Response to DKP is the Devil
This started out as a comment to Wyn’s post DKP is the Devil but it got to be too long, so I thought I’d post it here. You should read her post and the comments too before you read mine. I’ll wait for you.
I thought I’d follow up since Wyn quoted me regarding why I feel so strongly that biased officers shouldn’t be a factor for not using loot council and yet we don’t use a loot council. I do stand 100% behind what I said though, if your officers are biased, it will show up and weaken your guild in ways beyond your loot system. Am I perfect? Nope. Are there other ways to do things? Yep. Am I willing to listen to you? Sure. But I’m still steering this ship, if you really don’t trust me or my officers you won’t be happy here. Loot council or DKP it doesn’t matter, too much of leading a guild is subjective and difficult to define in black and white. If you could just set up rules and let it go, you wouldn’t need a GM, and I wouldn’t have a lot to write about.
For me, the DKP system is about setting expectations. Wyn’s statement that a DKP system measures objective things, but can’t measure skill or some other more subjective things is accurate. But I’d like to think the role of your officers in a DKP system is to handle those things outside of loot, basically my view is, if I used you for the boss kill and you didn’t wipe us in a spectacular way, then you probably have the skill we need to kill the boss. If you wipe us spectacularly repeatedly, well I’m probably not going to take you unless I don’t have a better option, and if I don’t have a better option for long enough, then you probably need gear.
Congratulating a player on gear that was essentially defaulted to them based on their accumulated points rings very hollow in comparison to congratulating a guildie who was awarded gear for their contribution to the latest group effort. The difference is the same as that of receiving a gift or buying the damn thing yourself.” I actually never thought about it this way, but then I thought about it again, and I think in a DKP system congratulating a guildmate who was awarded loot is like congratulating a new mother who just had a baby. Sure, she did “buy the damn thing herself” and it wasn’t a surprise but it was the result of the culmination of 9 months of preparation, effort and lugging it around. I think the congratulations is a moment of saying, “You’ve been here with us and you’ve earned that, congratulations for your effort paying off.” I think they both reflect a contribution to the group.
I think the largest flaw we’ve seen in our DKP system is that it encourages people to play games to ensure they get what they value most. This isn’t something we’ve been able to combat entirely, but public loot plans do help. “PointWhorder, I notice you’re tops for this item and it’s listed as your best in slot why are you passing?” Though we do get “Well playerX needs it more” and it’s difficult to argue with that. We honestly don’t worry about it too much unless something is going to rot if they don’t take it.
The advantage we’ve found in a loot system is EVERYONE thinks they are the most deserving of the loot on the floor. You can’t help but always notice when you do something cool or awesome, but you can miss what your peers are doing. Even in an unbiased system, when people are passed for loot, they will most likely feel they deserve it. By having a well thought out system, people can manage their expectations so when loot is on the floor people generally know who will get it. Also we can quickly get the loot out and move on to the next thing.
In addition, I think not every DKP system is created equal. Wyn’s made the very valid point that DKP systems measure the objective, but what objective thing would you like to measure? Attendance? Contribution to the guild bank? Recruitment of quality players? Researching strats? Forum posts? Farming materials the guild needs? DPS? All of these things can be measured and tracked. If you use a DKP system, think carefully about what your guild values and make sure your system reflects that. I guess my closing to this message is just a loot system can tell you a lot about what a guild values, make sure yours sends the right message.
PS - I told you I was too sick to be writing.
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July 10th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
This whole font size variation thing is soooooooo not cool :(.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
She’s sick, Matt. Give her a break.
Our DKP system is a zero-sum (so based on people actually getting loot). We have one guy that’s been on the top for who knows how long, and probably always will. He’s not the point hoarder, per se. He’s just at the top because he’s at every raid, and most of the upgrades he’s gotten are from Badge Gear. Furthermore, nobody questions him on the gear since he’s the only elemental shammy and one of our highest DPS’ers.
I guess simply pointing out that there can be various reasons that people are on the top of DKP lists.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Auz: I’d be very interested to see an example of one of your “loot plans”. That would probably be non-taxing and not at all interfere with you eating chicken soup and recouperating.
Nibuca
http://chicanery.fibergeek.com/
July 10th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Auz,
You might want to take a look at EPGP [http://code.google.com/p/epgp/]. It’s a point-based system that addresses many of the flaws with DKP and even zero-sum DKP. It’s not perfect, and slightly more complex, but it’s night-and-day better than either of those.
That said, I really wish there were a way to fairly measure all those intangible factors that make up a guild member’s worth. I would LOVE a magically fair Loot Council … in its absence, the best point system one can manage is a reasonable compromise.
Cheers,
Solimal
on Shadowsong
July 11th, 2008 at 12:21 am
@Matt thanks for pointing that out.
@Lei thanks for setting Matt straight.
@Nibuca I can definitely pull that together. (That’s pretty much a copy and paste job from my loot plan.)
@Neil, we actually use EP/GP as our “DKP” system. I was using DKP as a more general term to mean Non Loot Council.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:11 am
An interesting post. When we were investigating a loot system for our raid we wanted to steer clear of DKP because of the widening gap that can occur between points held by players. This was mainly because at the time we did not have a full roster of regulars. We also wanted to avoid a loot council since we like to be as transparent as possible and not be exposed to calls of playing favourites. We ended up choosing to go with Suicide Kings. It’s got an in game mod and it’s easy to manage. We set up a few rules on how alts would be handled, how any pug subs would be handled and what we would do with crafting drops. The thing I like about SK which is probably the same for DKP in a sense is that the player is empowered. They choose when to bid and when not to. So far this system has worked well for us with no complaints that I am aware of.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I know I disagreed with you over the loot-overruling issue Auz, but here I agree with you (and I put a post up, another wall of text that crits for 9kish :P), DKP is far from perfect, it is designed to be blind and to reward the raid equally. The loot distribution within instances often means that even a zero-sum DKP system becomes non-zero biased (positive for low-gear classes and typically negative for hybrids / cross-gearing classes). The inclusion of badge gear again means that a large number of people who could have had upgrades no longer have the same development path they once did.
The empowerment of the player and the selection of items they wish to bid on (within the realms of common sense) is a large part of actually holding a guild together in my mind, being passed over for loot you have “earned”, and is an upgrade for you because it is a potentially bigger upgrade for someone else feels a lot like being back in school, the player with the “raid” mentality might very well pass, the “solo” players are likely to take the upgrade, however a normal raid has both, and generally neither is terribly disruptive to progress since the “solo” player will spend a large volume of DKP to acquire items they need / want where a “raid” player tends to be more fair and balanced in their bids (in my experience at least).
Again DKP vs a Loot Council isn’t a trust issue, unless you are master looter you can’t assign loot anyway (unless its on group loot), and you need to trust your players, because a raid leader won’t have a raid without those players. Its a two way street at all times, and DKP, being blind, lets you offer those players more control and respect (and you can hint more strongly without being seen to bias the results) over their own gearing, and in so doing it builds trust in you as a leader because your raid is pulling together for the greater good.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:43 am
If there is one axiom I have found to be true it is this:
Tell me how you measure me, and I’ll tell you how I’ll behave. DKP is a way we measure and thereby reward players. How you set that system up will dictate in large measure how your players behave.
I have yet to be in a ‘loot council’ situation without at least one person convinced the deck was stacked against them for whatever reason, real or imagined.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I was an officer in an EQ1 raiding guild for four years. We were ranked #2 (eventually #1 when the guild above us imploded) on our server and we used officer loot council to distribute all loot.
Out of those four years, I can only think of maybe 5-6 instances where a raider in our guild had a serious problem with the way we handled a loot call. We were very up front about the loot we distributed, and kept a spreadsheet that tracked factors like player attendance, every piece of loot that player was awarded, which boss it was awarded from, and when it was awarded. We had over 100 raiding members in the guild at any given time. I still have the spreadsheet somewhere…the file size is HUGE, haha!
It may have been a pain in the ass to keep up, but the spreadsheet was what saved us when we had loot troubles. We as officers took the loot distribution very seriously and tried to be as fair and equal as we could. A member with average attendance (4-5 nights a week) could count on at least two loot drops a month, generally. We also posted the loot gained the night before on our forums so people could track loot themselves if they so chose. We openly encouraged our raiders to do this so we could have a check and balance on our spreadsheet. The official spreadsheet was not open to the public, but any raider could ask us to send them their loot data. They weren’t allowed to see any other raider’s loot data, though, unless they chose to track the loot themselves from the daily forum posts.
So, when RaiderX came up to us after a loot call and said “hey you guys are playing favorites, I was much more deserving of that than RaiderY,” we opened up our spreadsheet and said “actually, it’s not because we have it out for you, it’s because RaiderY hasn’t gotten a loot drop in over 3 weeks, you both have the same attendance record, and you just got loot_item_01 a week ago off this boss on this day.” It’s hard to counter raw data.
It also helped that there was a high level of trust and cameraderie among the raiding core in their officers and guildmates. I can think of several times where a marquee item would drop and we would try to award it to someone based off the spreadsheet data, but the awardee would tell us to give it to someone else because they felt they earned it more or it would be better off in their hands. Stuff like that gives you the warm fuzzies in your raiding members.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
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