TR + Secrecy ?

[Ddrak]

You should also note that a loot council can always match the performance of a DKP system by simply using DKP all the time because they *choose* to do so. This means the minimum bound of a loot council's optimum performance is the DKP system's optimum performance.

This makes it a proven truth that a loot council can always be at least as good as DKP.

Dd

[Flunkie]

Well, believe what you want, I've been there and I'd never go back. A loot council is frought with favortism and politics and BS. Even with the best judgement, events can happen that are out of their control. At least with a player that won via a roll or DKP nobody (short of a total asshat) is going to dispute whether they should have or should not have won. Some might dispute whether a pserson should have been allowed to roll depending on the situaltion. If someone spends DKP, as far as I'm concerned that person earned the item or they wouldn't have the points. When someone is handed an item, all sorts of shit can start flying around about the "winner". It isn't worth the trouble, unless the guild is made up of VERY loyal members and those guilds are very rare. A high end guild like Relentless could probably do a loot council and never have trouble crop up (maybe they do have a loot council, I don't know). But for 95% of the guilds out there, a loot council is a bad idea.

[Kulaf]

As I said......it's about being in the right guild.

DKP is not better......or worse......it's just impartial. That's really all you like about it.....the fact that there is little to no "human factor" in the decesion. You tell the loot master you want the item and if you have the points it's yours. That's not "better" for the guild......it just reduces hassles.

[Arathena]

The council can exceed the loot distribution effeciency of the DKP system, that is correct, in the purely technical sense. The effect of the loot distribution patterns on morale is a second, seperate, but IMHO, an extremely important difference. I thank god roughly twenty to thirty times a week that my guild installed a DKP system because of the two-fold effects of morale on the guild as a whole and the officer work-load.

Loot councils are essentially Marxism in practice. From each, by his ability, to each by his need and benefit to us all. We all know how well /that/ worked out.

[Ddrak]

I've been there too, and can guarantee I've been in the thick of it far more than you have.

Watchers was loot council when I was leading it. Adune and I crafted the DKP system it currently uses and managed the transition to it for the very reasons you listed (and were previously mentioned) - while a council system has the potential to be far better, in practice it isn't - typically due to either greed from the council members (ie having favorites), greed from the players (whining and bitching about decisions) or just the inability to make a fair judgement for a guild of 70-100 people before the corpse rots.

Bane was formed from Watchers members when we moved to EQ2 and has had an extraordinarily effective loot council with precisely zero complaints in over two years about distribution.

The primary difference is simply the number of players you need to consider in a council system. When you have a typical number of 1-3 people interested in an item then decisions are easy and usually very fast. When you have 10+ people interested you just can't make a decision without having some sort of tool, and DKP is the best fallback position.

I'm absolutely not recommending loot council for every guild, out there, and I never have. I'm just saying that the absolute best system for distributing loot is a functional and impartial loot council that everyone implicitly trusts. Failing that, DKP is a good backup because it relies on people's greed to fairly distribute loot.

Essentially it's a mirror of politics. The absolute best form of social structure is a benevolent dictatorship enforcing a socialist economy. However, because little things like human greed and non-omniscience come into play the best functional social structure is democratic capitalism.

Dd

[calleagh]

maybe it works out in some guilds but personally i'd rather spend dkp knowing i've damned well earned my gear. i took off for a few weeks right around the time of the merger and when i got back i was solicited by an IOA recruiter. it's not often that druids ( calleagh was my main at the time) are not only wanted by a guild but openly courted so i took the plunge and apped. i was there for about one week before i saw how it was going to be. the loot "council" system they had in place was a joke. the order for loot was mains, alts, bots, apps. most of the officers had high to mid level alts and guess where all the nice gear ended up? i couldnt deguild fast enough. loot has never been my primary motivation but how the hell can you expect an undergeared app to keep up with heals and buffs when they have less than half of your #4 bot's mana?? it was a lose/lose situation.

[Ddrak]

/sigh. I dunno why I bother sometimes.

[Kulaf]

The problem Dd is that some folks just don't seem to realize that you can design an unfair DKP system too.

What if I designed a system of DKP that rewarded people for total time in the guild and not time spent raiding so that no matter how much a new player came in and played they would never get higher up on the DKP system than established members. Then toss in a few rules about where recruits stand in the pecking order of gaining DKP points with respect to full members.

Any loot distribution system can be poorly implemented.

[Jaradis Stormcaller]

Loot system makes no difference at all as far as fair or abuseable. Straight DKP, Bid DKP, Council, Random, ect, it makes no difference what you use, the members of the guild is what will make or break the loot system and the guild itself in the end. If the members of the guild care more about their personal progression than they do for the guild's overall progression, then no loot system will work. While on the other hand, if the members of the guild care more about the guild as a whole, and what benefits the guild's progression, more than their own magelos, then any system will work for the most part.

But Ddrak is correct. The most effective way to maximize a guilds loot drops is a fair impartial council that gears the guilds active members in a way that gets the maximum upgrade for each drop, and keeps everyone fairly even in gear. That way you get the best out of your gear drops, and no matter who of a class logs in they are capable of doing the job. Also softens the blow of anyone leaving the guild or retiring if you don't stick all your gear on one person. Too many guilds put everything on a few people, and when those people leave they are set back in progression because they can't stay at the level they were at. They stick all their gear one one or two warriors so they can tank stuff ahead of their progression level, but then when that warrior leaves they are screwed. Also having 4-8 high gear people and 48 significantly lesser geared people doesn't work on raids, despite how many guilds attempt to do this.

But the difference between a council system and a dkp system on a guild that cares about its overall ability more than personal magelos, is small. SR being on a council system again instead of our DKP system wouldn't make all that much difference. There would be a few small changes but overall it wouldn't make a big difference because either way, our members go out of their way to make sure the guild comes first. Members constantly pass items to those that benefit more from the item. Even when we do Anguish off hours (we no longer raid there during raid time) and the gear is free and randomed, you still see people backing out of channels so that those needing it most can win.

DKP is just as abusable as Council, if not more so. DKP systems can be grossly abused by highly active selfish members, and they can hide behind the "I have the most DKP, I earned it". I've heard of far too many cases of people taking gear they had almost no use for, just because they had the points. People taking gear just to keep others from getting it that they didn't like. Melee taking non-meleeish items that had huge caster focuses/clicks. Casters taking highly meleeish items just for a few hp/mana points. Etc, etc.

A guild's loot system won't mean much either way, its all about the members and their attitudes towards things. A guild full of members that want to progress as a guild will do so with any type of loot system. A guild full of members that care more about themselves than the guild, will not work out no matter what loot system they have.

[Ddrak]

Thanks for saying what I meant far more eloquently than I did, Jaradis. :)

Dd

[jookkor]

Loot council is somewhat obsolete in Eq high end. In addition to it being slow and having huge drama potential (all loot systems have potential but LC has a few more dimensions then most other systems) alot of gear these days is beneficial to different classes for different reasons. Sure there is always going to be the stuff that is clearly best in the hands of one class or the other, but alot of loot these days is pretty much subjective.
Maybe you look at one item and think "oh thats for class x" but class y can make great use of it as well, and perhaps person a from class y isnt just seeing the single item as an upgrade, they have a specific progression of upgrades in their head where the item will fill a void left by another item they wish to upgrade further down the line ect.

I just see a feasable and working high end LC to require far too much micromanaging these days.

And just because somebody is an officer in a guild and reads about eq gear every chance they get doesnt necesarily mean that their opinion on gear or what use a certain class can get out of it is more valid then joe_raider_01.

[tresk]

i really like to avoid this rant thing but i really need to say this....and i know secrecy being circle of power before has come along way....however theres a few things

jara you do a great job leading one of the best guilds i have known...i agree with you on the loot system thing....however i personally like the dkp better due to my time with IoA and the alt before app ideal

alarius and watchers still some of the better guilds as well....

now for the rant

when i first started raiding pop i would go on pick up raids with people to get some of the flags....one such which was MB indi raid with CoP people....it failed becasue spider groups didnt have slowers or tanks or control

later i remember a friend of mine going on a bert raid with them that had to call in people from sojo and the like in order to win and it still took them almost the full time the raid allowed to do

like i said they have come a long way but mostly by gimping from my experience with them....tori / crystalized arent the greatest of people to make yourself known for being with.....tori bitched to me when i pulled doubles in solro and didnt mez... while crystalized just stood there and didnt nuke at all.....

more or less i understand where you need help man but pick some people like watchers or SR that are already to that point


tresk