timing the raid. Lets get to Huhuran 5 minutes faster this week! Hey guys we are only 2 minutes ahead, lets pick it up!
Oh yeah, turn your medium-level guild into a pressure cooker! There's a great way to improve retention!
Well the idea was to improve progress by motivating players to play better and pay more attention. The result would hopefully be that the good players don't leave for "better" guilds because they see progress and don't feel like they are doing all the work themself. Hopefully new recruits would also stay because the group would be healthy because people now want play well, progress is being made, and the group is not losing key members every week.
10/04/06, 12:49 AM
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