Linguine wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I think something that hasn't been considered is that in vanilla you'll want to have a very good spread of classes. Tier gear should not be getting sharded.

Often LC guilds are going to also be min/max guilds, and it's a mistake to lower the amount of druids you have in favor of pallies or priests when you have Stormrage dropping and no one taking it!

One guild I was in even had an Ashjre'thul drop and all TWO of the hunters already had it because they were so focused on min-maxing. It was dumb. Incredibly dumb.

These guilds simply cannot min/max raid performance and loot distribution at the same time. Instead they would be better off if they kept morale up with high loot distribution. Bring more hunters and less warriors so that the warriors you do have get some gear for once, etc. Don't shard Ashjre'thuls while you have eight warriors waiting for a single Ashkandi drop.

EDIT: Same danger lurks for DKP, and I have probably mentioned that before, but it's how you game the system. If you have a low-pop class in-guild, you can save your points more easily on tier rolls and lie in wait for that big cross-class weapon or trinket.

No, typically min/max guilds will run at least 2 raids. The "main" raiders will be divided equally into each raid composing 20 spots. These main raiders will be given loot priority. The remaining 20 spots will be filled with alts etc. The goal is to maximize the gear of the guild for world first / server first pushes on new content.

A hardcore guild will level fast during Classic vanilla and go for an MC clear within the first 3 weeks of launch. They will then begin filling two raids and setting up this loot priority. This is no different than the current meta on retail where players run 5 or 6 copies of their character to maximize loot progression based on RNG.

Hardcore guilds will not bother gearing poor performing classes or specs, they will have all the gear they need by running two raids. IF the content cycle is quick, and they feel as though they wont have time to gear, they would then introduce a third raid team to generate more loot.

There would never be a circumstance where a proper min/max guild would begin to gear poor performing specs for their server first push. Perhaps poor performing specs will gear as a result of being in these guilds as alternates, but those same players wont be brought to the server first attempts anyhow.

The definition of "hardcore" shifts wildly between users though. For some people that just means you are in a guild that raids.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Linguine wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I think something that hasn't been considered is that in vanilla you'll want to have a very good spread of classes. Tier gear should not be getting sharded.

Often LC guilds are going to also be min/max guilds, and it's a mistake to lower the amount of druids you have in favor of pallies or priests when you have Stormrage dropping and no one taking it!

One guild I was in even had an Ashjre'thul drop and all TWO of the hunters already had it because they were so focused on min-maxing. It was dumb. Incredibly dumb.

These guilds simply cannot min/max raid performance and loot distribution at the same time. Instead they would be better off if they kept morale up with high loot distribution. Bring more hunters and less warriors so that the warriors you do have get some gear for once, etc. Don't shard Ashjre'thuls while you have eight warriors waiting for a single Ashkandi drop.

EDIT: Same danger lurks for DKP, and I have probably mentioned that before, but it's how you game the system. If you have a low-pop class in-guild, you can save your points more easily on tier rolls and lie in wait for that big cross-class weapon or trinket.

No, typically min/max guilds will run at least 2 raids. The "main" raiders will be divided equally into each raid composing 20 spots. These main raiders will be given loot priority. The remaining 20 spots will be filled with alts etc. The goal is to maximize the gear of the guild for world first / server first pushes on new content.

A hardcore guild will level fast during Classic vanilla and go for an MC clear within the first 3 weeks of launch. They will then begin filling two raids and setting up this loot priority. This is no different than the current meta on retail where players run 5 or 6 copies of their character to maximize loot progression based on RNG.

Hardcore guilds will not bother gearing poor performing classes or specs, they will have all the gear they need by running two raids. IF the content cycle is quick, and they feel as though they wont have time to gear, they would then introduce a third raid team to generate more loot.

There would never be a circumstance where a proper min/max guild would begin to gear poor performing specs for their server first push. Perhaps poor performing specs will gear as a result of being in these guilds as alternates, but those same players wont be brought to the server first attempts anyhow.

The definition of "hardcore" shifts wildly between users though. For some people that just means you are in a guild that raids.

That system would indeed be excellent.

However to that guild I specified, min/maxing meant bring the most high dps specs/classes and the least of everyone else. Two hunters for enrage timer and one druid for MotW seemed fine to them, and with the dearth of NA guilds on the server they were the best one unfortunately. I don't believe a single one ran split raids for anything but Onyxia.

I heard legends of the amazing guild on the opposing faction (EU though) that had spreadsheets of who got what item next in lists of 5+ descending. Would have loved a guild leadership like that, but they were definitely a lot more "hardcore", and probably did run split raids. Our best DPS also raided with them and he was definitely hardcore enough to run three sets of raids a week.

"Loot Council" and "DKP" are too broad.

Loot Council is suitable for:
- Progress oriented / hardcore guild
- With limited/low turnover
and can work well if:
- It is transparent (more on this below)
- Impartial
- Is actually geared towards increasing the efficiency of the group as a whole
- Your guild is top dog in your immediate competition pool

To make it transparent requires a ton of front-loaded work from your officer/class lead core (or to find that work done competently by someone else and steal it)
- BiS lists with % upgrades need to be made for all raid specs your group considers viable.
- Roster priority needs to be kept up to date and public with who is in line for what.

Anything else is both open to abuse/favoritism/cliques and horribly inefficient (even if LC votes are facilitated by addons) having to decide item allocation "on the spot" and a hotbed for open drama and background lobbying.

Now playing the game like a spreadsheet (ala EVE) has both upsides and downsides.
A properly implemented LC (not a given out the door by any means) is obviously the most efficient gear allocation process for the group as a whole.
At the same time there is mostly no sunk cost to your best players (not on the council) getting a few BiS pieces and their parses and go to the guild that's 5% better than you.
They're just "optimizing" their personal spreadsheet.
Motivation to show up when you are in line behind 2-3 people decreases (but this is not exclusive to LC)

DKP variant X can be suitable for:
- Midcore, casual
- High turnover
and can work well if:
- You have selected the variant that works best for your group's activity/attendance/progression goals (EPGP, 0sum, Auction, SK, ...)
- You have tweaked the system so it has no overhead and "just works" for long periods of time.
- As above everyone has an easy way to gauge their chance to get something based on their "currency".

DKP is always a balancing act, but there are dials you can turn in most systems (in the form of decay, penalties and awards, caps or mins) to keep things "in the middle".
Having a currency that accrues on the player acts as a deterrent to guild hoping.
Members that get out of the "trial" period (used loosely) have a stake in the system and are not very keen to abandon their stash as long as the group keeps moving forward at an acceptable pace.

Finally even a non-dkp, non-LC "Soft Reserve > MS (wincount) > OS" system will over the long term lead to similar loot distribution with both of the above and is suitable for Raid Alliances or semi-PuG situations but will obviously break down when you get to content that requires specific gear to be on specific classes/people. (tail end of T2 and upwards)

My 2s ;)

(don't kill me, just poking some fun)