Bidding DKP and 25man-raids

Taipan · 11/30/06, 8:45 AM

I was wondering how effective DKP will be as a system to distribute loot fairly when the raid size shrinks to 25. In stead of 5 of each class on average in 40-man raids, we'll be seeing 2-3 of each class on average. This makes a system of bidding on loot using DKP points to bid with rather vulnerable to price-agreements between people interested in a certain drop. It was already a bit of a problem in 40-man raids, where for instance rogues would always bid minumum on rogue set items or some items deemed to be most useful for rogues. But the less people contending for a certain drop, the less smooth a bidding system will work properly IMO.

What are your thought on this, and what are viable alternatives to DKP for smaller raids?

XP-Dolphin · 11/30/06, 8:57 AM

You should have said "Bidding DKP and 25man-raids". Honestly, I don't see a problem with our system at all, which is a Zero-sum based fixed price system. We are expecting a very easy transition to 25-mans in tBC.

vorda · 11/30/06, 9:50 AM

Originally Posted by Margot

Fixed price dkp (be it zero-sum or not) doesn't have this problem...

I really don't get why some people still have bidding systems.

To make it easier for peole to get off-spec gear? (Farm gear for hybrids/healers/tanks)
To make it easier for new people (at low dkp) to gear up on equal levels with the raid without getting a massive DKP setback? (try joining a guild as new raider where people have been raiding for over a year)

I'm most in favor of how <Curse> does their loot (officers just decide), but can imagine that that wont really work in most guilds.

hiro · 11/30/06, 9:55 AM

I am still a fan of bidding systems because I get to choose how much any given item is worth to me, and also it nicely handles loot that has lower value than you may suspect, without having to examine and weigh every possible item ahead of time.

Finally it properly "discounts" through market pressures items which might otherwise be sharded, since they are of very small value. Nexus crystals are cheap, and alternate gear is valuable to hybrids.

I am also a fan of DKP in general, because at the level cap, unless I recieve an item of loot ON THAT RUN, my time in the instance could possibly be considered "wasted" in regards to improving my charector.

I think some of this will be ameliorated in TBC because of the following things BLIZZARD did for us:

1) Massively more factions to rep up, which rewards working in each instance.
2) BoP material drops for crafting, again accumulating rewards.
3) Heroic mode token collection, which seems a bit like Blizzard managed DKP to earn epics.

As such, player run DKP is not nearly as essential until we find some other raiding platue again, at least 4 months from now.

Bender · 11/30/06, 9:59 AM

To make it easier for new people (at low dkp) to gear up on equal levels with the raid without getting a massive DKP setback? (try joining a guild as new raider where people have been raiding for over a year)

This is the only weakness of fixed price dkp in my opinion, especially when your guild uses an upgrade system. I used to think our dkp system was completely awesome in the beginning, but as we recruited along the way I noticed that it favored veterans to the extreme. I still think it beats bidding systems by far though.

hiro · 11/30/06, 10:09 AM

Can anyone verify that Hard mode tokens drop like AQ40 insignia, not epic armor tokens/regalia? That is, they can be taken by all, and do not have to be distributed by the players.

Taipan · 11/30/06, 10:09 AM

We're looking at a system where we will give the item to the person in the raid for whom it's deemed the largest upgrade. A few exceptions must be made for items comparable to Onyxia's head or Hakkar's heart, because everyone can use them most of the time. Also for rare/legendary drops (say: droprate <10%), since you probably don't want that legendary drop in the hands of the player who only raids once a week or less, but in the hands of someone with a higher attendancy.

In theory, this will make the most efficient use of drops, and it keeps the gear-gap between those who attend every raid and those who only raid once a week small. This became a problem with our old bidding DKP system, as well as people joining the guild who would have to raid for weeks-months to finally loot their first purple item.. not very encouraging for them, and it isn't helpful for the entire raid if there are chronically undergeared people in it.

Cylyna · 11/30/06, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Bender

To make it easier for new people (at low dkp) to gear up on equal levels with the raid without getting a massive DKP setback? (try joining a guild as new raider where people have been raiding for over a year)

This is the only weakness of fixed price dkp in my opinion, especially when your guild uses an upgrade system. I used to think our dkp system was completely awesome in the beginning, but as we recruited along the way I noticed that it favored veterans to the extreme. I still think it beats bidding systems by far though.

These are two statements that I totally agree with. When I started the current guild I am in, I was dead-set on having a fixed-price zero-sum DKP system in place. The guild I came from used a bidding system which was subject to a fair amount of collusion going on, over inflating the value of certain items while deflating the value of others.

I hoped that having a fixed-price system would alleviate those problems, which it did. I didnt forsee some of the other problems coming into play, namely the vast disparity of DKP between people who come into the guild already geared up and are paying upgrade prices for their equipment, and our 'cagey veterans' who have been with us since day 1 also being heavily favored.

Anyways, back on topic. I am planning on still using a fixed-price system when the expansion comes out. However, I also know that I will only have 30-35 people to keep happy, drop wise, as opposed to the 50-55 people I do now. I really thank that the first step for us in determining what kind of system we use will be to trim the fat out of the guild that tends to hinder our performance and re-evaluate the situation from there.

Oko · 11/30/06, 10:12 AM

Perhaps this thread might have the answers you are looking for : http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=8835

wolfs · 11/30/06, 10:53 AM

We ran a bidding based dkp system from June 05 through October 06. We had one restart due to guild reform. Our guild went from killing Rag to mid level naxx + c'thun. I would strongly reccomend against using a bidding system.

Let's face the facts: People are f'n emo about their purps. In a bidding system they have many more opportunities to complain or feel upset. Here's some things that happed to us:

-Vet raider: Why was I bid up?
-Class (or classes) xyz get their loot cheaper
-Rare drops go to random people rather than to the vetrans
-blowing up loot because I have to protect my lead if item xyz drops
-feral druids take DFT (only saw 4 over the year)from rogues / warriors
-DPS warriors taking the best tanking gear from MT's cause they have more dkp
-players would usually bid up / spend all their dkp then drop their gquit
-people sometimes fall victim to bid wars and item values just get all over the board. It's stupid that someone should pay 'double' for the same item in the same run.

I personally thought it slowed our progression because things were all over the board all the time. As our raid leader I was always happy we killed the boss until it was time to do loot. Bidding was just sooo much overhead that did nothing towards helping us kill bosses.

- items all needed a minimum start price (pricing all the items in the game is a tough job!)
- bidding usually at least took 5-10 minutes of the raid or important players standing around.

In general I would avoid bidding if at all possible. If you do bidding you'll spend more time doing loot / listening to emo tears and less time killing monsters on the internet.

Erongg · 11/30/06, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by Bender

To make it easier for new people (at low dkp) to gear up on equal levels with the raid without getting a massive DKP setback? (try joining a guild as new raider where people have been raiding for over a year)

This is the only weakness of fixed price dkp in my opinion, especially when your guild uses an upgrade system. I used to think our dkp system was completely awesome in the beginning, but as we recruited along the way I noticed that it favored veterans to the extreme. I still think it beats bidding systems by far though.

Something you might consider doing (which my guild does) is to take a "what have you done for me lately?" approach. We set all DKP earned and all items purchased to zero after they've been in the system for 3 months. So a new guy comes in and gets a lot of gear, that puts him hugely negative for a few months, but then after 3 months he's back competitive with others. It creates decent sized fluctuations in DKP ranking, since when an old week is erased people effectively "get back" the points they spent on items that week, and it can also be disconcerting to have your DKP go down after erasing a week where you only earned DKP and spent none. Still, we feel it's fair in principle and it has worked well for us.

vrak · 11/30/06, 11:16 AM

Has anyone considered potential inequalities of using the same zero-sum system for 10 and 25man raids? or are parallel systems mandatory here for zero-sum to work correctly? e.g. a level 70 item would be worth more to non-looters in a 10man instance than it would be to non-looters in a 25man instance.

Is using parallel systems (or lowering the cost of 10man drops, something which doesn't seem right to me) the only way here or can they co-exist?

while im here, is there anything better than EQDKP for running zero-sum systems? regular re-zeroing requiring masses of individual adjustments plays merry hell with the eqdkp_adjustments table size.

Pizzarino · 11/30/06, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by wolfs

-Vet raider: Why was I bid up?
-Class (or classes) xyz get their loot cheaper
-Rare drops go to random people rather than to the vetrans
-blowing up loot because I have to protect my lead if item xyz drops
-feral druids take DFT (only saw 4 over the year)from rogues / warriors
-DPS warriors taking the best tanking gear from MT's cause they have more dkp
-players would usually bid up / spend all their dkp then drop their gquit
-people sometimes fall victim to bid wars and item values just get all over the board. It's stupid that someone should pay 'double' for the same item in the same run.

My guild uses blind bidding. Officer announces the item and mininum price, guy who sends him the highest number in a tell loots the item for that much DKP. Bid wars don't exist and veterans always have the "second higest +1" strategy for rare items. People move up and down rapidly and newer members can quickly get enough DKP to bid on something. Item priorities have been in place on special items but usually only last for the 2-3 first drops.

The only thing I have aginst it now is the "spend everything and drop" pattern that started showing up late in Naxx. 4 tanks with 4-6 dreadnaught have quit (or ebayed then posted a screenshot of his paypal account +$2000) immediately after spending everything. Not too fun if you're on the 4H.

Bekah · 11/30/06, 11:26 AM

To be honest we never really considered 10 man raiding worth the energy of getting it into the dkp system, especially if you're an established raiding guild looking at running the 25 mans. Gotta have someone on the run to enter the strings and work out who gets what, and truthfully giving access to manipulating the dkp database to the majority of people doesn't seem like a very solid choice. While the chances of one of your sterling upright citizens doing very bad things is fairly low- it's an open cookie jar on the counter.

Seems much more reasonable to need before greed stuff in 10 mans, and save the paperwork for more complicated raids.

Elerion · 11/30/06, 11:30 AM

Bidding is low maintenance and requires very few rules to work, but is inherently slightly unfair.

Fixed prices are better in every way in a perfect scenario, but it requires MASSIVE amounts of rules and maintenance to avoid problems like:
- Mispriced items
- Disenchanting minor upgrades
- Inflation
- Veteran dominance
- Initial gearing being overcosted
- DKP hoarding
- Learning tries being underrewarded (assuming zerosum)
- Offspec items making people go broke
etc

We don't have anyone willing to spend many hours per week maintaining such a system, and the automated methods available are lacking in the above. If Alcaras's Warmath system ever gets completed and automated, we would probably switch, but currently we're decently happy with closed bids with some relatively standardized min and max bids.