I searched but the only thread I could find concerning this was in relation to the expansion. I want to get an idea of how guilds handle this currently.

The way I see it is you can't make someone play a character they don't want to. You can refuse to bring them on raids but they'll most likely just join another guild with their new main. What I'm interested in are some interesting ways of "discouraging" the switch. We currently allow it but we're thinking there may need to be some consequences involved. Maybe a trial period with no loot or a DKP penalty.

Do the GM's out there allow it, and if so, what are the repercussions? I guess I may be way off base here in relation to post-BWL guilds, but I'm thinking there will always be people who get tired of their class.

A member of our guild paid 300 DKP and was ineligible for loot for a short period of time when they decided to change their main.

If we are in need of a certain class, and one member has a well equipped alt for that class, and if the current class of his main is not underrepresented, we allow switching over classes without restrictions.
At least that was the case, now with Nax we have stopped doing so, since the instance is quite depending on the equipment, and alts with T2 are not that regular.
We maybe had around 5 people change their mains so far, and 1 who left the guild because he wanted to play his alt but wasn't allowed to do in our guild.
We had one case where we allowed a change, but only by removing of all earned DKP and the status of a completely new member.
But that was our former maintank who had to step back due to family and switched over to his warlock just for the fun of it.

DKP hit and you can only switch classes once.

we penalise people the amount of dkp they spent on the character they switched from, up to a certain amount. So the more gear they 'wasted' by switching their main the harsher the penalty.

We store points per character and flag characters as mains within the loot system.

Alts do not get confirmed for raids unless the class is necessary, and main non-minimum bids for loot automatically win over any bid from an alt. Loot points are stored per-character, not per-player (but our loot system encourages fairly fast turnover in points, realistically, our current top point holder has the points one would accumulate from just over two months of 100% attendance raiding). Players may switch mains, but must wait two months between switching mains again.

We've had one player switch mains more than once, and he has really variable playing time (i.e., he played a warrior with the intent to tank when he could play heavily, and once his playtime got shot down due to procreation, he switched to a shaman that could contribute without having to be at the top of the loot acquisition list) and a handful of other main switches, mostly people switching out of overpopulated classes.

In my opinion, the most important thing is to have a solidified alt policy and enforce it. From our experience, the problems occur when players try to raid with two characters, less so when they switch from one main to another.

If it is a necessary class, minimal penalty.
If it is not necessary for your raid/progression, dkp wipe.

You lose all DKP, needed switch or not. If you were negative, however, you retain your negative status. You can only switch if we need the class you want to switch to, OR if your current class is overpopulated. No loot lockout on the new main other than that provided by your DKP being wiped.

Wouldn't this encourage people to spend their points before switching/declaring their switch, which is exactly not what you want?

Not sure wiping the points clean would solve anything tho - as Kobal said, would encourage, rather place a price on switching that's really not at all harming them compared to what it affects the raid group in whole.

Penalizing a person with either a DKP hit (take away the amount of point spent on items again, so as to have a double hit on their points) and / or disallow looting of items for a short period of time via points (items defaulted would still be given).

Given the xpac and a new class for each faction, if someone wants to be a shaman (Alliance) or paladin (Horde) the above ruling shouldn't be there depending on who is switching (a healer now to one of these classes) - my $0.02.

You aren't *entitled* to a switch. Do something that stupid and you definitely wouldn't be getting one.

edit: Since I think the only logical thing to do with DKP in the xpac is to zero it, obviously this is all in the context of the current game, or the future game; switches during the leveling phase are easy enough to do, as long as not everyone is trying to switch.

When a character is positive (in a zero-sum system), that's supposed to mean they've given the guild more than they've recieved in turn. Penalizing negative is good, because that character is leaving before they paid their debts. But penalizing positive, while possibly good for overall guild progress, seems more like a middle-finger send off. Edit: of course, this is assuming the player doesn't have enough points to buy 3 items in a single raid and then switch over the next day.

Our raid system is quite abnormal to begin with, having a much larger group of people than most guilds. We have DKP by character, and there's no inherent penalty in the points system towards playing another character. However, it's essentially a priority system for invites for progression raids based on how experienced and geared a character is. Switching chars will essentially set you back that you have to work your way back up.

This is kinda the problem you run into. It's pretty hard to make a case that someone is "gaming the system" when they switch. How do you differentiate between someone with 8/8 who genuinely hates his class and someone with 8/8 who is just trying to gear up multiple characters?

If you get 8/8 the day before you go "Oh, and I want to switch", you're an asshat. If you really wanted to switch, you'd be thinking hard about taking *any* piece of loot on which there's competition.

If you get 8/8, then 2 months later talk to the officers and say "I'm not happy with my class, I'd really like to switch to my alt", you're fine.

We're still fairly young into BWL, working on Chromag, so the gear discrepancy isn't too large to be overcome. Recently one of our lesser geared tanks decided that he was going to switch over to his priest. Since we have more than enough tanks and he is a good player, there wasn't any harm in it really. There wasn't any DKP docking or anything like that, but we run a very lax ship. Several weeks ago a priest expressed to several officers that she no longer likes playing her priest and would like to switch to her warlock once it reaches 60. Frankly she's a crappy priest, and her moving over to a warlock is better for the raid since no ones life will be in her hands.

Any main switching request has to be brought up with the officers, and we decide wether on a case to case basis. Each one is unique and we don't think a blanket policy will fit. It's the same policy on drastic spec switches (Resto to Feral, Holy/Disc to Shadow) We don't dock DKP, or deny the switchers loot. Since they are undergeared it is best for them to close that gap as quickly as possible. We've had no problems with loot conflicts so far, with the exception of T2 pants being given to the new priest, rather than the one that is switching to a warlock.

Free if the alt is a needed class and already well geared. Costs 200 DKP and no bidding period of a few weeks if it's a non "needed" class. If it's a good player that wants to continue playing but wants to play another toon I think it's a good idea to give them a way to do so. Sure the guild might lose a well geared toon, but that happens all the time via burnout anyway. As long as they aren't just stalling the "inevitable" burnout (or some such) it's all good :P

Wow, I take it we have an exceedingly open policy towards alts in general, from the responses this thread has gotten.

Player based DKP, no penalty for bringing an alt, mains get gear over alts but not penalty for switching.

We do this for a few reasons. We have player based DKP because we have a long history of account sharing, only with people we trust of course, good RL friends generally. It's nice on nights where we have 7 hunters online and are lacking priests, we just have someone come on as a priest. Works out well for us.

We have no penalties for bringing alts for the same reason. Gearing up alts helps on nights when we don't have the right mix of people.

I can see why you would penalize people for switching out of really geared mains, but at the same time, having a second teir of geared alts(BWL and MC geared), helps out the guild for the same reasons.

Also, in general, I understand people getting burnt out from playing a single class, especially this late in WoW's lifecycle. A year and a half is a long time of the same play experiance week after week. It's understandable in my view if they want to switch and it makes for a "happier" raid.

On switching between alts and mains: I think a good time for it is in between major instance pushes. If you have BWL on farm for a few weeks let people switch without penalty, before you tackle AQ40. Once AQ40 is on farm if someone wants to switch let them before you tackle Naxx, etc, etc. It's not always that cut and dry because people want to always be pushing new content, but farming for a month in one instance before taking on the next will leave a guild better geared and make progress easier in the long run. One of the problems mid tier guilds have is tackling new content too quickly so a farming policy makes sense from that perspective.

Since people switching is honestly a rather rare occurance, as long as it is within reason I don't really see a reason to penalize people. Freezing them out of gear hurts because since they just switched they will be the most in need for a few weeks. DKP penalties, and similar "We don't want you to ever switch mains" attitudes can also hurt the raid in a similar way.

Maybe I'm just too nice to people.

We have a fairly simple method of dealing with this which is a retrial of the player on there new main if they do to an acceptable standard there in if they dont that character isnt in the guild but there previous main is offered the option to rejoin. Some ppl just arent as good at playing another class as they think regardless of gear and its a diservice to them and the other ppl in the class there rerolling if you let them join solely down to them having been a member. Also if its mildly undergeared its irritating as essentially you have to gear up someone which is something i genuinely despise having to do.

Bringing an alt on a farm status raid is fine. I don't think anyone here would disagree that alts in 20 mans or in content a tier or 2 back is a good thing, both because geared alts is convenient (if we're short on hunters for Gluth, for example, not usually hard to grab one or two hunter alts and swap them in real quick, and warrior alts on 4HM is another obvious case) and because it helps with burnout.

This is about permanently making an alt your main. The idea behind losing all your DKP is *not* to punish someone for wanting to switch; rather, it's to attach a serious price to doing so, such that someone thinks hard about it before doing it.

Fundamentally, this is the most important sanction.

Players shouldn't be entitled to raid spots if they can't contribute. It's one thing to have new players/characters in farm content, but if their contribution is necessary to the success of the raid, they have no business being there if underskilled or undergeared.

Loot points are a secondary consideration, really; to have a healthy system with main/alt switches, you need a waitlist for difficult content.

We are actually beginning to bring alts shortly to Naxx, except the plan is to make them show they at least know how to play the class well and that they've done a good job of gearing and preparing the alt to be brought to Naxx. This is due to we are at the point where a lot of Tier 3 is beginning to rot now.

I've only seen one person switch their main (Mage->Priest) and the GM simply asked if the Priests wanted his dkp wiped or not. No one cared so he kept it (this was before we moved to a LC). Wasn't really a big deal.