DKP and cross-class parity - Page 5

Auxilium · 02/01/07, 3:10 PM

Seped - sorry for the confusion. Because some people refered to fixed vs. bidding, I just admitted I'm biased towards bidding. I tried to avoid saying bidding will solve most issues (I do think it will), hopefully my point that DKP should focus largely on time played, came across. Item distribution between classes is a matter of kindness towards each other and a matter of making clear what you expect from your fellow raiders, not a something DKP can and should handle.

• Shalas · 02/01/07, 4:26 PM

Originally Posted by Sancus

1) Healers don't need high-end dps loot for raids.

2) The purpose of the high-end loot from the most current raid instance, to any serious hardcore guild, is to make it easier to kill bosses in that instance and the next.

Thus, it seems obvious to me that this isn't a problem for any serious raid guild. A healer doesn't NEED access to the best dps loot ALONG with the best available healing loot. If they claim that they do, then they're being pretty selfish. Yes, this means that it's harder for such a healer to farm, but face it, if you're specced for healing in the first place, that choice alone is going to make farming far harder than any gear issues. If you are REALLY concerned with farming, or pvp where you don't like to heal, then you really need an alt. It may suck, but that is the way the game is designed.

Guilds need well-geared healers who don't burn out and quit. If your guild has low healer turnover despite giving no damage gear to healers, congradulations. You're pretty much unique, and once your current healers do quit, you'll probably have trouble replacing them.

With token loot, giving your healers dps gear could theoretically even improve the quality of your dpser's gear. If giving up 10% of your caster gear to healers reduces healer turnover by 20%, you suddenly have 20% more set tokens to give out. You also suddenly have healers who can farm (it's not very fun, but I could farm faster with my full healing spec in my damage gear than I could on my badly geared hunter alt), and as a result are likely to use more consumables... resulting in bosses being easier to kill.

alienangel · 02/01/07, 5:32 PM

Originally Posted by seped

It just seemed counterintuitive to me to say "We are rewarding this item to you first since you have shown more dedication and have attended more raids, But we are still going to charge you 10 times what joe slap is going to pay for it next week."

This doesn't seem counterintuitive to me at all :S. I don't see it as "we charging you" 10 times the price. I see it as "you risking bidding" 10 times the price. If you're not prepared to lose 5000 dkp to get a T3 chest, don't bid that much. Bid what an item is worth to you. If you value it more than anyone else and express this in your bid amount, you'll win. If the DKP premium is worth more to you than the inconvenience of waiting a week or a month, then you logically have no reason to be dissatisfied with waiting a week or a month to get it at the price that's right for you. The system adjusts prices in relation to demand, and it can't hurt you unless you bid irrationally. If a priest outbids a mage for DPS Dagger of Uber and spends 2000 points on it, that's 2000 points the priest earned with as much effort as the mage, and that's 2000 points the priest just dropped in the DKP rankings.

I never felt "at war" with my guildmates - I felt like it was a game, and when someone outbid me, I often felt happy for them, because they wanted something more than I did, and paid more for it. I didn't get the item, but I got to watch their DKP plummet, and mine rise.

norg · 02/01/07, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Foxery

I'm surprised no one has mentioned using the "Slot Modifier" when creating item prices. Going back to the OP, this would go a long way towards resolving weapon/offhand costs across classes.

I've seen some DKP systems in which all items in a given zone are priced nearly the same, as most of them have the same target ilvl. Including the Slot Mod would make 2H weapons cost the same as a 1H+Shield combination. (Or, if your system already includes this... do it again to increase the effect? Your dual wielders will love you, anyway.)

This balances item pricing quite a bit without your DKP admins needing to manage an exception along the lines of "class X pays differently than class Y," plus any system which uses "clean" math makes price generation a snap for new items that you've never seen before. This does not touch on the sub-discussion about classes who want two sets of gear, but it does at least get a warrior his sword and shield at a fair price. He won't be flat broke when he goes for that 2H Axe of Excessive Bleeding.

By contrast, weapons cost much more than armor in some systems; this made sense in BWL days when we had "that one perfect dagger that every <insert class> should have and keep forever," but killed anyone who wanted an Ashkandi. Hopefully the greater number and variety of zones in TBC will help us avoid that scenario.

A brief refresher: In addition to the stat budget for an item, each slot on your character also has a percentage value. Here's the full list for reference.

2h Weapon – 100%
Off-hand/Shield – 55%
1h Weapon – 42% (?)
Ranged/Wand - 30% (This seems low to me for a bow/gun. Not sure about idols/librams)

So,
Casters... pay the same for a 2H staff as
casters who pay the same for a 1H dagger + offhand as
warriors who pay the same for a 1H sword + Shield as
DPSers who pay the same for a 1H + 1H.

Head – 100%
Chest – 100%
Legs – 100%

Feet – 77%
Shoulder – 77%
Hands – 77%
Waist – 77%

Wrist – 55%
Neck – 55%
Back – 55%
Ring – 55%
Trinkets – 70%

By the way, I've used an open bidding system, and firmly believe it is harmful to the guild's well-being. Bidding creates competition between people who should be your friends. (and in our case, the system had serious inflation.)

When buying loot feels like waging war on your own guildmates, the system has to go!

The slot mods work fine for armour, but they're slightly illogical for weapons since AFAIK only stats count towards budget, not weapon DPS.* I'm actually pretty close to coming up with a load of mods that tie in properly now (and have made-up but more realistic mods for weapons). If I can finish it all off surreptitiously at work tomorrow maybe I'll post them.

*EDIT: presumably caster weapons that sacrifice DPS for huge amounts of spell damage also have at least a portion of that unbudgeted.

alienangel · 02/01/07, 6:33 PM

I believe the iLvl formula does actually take DPS into account in a roundabout way when calculating weapon DPS. That's why caster weapons have such low DPS: the portion of DPS sacrificed is proportional to the how far their stats are over budget for their level.

alienangel · 02/01/07, 6:41 PM

Originally Posted by Aphyrax

Originally Posted by Althor

Aphyrax: How would you handle special cases for example "tank" loot for Warlocks in the case of Vek'lor. I doubt there would be many warlocks that would be giving more than 0% to their tanking DPS split.

Or resist gear in general.

Resist gear is always a bit icky, because people don't want to spend DKP on something they use for one fight the whole game. I would just put the resist gear into the pool it belongs most ignoring resist (ie if it had spell damage it would be in the DPS pool) and let bidding sort out the pricing. I would deal with warlock tanking gear the same way, because I do not think that such a rare case warrants special attention. That is just put it in the DPS pool and pretend the tanking stats wont exist. Since the items are only useful to tanking warlocks anyway, bidding will make sure it ends up in the right hands.

An interesting challenge for any such scheme are tokens that lead to loot in more than one bucket. I think it would work best if you classified such items in both pools that is let people bid with either one (but not both at the same time) on it. Yes that would mean that you could in rare scenarios use heal DKP to outbid someone who is using DPS DKP, but other than the logical oddity I do not see too many problems with it since ultimately its the same DKP anyway.

I'm curious, would it hurt to just have people always having some points allocated to a separate "Resist Gear" pool? As long as everyone is forced to put the same small percentage of points (2%?) into it it would fit into the system neatly. Of course I suppose it would still hurt any classes that need to collect more DPS gear than others (warriors vs casters for example) but blizzard does occasionally switch things up and make unexpected people suddenly need to buy resist gear. ANd I've honestly never seen people fighting over resist gear so even when one class does need it more, I could see the system sorting itself out to award it to them cheaply anyway. Any item that people want for things other than the +resist on it (e.g that FrR shield in Naxx) would be in higher demand, but wouldn't come out of Resist DKP anyway.

Aphyrax · 02/01/07, 6:51 PM

Originally Posted by alienangel

I'm curious, would it hurt to just have people always having some points allocated to a separate "Resist Gear" pool? As long as everyone is forced to put the same small percentage of points (2%?) into it it would fit into the system neatly. Of course I suppose it would still hurt any classes that need to collect more DPS gear than others (warriors vs casters for example) but blizzard does occasionally switch things up and make unexpected people suddenly need to buy resist gear. ANd I've honestly never seen people fighting over resist gear so even when one class does need it more, I could see the system sorting itself out to award it to them cheaply anyway. Any item that people want for things other than the +resist on it (e.g that FrR shield in Naxx) would be in higher demand, but wouldn't come out of Resist DKP anyway.

It probably would not hurt but I do not think that it is neccessary. Since bidding systems inflate the price difference between highly desirable and less desirable loot, resist gear usually goes for so little that its not worth having its own pool. Also, you get into trouble with items that are both resist items as well as items worthwhile in their own right, because then you would have to clarify when an item is in the resist pool and when in the regular pool. Which leads to again more rules.

So, just like it is with warlock tank gear I do not think that it is worth the complication to have extra provisions. You have said so yourself, nobody fights over resist gear. In both guilds that I have been in that use bidding systems, resist gear has never caused problems other than people complaining that a boss again dropped NR stuff instead of something useful (you know which dungeon I mean).

norg · 02/02/07, 4:39 AM

Originally Posted by alienangel

I believe the iLvl formula does actually take DPS into account in a roundabout way when calculating weapon DPS. That's why caster weapons have such low DPS: the portion of DPS sacrificed is proportional to the how far their stats are over budget for their level.

I find that hard to believe to be honest. I mean you only have to look at Wraith Blade (ilevel 83) vs Sapphiron's Left Eye (90) to see that the sword has much better stats. While I'm aware that crazy spell damage on caster weapons is directly proportional to the loss of 'expected' DPS, that doesn't mean any of it is budgeted. How else do you explain the sword having a 42% slot mod compared to 52% on an offhand when the blade has vastly superior stats?

Kink · 02/02/07, 5:14 AM

Blech dkp systems.

If you are a raiding guild, people who use the item on a raid get priority. This is for the enjoyment of everyone. If a paladin who heals on my raids has the most dkp and wants to bid on some awesome tanking shoulders that our MT needs I will say NO. The tank will use it and benefit EVERYONE in the guild. People should not be selfish and take something over others who will use it for the benefit of the guild as a whole.

Yes yes you can argue that whoever has the most DKP has earned any item they want. But I want to raid and be efficient and these people can EASILY get comparable blues/loot the item that just dropped once the instance is on farm.

In a year of BWL my guild had some very nice DPS caster gear going to our priests, why would it be ANY difference now? in fact it should be faster as you get more loot and have less people. Once you move to the next instance only a few items remain desirable as people want to complete their next set.

Also open bids are poor, not because they can cause drama, but because they slow a raid down a lot. Fixed values are far better.

I am in a new guild now and if I see resto druids taking agi/ap/crit gloves or resto shamans taking the same stat chain armour I will be annoyed. In a 5man instance its a bit iffy, but we can run it again straight after so I am not too bothered (be nice to let the DPSer take it first, but really.. meh). In a raid its a BIG no. You can loot it when no other DPS needs it. For now use your pretty damn nice blue quest rewards/dungeon drops. Having said the above, I don't think anyone in the guild would take loot over the raid class that would use it anyways.

Mearis · 02/02/07, 6:06 AM

Kalman, how do you handle priority with newer recruits/large guilds?

It seems like a priority system would work great assuming you have a small group of high attendence people with very low atrition, but would completely breakdown if you have a large playerbase and new recruits. Does a new mage get automatic priority on damage gear over a holy priest who has been in the guild a very long time?

What about respecs? How do they fit into the picture?

Ayr · 02/02/07, 6:45 AM

Originally Posted by Kink

Blech dkp systems.

If you are a raiding guild, people who use the item on a raid get priority. This is for the enjoyment of everyone. If a paladin who heals on my raids has the most dkp and wants to bid on some awesome tanking shoulders that our MT needs I will say NO. The tank will use it and benefit EVERYONE in the guild. People should not be selfish and take something over others who will use it for the benefit of the guild as a whole.

Yes yes you can argue that whoever has the most DKP has earned any item they want. But I want to raid and be efficient and these people can EASILY get comparable blues/loot the item that just dropped once the instance is on farm.

In a year of BWL my guild had some very nice DPS caster gear going to our priests, why would it be ANY difference now? in fact it should be faster as you get more loot and have less people. Once you move to the next instance only a few items remain desirable as people want to complete their next set.

Also open bids are poor, not because they can cause drama, but because they slow a raid down a lot. Fixed values are far better.

I am in a new guild now and if I see resto druids taking agi/ap/crit gloves or resto shamans taking the same stat chain armour I will be annoyed. In a 5man instance its a bit iffy, but we can run it again straight after so I am not too bothered (be nice to let the DPSer take it first, but really.. meh). In a raid its a BIG no. You can loot it when no other DPS needs it. For now use your pretty damn nice blue quest rewards/dungeon drops. Having said the above, I don't think anyone in the guild would take loot over the raid class that would use it anyways.

That's a very nice attitude to use when the raid items are barely an upgrade over the blue items. What happens in your system 6 months or 1 year down the road, when the raid drops are ten times better than the best possible 5 man drop / quest?

Kink · 02/02/07, 6:54 AM

Originally Posted by Ayr

Originally Posted by Kink

Blech dkp systems.

If you are a raiding guild, people who use the item on a raid get priority. This is for the enjoyment of everyone. If a paladin who heals on my raids has the most dkp and wants to bid on some awesome tanking shoulders that our MT needs I will say NO. The tank will use it and benefit EVERYONE in the guild. People should not be selfish and take something over others who will use it for the benefit of the guild as a whole.

Yes yes you can argue that whoever has the most DKP has earned any item they want. But I want to raid and be efficient and these people can EASILY get comparable blues/loot the item that just dropped once the instance is on farm.

In a year of BWL my guild had some very nice DPS caster gear going to our priests, why would it be ANY difference now? in fact it should be faster as you get more loot and have less people. Once you move to the next instance only a few items remain desirable as people want to complete their next set.

Also open bids are poor, not because they can cause drama, but because they slow a raid down a lot. Fixed values are far better.

I am in a new guild now and if I see resto druids taking agi/ap/crit gloves or resto shamans taking the same stat chain armour I will be annoyed. In a 5man instance its a bit iffy, but we can run it again straight after so I am not too bothered (be nice to let the DPSer take it first, but really.. meh). In a raid its a BIG no. You can loot it when no other DPS needs it. For now use your pretty damn nice blue quest rewards/dungeon drops. Having said the above, I don't think anyone in the guild would take loot over the raid class that would use it anyways.

That's a very nice attitude to use when the raid items are barely an upgrade over the blue items. What happens in your system 6 months or 1 year down the road, when the raid drops are ten times better than the best possible 5 man drop / quest?

The difference will simply never be that big anymore. Just lok at the T4 and T5 sets. They are not as huge of an upgrade that it was from the first dungeon set to T2.

In any case they will be at worst looting from an instance 2 below what we are raiding. Easily more than enough to keep them competitive when they want to use their offspecs. dont forget when we are raiding for T8, we will be in full T6 and T7, so T6 and T7 drops then will start to open up to the players for use int heir offspec. It wont be "Oh, I need more T9, and we will shard anything below regardless and limit the offspecs to only using 5 man loot still". It will progress as we progress.

If in 6months you can link me a single item that is "10 times better than any 5-man dungeon item" I will eat my hat. The great news is, I will HAVE my hat, instead of a resto druid =).

Ayr · 02/02/07, 7:12 AM

Originally Posted by Kink

The difference will simply never be that big anymore. Just lok at the T4 and T5 sets. They are not as huge of an upgrade that it was from the first dungeon set to T2.

In any case they will be at worst looting from an instance 2 below what we are raiding. Easily more than enough to keep them competitive when they want to use their offspecs. dont forget when we are raiding for T8, we will be in full T6 and T7, so T6 and T7 drops then will start to open up to the players for use int heir offspec. It wont be "Oh, I need more T9, and we will shard anything below regardless and limit the offspecs to only using 5 man loot still". It will progress as we progress.

If in 6months you can link me a single item that is "10 times better than any 5-man dungeon item" I will eat my hat. The great news is, I will HAVE my hat, instead of a resto druid =).

That would work great, if you guys are going to be farming RaidInstance X-2 when all your focus will be on RaidInstance X. I'm not saying you won't, but I know from personal experience that most guilds tend to focus on new challenges.

Let me give you an example: Choker of the Firelord. Tier1 raid, yet still the best warlock/priest neck in the game pre-TBC. Were you guys consistently going back to kill Rag to give your priests a chance to grab it? Another example: Neltharion's Tear. Still the best DPS trinket, even after TBC. How often did you guys go do BWL, at the height of Naxx raiding? And when it did drop, how many mages/locks still needed that before the holy priests got a chance at it?

Obviously I have no clue what the 25 man raids loot will be like, but I won't be suprised if things will behave in the same manner for non-tier gear (trinkets/rings/necks/etc). And if that will be the case, can you in good conscience go and point your non-DPS specs to go to the 5 mans and just be happy with that?

norg · 02/02/07, 7:26 AM

"Your system sucks, mine is brilliant" is shit and has been done to death. If we can't keep to the point of the OP can we at least take it on a tangent that's vaguely interesting?

Wraithlin · 02/02/07, 8:09 AM

Originally Posted by norg

"Your system sucks, mine is brilliant" is shit and has been done to death. If we can't keep to the point of the OP can we at least take it on a tangent that's vaguely interesting?

I agree with this statement; there is no perfect DKP system, or we would all be using it and these sorts of discussions would not exist.
That said I believe two of the better systems are; 1) Fixed DKP with enforced looting (i.e. you force people to take upgrades rather than sharding them); 2) Free (but secret) Bidding.

I also beleive that with class restricted items, there should be two seperate DKP pools; formerly we defined these as Class-restricted DKP, and everything else DKP. This was absolutely crucial in gearing up our raid group in vanilla WoW because it ment even our DPS warriors had excellent tanking gear because they couldnt spend their set-dkp on dps items, only tanking items; it worked just as well for healing classess who had DKP pools they could only spend on the tiered healing armors.

This will not work as well with the new system of multiple set style tokens, but I believe that if people have a set pool of DKP they can only spend on those items the guild views as benefitial to the raid you can still encourage your feral druids and shadow priests to pick up healing gear without feeling begrudged. Similar to the idea given earlier in the thread of splitting DKP, it might be best to have a fixed split (say everyone must split DKP 70/30 and declaire which pool gets the 70), not a variable split, so the guy who went for a 100/0 split on day 1 doesnt feel completely burnt out 6 months later.