Loot System
From Game Theory
Game Theory does not use a DKP system in the strict sense; the core idea is that a player's attendance/availability for raids should be in proportion to the amount of loot they acquire. Of course, the real world is more complicated than that, and so is the loot system we use.
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Non-25-man Content
Zul'Aman and Karazhan use a different loot system from the 25-man raids. It's basically need-before-greed, with codifications for the typical PUG "one item per run" type of rule.
- On spec before off spec (healer apps get heal gear before pally tanks).
- Mains before apps before alts.
- Loot rolls are /random. Having gotten one or more items already puts a -100 on your roll, per item (ie. if two people get something, they're tied on priority again).
- "Better than DE" or off-spec rolls are encouraged to /roll 1 (this doesn't invoke the -100 rule above).
Beyond the -100 to your roll if you've gotten something already on a given run, the system is stateless. Nothing is recorded long-term (only 25-man content counts for attendance purposes).
Glossary
- Available: A player who signs up on the raid calendar as 'yes,' 'can be,' or 'unsure' and is online and able to raid at the designated raid starting time is considered to have been available for that raid, even if they are not rostered, and do not participate on the run.
- Bid: one of 'lust,' 'want,' 'use,' or 'bank.' Indicates the player's level of interest in an item.
- Priority: A combination of a numerical value that is the ratio of raids available to loot acquired, stored per-player, and several other factors.
Bids
When an item drops, players will send the loot master (usually the raid leader) tells indicating how interested they are in the item. Higher levels of interest have priority over lower level ones. From highest to lowest, the levels of interest are: lust, want, use and bank.
In general, players are free to bump up or down their bid level if they feel it is appropriate, however, Rule Zero will be observed. Also, "use" or higher bids will go to on-spec bidders before off-spec.
Note that it is perfectly acceptable for a player to win more than one item in a single raid; if they have built up enough priority to win twice, it means that they've gone a number of runs without looting anything, and are now simply correcting the imbalance. For example, bidding (and winning) a "want" bid for an item off of Lurker, and "lust" on a Vashj drop is acceptable behavior (it may seem imbalanced in the short term, but over the long haul it will even out).
Lust
Lust-worthy items are the ones that put that gleam in your eye; they make your fingers twitch and have you checking Wowhead compulsively. You've known what boss it drops off of since before your got your Karazhan key. They're the drops that make you wonder if maybe you really are a loot whore, just maybe. It's more than great stats - maybe it's some awesome art, or the fact that you've never had a decent helm, or that the two piece bonus is simply amazing - whatever the reason, you desire the item on an emotional level.
A player cannot bid lust for the rest of the run after winning an item with a lust bid (you only get one lust win per raid). On-spec lusts will take precedence over off-spec lusts (in general, off-spec lusts are very rare).
Want
Items that are solid, worthy upgrades to your main spec gear are appropriate to bid at "want" priority. In general, the majority of a character's primary spec gear upgrades should be won via want bids. On-spec wants will take precedence over off-spec wants.
The 3 players on a 25-man raid with the lowest want bid priority (explained below) are prevented from bidding lust. This serves as a check on players bidding lust too much.
Use
Use bids are a bit of a nebulous case. Some examples of valid use bids:
- Minor upgrades for your primary set of gear.
- Major upgrades for off-spec roles (a shadow priest bidding on healing cloth, for example).
- Resist gear that you're interested in.
- Gear to help complete a stamina set.
Anything that you would get use out of, but wouldn't mind passing on if someone else on the raid is interested in could be bid on with use. In general, use bids won't win much loot, unless the item is lackluster, or most of the raid already has a comparable-or-better item. On-spec use bids will take precedence over off-spec uses.
Bank
Bank bids are for those situations where you'd rather see the item get used rather than disenchanted, but don't see much of a way for the item to be of real use to you.
- Resist gear that you don't have any interest in, but wouldn't mind having around.
- Trinkets with wierd on-use effects that you want to experiment with, but are pretty sure suck.
- That last piece of T4 when you're in almost all T6.
- Terestian's Stranglestaff.
Priority
The basic idea is that within a given bid level, a player's priority is roughly the ratio of raids attended to the number of items looted. For the current list, please see the Loot Priority List.
This system means that winning a lust bid will lower your priority for all bid levels, while winning a use item leaves your lust priority unchanged, and your want bid takes a very small hit.
Lust
A players lust priority is computed as follows:
- (1.5 + (raids attended)) / (1.5 + 1.2 * (number of lust items won) + 0.1 * (number of want items won))
Want
- (1.5 + (raids attended)) / (1.5 + 1.2 * (number of lust items won) + 1.0 * (number of want items won) + 0.1 * (number of use items won))
As a reminder, the 3 players on a raid with the lowest want priority are unable to bid lust. This is to prevent players from accumulating a large amount of loot via want bids, and then turning around and bidding lust on a large number of items.
Use
- (1.5 + (raids attended)) / (1.5 + 1.2 * (number of lust items won) + 1.0 * (number of want items won) + 0.8 * (number of use items won) + 0.1 * (number of bank items won))
Bank
- (1.5 + (raids attended)) / (1.5 + 1.2 * (number of lust items won) + 1.0 * (number of want items won) + 0.8 * (number of use items won) + 0.6 * (number of bank items won))
On-Spec vs. Off-Spec
Lust, want and use bids for on-spec items beat similar bids from characters for whom the item is off-spec. Ban k bids do not have this protection - an on-spec player bidding bank is implicitly saying that they're alright with passing the item to an off-spec player that either has higher bank priority, or bid use+.
On-spec items are ones that are useful for an activity that a given character is regularly asked to perform during Game Theory raids. We expect that loot distribution will approximate optimal due to members' desire to min/max their character as best they can; hard rules about talent spec X or class Y getting item Z undermine that.
Social Factors
While discussion about loot is obviously acceptable, trying to influence others' loot bids is explicitly against the rules. Education of a guildmate about the utility of an item is permissible, but anyone doing so is expected to speak carefully. Focus on the utility for that person and let the other person decide on what to bid.
Also against the rules is colluding with other players to fix bids ("Let's just both bid use and see who gets it.").
Any disputes more complex than "On my list, I see player X as above player Y for want bids" or "I think you missed my bid" should be saved for after the raid. While a mistake in loot distribution is not optimal, keeping the raid moving and drama free is more important.
Guests and Applicants
Guests and applicants (hereafter "guests") are allowed to bid on items. However, they cannot bid higher than use. On-spec priority applies to guests, so healing guests get healing gear before DPS members.
Note that since typically guests have lower attendance than members, a guest "use" bid will generally lose out to a member "use" bid. After a period of time running with us, guests will build up loot priority such that they could start winning use bids against members that bid use, if the guest's priority is high enough.
The System In Action
Just some observations from using the system for a period of a few months.
Lust Bids
For our member base, it turns out that lust bids are actually quite rare. Most members have that one item that they are saving lust priority for (an excellent example is the Dragonspine Trophy - We've been farming Gruul for months, and have seen zero drop). Since even want bids will impact lust priority ever so slightly, players who desire a lust-level item are very careful about what bids they place. This is an acceptable tradeoff - that player will gear up more slowly, but will be first to obtain the vanity item once it drops.
The original intent was that it would be used for more than just DSTs and being first in the guild to get a given tier chest piece, but it seems that only MTs bid lust all that often.
Want Bids
There seems to be a fairly wide band of want priority between 4 and 7 (see the Loot Priority List for details). That means that, on average, the majority of the guild gets a want-level item or better once ever four to seven raids. We currently raid 3x a week, with Gruul, VR and Lurker on farm (VR isn't done every week ATM). That's roughly 12 items in 3 raids. With 25 raiders per raid, you have (3 raids * 25 raiders / raid) / (12 items) roughly equals about 6 raiders per item, which lines up with an attendance to loot ratio of something between 4 and 7.
Adapting The System For Your Guild
The core of the system is very easy - the entire thing can be done in a simple spreadsheet, if need be (though documenting who attended which raid should also probably be done - a screenshot of the raid frame works nicely). If you're not going to use the system verbatim, there are a few things that might use some tweaking.
Attendance, Goodwill, etc.
The system needs some way of bumping players' loot priority (you can think of it as "goodwill earned"). We use signing up for and showing up to raids on time, prepared to raid for the evening as our criteria (even if the person was unable to attend due to over-rostering). If your guild runs very loose raids where people are free to swap in and out, perhaps minutes spent raiding would work. Alternatively, if you would like to reward players who attend learning runs, you could count just wipes on non-farm bosses (this has the effect of making earning priority and spending it two separate things!).
Member Behavior
In general, this system probably works best when you have members that bid conservatively. If every player just bids lust on everything (or rather, at least one player bids lust on each thing), then the system devolves into an odd suicide kings style system. If your playerbase (rather, a significant enough portion) behaves this way, it can be countered by upping the can't-bid-lust cap. Once raised high enough to include all of the loot whores in your raid group, their winning strategy becomes to bid use on things they only somewhat want - bidding want will keep them down in the can't-bid-lust "penalty zone." Once you can get your loot whores bidding use, then the system should even out again (though the system isn't really designed with those kinds of players in mind).
Number Of Bid Levels
We use four because it seems "about right." Three would also probably work, though it would mean that guests have roughly zero priority for anything (in that case, the guest rules should probably be tweaked in some fashion). Five seems a bit excessive - the line between use and bank is pretty thin already, and adding yet another division into the mix seems like overkill.
