Flowing forward DKP

Pater · 11/06/06, 12:49 PM

A while ago, someone on these forums described the flow-forward system - and my guild is debating adopting that system for TBC. One of our concerns is administration. We used nurfed now, and would like to know if there are any plugins or other methods of implementing flow-forward easily. It seems possible to do it all manually by first deleting the old item, then processing, then doing a purchase on the new item. Is that the way it's being done?

Also, I am of course interested in whether the system is working as you had hoped or if there are problems with it.

Snowcrasher · 11/06/06, 5:25 PM

Originally Posted by Pater

A while ago, someone on these forums described the flow-forward system - and my guild is debating adopting that system for TBC. One of our concerns is administration. We used nurfed now, and would like to know if there are any plugins or other methods of implementing flow-forward easily. It seems possible to do it all manually by first deleting the old item, then processing, then doing a purchase on the new item. Is that the way it's being done?.

I've quoted a longer explanation at the bottom of this post, but in brief (as it affects my guild):

1) This was implemented in eqdkp, not nurfed
2) Don't delete the old item, just adjust it's cost accordingly
3) This is automated within our system, but the person who did the automation transferred off and I haven't looked at the code myself.

Originally Posted by Pater

Also, I am of course interested in whether the system is working as you had hoped or if there are problems with it.

Yes the system did exactly as we had hoped.

Brief summary is that the new system completely fixed the issue of most raids being worthless due to upgrading/sidegrading and the related issue of new content being worth less then old content due to the upgrades/sidegrades.

The automation of this did however mean that only in-system items were able to be upgraded on.

The new DKP system is vastly superior to our old way but it's primary weakness is the following (used to not be an issue because we gave upgrade discounts for items obtained out of system):

A ) Long-term member, full T2 obtained in guild
B ) New member, full T2 obtained out of guild

they have equal DKP

Player A takes T3 piece (200dkp) for 60dkp due to upgrade
Player B takes T3 piece (200dkp) for 200dkp due to no upgrade eligibility

Player A is now 140dkp ahead.

Another minor issue was the potential of players taking crap (items that would normally be DEed) simply to move DKP forward. This was generally non-existent however due to leadership speaking up over any obvious abuse.

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Cut & Paste from my original explanation of this to our guild:

Essentially it's identical to our old system except with 2 major changes:
1) You can no longer upgrade/sidegrade on out of system items (ie. out of guild)
2) Whenever an item is taken the full dkp value for that item is awarded to the current raid. In order to keep the system zero-summed, any time there is an upgrade/sidegrade the original dkp awarded is removed (since the current raid gets the DKP instead).

So if you took a shoulder item in November for 50dkp and upgraded yesterday to tier 2 (100 dkp item), you get charged the additional 50 dkp, yesterday's raid is awarded 100 dkp and the raid in November loses 50 dkp.

Here's another example from my actual DKP (full item costs in brackets):

04/08/06 Emberweave Leggings (30) - 30
01/22/06 Giantstalker's Leggings (100) - 100
09/11/05 Dragonstalker's Legguards (140) - 10

Originally when I took DS legs, the raid was awarded 140dkp. When I sidegraded to giantstalker legs The original raid now only got 40dkp and the new raid got 100 for me taking the GS legs. Recently when I took Emberweave for FR, that raid got 30 dkp for it and the orginal raid gave up an additional 30 dkp.

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What this means:

All raids that aren't disenchanting everything will be worth substantial DKP, upgrades or not and regardless of the content. People who stop raiding for significant periods of time will start to fall back in the DKP priority list (as opposed to the old system where they maintained their DKP forever and could come back after a 6 month absense and still be first). New people in the system without gear are no longer immediately driven into a large DKP hole without any realistic way of climbing out.

Essentially this system goes back to rewarding people who actually raid, and rewarding raiders regardless of the location.

Pater · 11/06/06, 5:47 PM

Thanks very much for the info.

Our system doesn't acknowledge sidegrades in the same way - right now, it's either an upgrade or a downgrade, depending on whether the new item is more valuable in NDKP's formula or less. If the new item is worth fewer points, then it is a downgrade and goes for free if it is a downgrade to all bidders.

As far as adjusting the price, I do not believe that is easy in NDKP. Each item has a fixed price and you can't modify individual purchases. (At least as the system now exists.) We would have to delete the old event entirely, I believe.

A ) Long-term member, full T2 obtained in guild
B ) New member, full T2 obtained out of guild

they have equal DKP

Player A takes T3 piece (200dkp) for 60dkp due to upgrade
Player B takes T3 piece (200dkp) for 200dkp due to no upgrade eligibility

Player A is now 140dkp ahead.

Is this problem fixed (at least partially) by a shadow-item system? By that I mean, assuming that all L60 raiders when they first enter your guild come in with some gear/points/assets in each slot? In other words, new members in full T2 would at least have credit for their gear?

(I guess another way to fix it is to give them full credit for the gear they enter the guild with, though I assume you have decided against this.)

Is EQDKP's WOW plugin merely an administration system, or is there a default item pricing formula/weights as well?

Snowcrasher · 11/06/06, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Pater

Is this problem fixed (at least partially) by a shadow-item system? By that I mean, assuming that all L60 raiders when they first enter your guild come in with some gear/points/assets in each slot? In other words, new members in full T2 would at least have credit for their gear?

(I guess another way to fix it is to give them full credit for the gear they enter the guild with, though I assume you have decided against this.)

We just left this issue alone, figuring every cure was worse then the problem itself. My ideas on how to address it were the following:

The best solution I can think of is giving recruited players a 'gear credit'. After 2 months in the guild, a previously geared player can add up the highest DKP items for each slot (standard 8 slots or maybe everything but trinkets?) and recieve a 1-time adjustment for a certain % of that total (25-50%?).

So a player coming in with full T2 that would have cost 800dkp in our system would get a 1 time credit of 200-400 dkp (depending on the % we pick). This would be to help offset the huge descrepency that arises as illustrated above. A major downside would be this is somewhat of an admin nuissance. I figure the player wanting credit would be responsible for make a post listing what they want credit for and it would have to be verified in game that they actually have the gear prior to recieving credit.

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Note: Alternative suggestion would be to give players an adjustment only when they take loot instead. Newly recruited geared player takes T3 but had prior T2 from other guild. Apply immediate adjustment for some % of the T2 cost. Suggest that this only apply to T3 to relieve admin burden.

In the end I found that it really wasn't a big deal. New (but well geared) recruits have to pay full price, but on the other hand, their DKP isn't getting eroded (by the forward flow) for awhile and they aren't likely to go on an immediate spending spree.

Originally Posted by Pater

Is EQDKP's WOW plugin merely an administration system, or is there a default item pricing formula/weights as well?

We priced all our items in a spreadsheet that contained all the class formulas and item stats. The item names and costs were then imported into eqdkp and selectable via a dropdown list when adding a newly looted item.