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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
When people have an actual issue, they will often fabricate some other issue with the same people, and argue that instead.
This is something I learned long before I got in to MMO's in general, let alone being in a leadership position. It is something that happens both on small scale (this situation with loot is a small scale version) all the way up to very large scale (the situation in your country right now, and the originally stated reason for it over a year ago being a very large scale example).
Fact is, people don't want to actually talk about the things that are actually pissing them off. Sometimes it is for real reasons (not wanting to show their true motivation in order to prevent it being blocked), and sometimes it is just because they think their real reason for being upset seems stupid and so fabricate another.
Point is, if you had people leave your guild over what seemed to be an argument unconnected to loot, but with someone they may well have lost an item to, assume that argument was actually about loot.
What I will say about a system like this is that it absolutely will cause you to have a core group of people that will follow you - the ones getting all the loot. They will look at what they are getting with this system, and contrast it to a system that is more evenly spread. They have no reason to go to a guild with a different system.
However, you shouldn't measure yourself as a guild leader based on how happy those that are doing the best under you feel, you should rate yourself as a guild leader based on how happy those that are doing the worst under you feel.
That is true, but considering that I kept picking up new friends over the years and that I didn't always pick only the very strong players on the server to invite to my guild, I'd imagine all of them either liked me enough to stick with me and my system or I did in fact treat everyone as equally as possible. I'd have to ask all of them for their reasoning to sticking with me, but I haven't really talked to a ton of them, because I left the mmo genre a long time ago and haven't kept in touch with most people from those times. Not because I couldn't, but mainly because I didn't want to at the time.
What I am saying is that arguments are not always about what the actual issue is. In fact, they are usually not about what the actual issue is. If you are coming in and attempting to mediate the argument that is being had, that is usually not addressing the actual issue.
Again, don't look at the success stories for how well you do as a guild leader, look at the least successful.
If you have 20 happy people in your guild and 1 person leave because of your leadership, that 1 person is demonstrating how good a leader you are, not the 20.
This is why recruitment is key.
1. Loot Council in WOW is "In" .. all of the top speed guilds run Loot Council and that trickles down all the way through the semi-hardcore guilds. People see LC as "optimal" and don't want to accept anything suboptimal. Meta mattered a lot in classic as well... BIS items were not going to off meta specs until every meta spec had one. Want to compete at a high level? Funneling all of the best gear to the most meta classes to win.
2. How do you convince someone to join an established DKP guild? Say u get 1 DKP per event for math's sake here.. Are you going to join a guild where people have 100s of DKP? You would expect to get nothing for weeks/months
3. DKP hoarding... people completing for BIS forever items will undoubtable hoard their dkp for these items by passing on literally every other item. The first 2 expansions of classic wow had these items (Drakefang Talisman / Dragonspine trophy being BIS for every physical class in their respective expansions) ... people will hoard DKP to buy these items passing on everything else... do you know what happens when this happens? Gear that these people need as an upgrade will rot since spending any DKP will put them behind for the big ticket item. The best way to combat this is to hope the gear is more balanced in AOC lol
4. Next "tier" hoarding... consider the scenario in which you know new gear is being added into the game in a month that out classes the gear that is currently available (Raid tiers in WOW) ... what happens? Well you have the same problem as 3 albiet more temporary. People will sandbag the second half of a tier in order to hoard dkp to scoop up a full set off the rip in the next tier.
5. Gear utilization the scale of upgrades between classes can be widely different. Say an item gives class X 10 DPS upgrade, whereas it would give class Y 50 DPS. The item is more beneficial on class Y (and for the group's DPS) but with DKP you can't direct the item to the right person despite it being better for the guild. (You can if you begin making extra rules, but at that point what are you doing)
6. Player skill - Player 1 is higher skilled than player 2.. (WOW this is measured by parses which is a whole another animal) if someone can get more DPS out of an item vs another person based on skill ... why wouldn't you want them to have it? Again its better for the group for your best players to have the best items. Adding onto this almost certainly there will be players who do not know what they need to max their performance and will just go "X item more shiny than what i am wearing me want" are you going to stop this? in a true dkp system you wouldn't be allowed right
Additionally I don't agree with the statement that people won't leave over loot. I've seen it play out time and time again in a DKP system. Someone doesn't like that the "meme spec" got an item that is BIS for a meta class....guess what they do? spend all of their DKP collect as much loot as they can and then quit the guild. And guess what? They weren't the only one unhappy with the outcome and more people follow suite in the weeks to come once they can burn their DKP.
Then you have the point that a loot council can be corrupt. Well I am here to tell u that DKP is not corruption free either. Blocked bids to benefit people / classes. DKP bonuses for people doing things outside of official events. Shady book keeping if not using an addon. Ect.
1. The game is not solved like wow is- it will be hard to judge upgrades/meta/ BIS for a while.... Don't know what kind of addons the game will allow/support but I imagine if possible people will go for a warcraft logs style parsing system (if allowed or supported)
2. No developed combat sims - related to 1 but yeah will be hard to gauge which class benefits most from upgrades
3. Meta (assumedly) won't be stagnant and will have class balance patches as needed
4. So much unknown about balance/ what is to come ... again in other MMOs we know what the next patch or tier will hold gear wise (retail wow ...higher item level = better , classic wow is solved...., lost ark higher item level = more win always)
5. won't be wide spread knowledge of how to distribute loot optimally right off the bat
Personally what do I think is the best loot system in AOC? I don't think it can be decided yet I think on launch especially with how many people will be playing and moving through guilds to find their place in the game you might as well just roll gear off /roll style until the dust settles and then probably go into a loot council when a meta has developed
Obviously some guilds will have dudes who try to fuck over the guild or smth like that, but the first months won't produce the absolute BiS in the game, so it'll be the perfect time to get fucked over.
All systems have flaws.
However, the flaws you talked about are all due to a poor implementation of a DKP system.
In a PvE centric game with ultra fast stablishment of the meta like WoW the Council system flaws are greatly diminished.
Even tho better than the DKP system, the Council system still have flaws such as decision disputes that can be removed through the Kratocratic system that even before meta stablishment is still somewhat effective in the moment for determining the stronger and the weaker in the PvP side of the equation that rewards the PvE, through the PvP evaluation of a player/group strength.
Aren't we all sinners?
I disagree for the most part we were as close to true “free market” DKP system as we could be
A lot of the “better” implementations that people tout as solutions to the drawbacks of DKP are even worse.. decay is a popular one (we eventually ended up decaying only when entering the next tier) but decay punishes people who have more DKP either by being unlucky or just being super active
EPGP - is especially punishing to take pieces that aren’t huge for you as it raises your GP
Enforcing class restrictions on items - this is a loot council concept not a DKP one
If you have a DKP system in place, you shouldn't have casual players.
I've never had to run a decay system with DKP, nor have I ever had to have class restrictions.
We've also never had anyone with runaway DKP amounts. A large part of that is due to mutual respect between guild members, and I would happily concede that it may well be true that in a guild where there isn't that respect, DKP may not work out that well.
In that regard though, I wouldn't know. I don't tend to run guilds without that level of mutual respect. I'm happy to defer to your experience in this specific regard.
Like, that is what it is you are saying here, right?
In the same way I am no expert in dealing with DKP systems in guilds without respect, I am also not an expert in DKP systems in games with shit itemization.
You think that this game is going to release with perfect itemization? Or that unintended importance on certain items won’t persist through content tiers?
I suggest looking to Archeage for an idea of what to expect in terms of itemization in Ashes. While it won't be exactly the same, it will probably be very similar.
But basically:
Upload, manage, and search items in guild storage.
- Take a picture/screenshot & upload, extract item text with Azure OCR, and List.
Auction items from guild storage.
Party/Lobby system.
General DKP management / history.
APIs for Discord Bot (or other) integration.
You know, general stuff you'd want to be able to do, streamlined to make life easy, and mobile friendly.
I believe discord bots already exist for this, I know we use a currency system through our own
Yeah there's a lot of DKP and loot systems out there. They each have their pros/cons. I just want one that's going to be purpose built to make my life as easy as possible lol.