Guild Loot Distribution

Hey guys, just getting back into the groove of posting to the forums. My guild and I have recently been debating loot distribution since alpha 2 is rumored to be nearing by the end of the year/early 2024. We have been talking and are thinking about using a mixture of traditional DKP systems as well as loot council for very specific gear. I guess what I am asking is...

- What loot distribution system does your guild plan to use?
- What systems have you had luck with using in the past?
- Has anyone used the systems I mentioned above? If so what are some general pros and cons?

Thanks in advance!

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Ludullu

My main system has been "all items go to me (the GL) and I then give them out at my own discretion". Have worked for me for years and over a dozen guilds of different sizes and hardcoreness.

JamesSunderland

Most guilds(or clans in L2) me and my group lead or played in had All items go to the Leader that would decide alongside inner factions and party leaders to whom each item would go (council-like).

In situations of dispute(almost always) where 2 or more groups/players desired the same item, those were mainly settled through PvP against each other, good old Might makes Right, Winners Win.

Noaani

Straight up DKP is what has worked best for me in the past. Bidding only on your main or the alt you are playing on, items must be upgrades over what you have, and are not to be sold.

No scope for disputes at all with this.

The problems I've come across with either loot council or leaders discretion are mostly (or - most seriously) around when a smaller guild or group of friends is subsumed in to the guild. We have 20+ players that all have existing relationships, and they bring in 6 or so people without those relationships with the rest of us. It is easy for such groups of people to feel marginalized - but it is also easy for them to actually be marginalized.

The other often overlooked effect of a DKP system is that everyone present is rewarded for being present -even if nothing they are able to use drops (he;;, even if nothing at all drops).

While I am all about people in the guild working towards the better of the guild rather than individual betterment, people do still want to see themselves progress. Gaining currency (DKP, in this case) is a form of progression.

Now, I can't really say this is a better or worse system than leader discretion, I don't have a dozen or more guilds of experience with it.

Rather, I have two guilds worth of experience with it, it just so happens that those two guilds happen to have lasted over a dozen years between them - in part because we don't have much in the way of internal drama - which itself is in part due to not having any loot disputes.

WHIT3ROS3

Eathan wrote: »

Hey guys, just getting back into the groove of posting to the forums. My guild and I have recently been debating loot distribution since alpha 2 is rumored to be nearing by the end of the year/early 2024.

Make that 2025 and I think it is more likely. Alpha 2 might not be years away but 18 months? EZ.

Eathan

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

Eathan wrote: »

Hey guys, just getting back into the groove of posting to the forums. My guild and I have recently been debating loot distribution since alpha 2 is rumored to be nearing by the end of the year/early 2024.

Make that 2025 and I think it is more likely. Alpha 2 might not be years away but 18 months? EZ.

One can only hope. We shall see

Eathan

Noaani wrote: »

Straight up DKP is what has worked best for me in the past. Bidding only on your main or the alt you are playing on, items must be upgrades over what you have, and are not to be sold.

No scope for disputes at all with this.

The problems I've come across with either loot council or leaders discretion are mostly (or - most seriously) around when a smaller guild or group of friends is subsumed in to the guild. We have 20+ players that all have existing relationships, and they bring in 6 or so people without those relationships with the rest of us. It is easy for such groups of people to feel marginalized - but it is also easy for them to actually be marginalized.

The other often overlooked effect of a DKP system is that everyone present is rewarded for being present -even if nothing they are able to use drops (he;;, even if nothing at all drops).

While I am all about people in the guild working towards the better of the guild rather than individual betterment, people do still want to see themselves progress. Gaining currency (DKP, in this case) is a form of progression.

Now, I can't really say this is a better or worse system than leader discretion, I don't have a dozen or more guilds of experience with it.

Rather, I have two guilds worth of experience with it, it just so happens that those two guilds happen to have lasted over a dozen years between them - in part because we don't have much in the way of internal drama - which itself is in part due to not having any loot disputes.

Thanks for your feedback. I think you pretty much nailed it with the talks of internal drama. What you have said reinforces where I am wanting to go with my guild. Drama in a guild, regardless of organization is going to cause disputes. So far so good on my end

Nuub

Some people are honest and some aren't. If you have a reward system that relies on trust, you incentivize corruption. I think guild loot like what @NiKr mentioned will be common because it was common in wow classic, the most recent implementation of this loot system. In my experience, the loot distribution was more reflective of personal feelings than performance, with their inner circle defending their actions, and hopeful boot lickers waiting for handouts. I really don't like trust based systems of loot, but at least in AoC, I can find you and fight you over it no matter who you are.

BaSkA_9x2

Each person/group has their preferences, but they all fundamentally depend on how honest and trustworthy your group (leader) is.

Regardless of that, iirc the high-end gear will not be dropped by bosses, instead the materials needed to craft it will be dropped. So it doesn't really matter who gets the loot if you don't have someone who can craft the gear using that material.

Secondly, and I cannot stress this enough, I absolutely despise Bind on Pickup and hope that Ashes will not implement this awful mechanic. I've heard many arguments to having Bind on Pickup and they're all trash. I don't mind Bind on Equip as much, I can even sympathize with it and with how it can positively affect a game, but I definitely do not want to see Bind on Pickup.

So when your guild kills a boss and gets some rare mats, focus on making it safely to your Node or Freehold and then worry about who is going to get what.

Depraved

if i get something i dont need i give it to a guildie who does and has contributed.

if we do a boss or an activity, whoever gets the loot gets it. everybody is contributing. taking all the loot to redistribute it seems a lil bit communist to me lol. probs the only exception is if someone already has it and someone who has contributed a lot needs it.

Noaani

Depraved wrote: »

if i get something i dont need i give it to a guildie who does and has contributed.

if we do a boss or an activity, whoever gets the loot gets it. everybody is contributing. taking all the loot to redistribute it seems a lil bit communist to me lol. probs the only exception is if someone already has it and someone who has contributed a lot needs it.

A DKP system is as capitalist as it could possibly be.

Run content to earn currency points, use those points to buy the items that drop from that content.

Truthfully, the idea of everyone rolling for loot seems somewhat "communist" in comparison. Since loot isn't necessarily evenly distributed evenly every raid night, yet the effort put in each night is equally important, loot just going to whomever gets it is a horrible way to do it for an organized guild.

Its perfectly fine for an unorganized guild, or a non-guild raid or event, just not an organized guild.

JamesSunderland

Depraved wrote: »

if i get something i dont need i give it to a guildie who does and has contributed.

if we do a boss or an activity, whoever gets the loot gets it. everybody is contributing. taking all the loot to redistribute it seems a lil bit communist to me lol. probs the only exception is if someone already has it and someone who has contributed a lot needs it.

Seems like a combination of charity + utilitarianism, and i don't think DKP fits a communistic idea(even with the DKP being equally distributed) nor a capitalistic one, with DKP you aren't properly rewarded by your performance(meritocracy) but by your mere presence, so even if you basically carry the content but isn't as constantly present as a slacker, they still get DKP advantage over you, a weak system for the weak that doesn't reward the most deserving if you would ask me.

A reasonable system must properly reward those who contribute the most and "carry the guild on their backs" and those who can barely carry their own weight.

Noaani

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

if i get something i dont need i give it to a guildie who does and has contributed.

if we do a boss or an activity, whoever gets the loot gets it. everybody is contributing. taking all the loot to redistribute it seems a lil bit communist to me lol. probs the only exception is if someone already has it and someone who has contributed a lot needs it.

Seems like a combination of charity + utilitarianism, and i don't think DKP fits a communistic idea(even with the DKP being equally distributed) nor a capitalistic one, with DKP you aren't properly rewarded by your performance(meritocracy) but by your mere presence, so even if you basically carry the content but isn't as constantly present as a slacker, they still get DKP advantage over you, a weak system for the weak that doesn't reward the most deserving if you would ask me.

A reasonable system must properly reward those who contribute the most and "carry the guild on their backs" and those who can barely carry their own weight.

From my perspective, mere presence deserves DKP being awarded.

In terms of people being carried by the raid, that simply shouldn't happen.

A DKP system is only really applicable in an organized guild. In such a guild, no one is being carried. This is why top end guilds are selective in regards to recruitment - we weed out people that may need to be carried. Basically, if you aren't pulling your weight, you aren't raiding.

In terms of these kinds of things, it is much the same as work. You get taken on if we think you will be a good fit and do your part, and as long as you are doing your part you get compensated for your presence. That isn't to say raiding is work, just that this aspect of it kind of is.

Pagemaster

My Guild and I are creating a system to reward players that are not just doing PvE content.
It closely resembles a DKP system, with slight loot council to make sure people aren't Christmas trees.
We have to get closer to alpha 2 to verify things, but we have an idea with where we want to go with it.

JamesSunderland

Noaani wrote: »

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

if i get something i dont need i give it to a guildie who does and has contributed.

if we do a boss or an activity, whoever gets the loot gets it. everybody is contributing. taking all the loot to redistribute it seems a lil bit communist to me lol. probs the only exception is if someone already has it and someone who has contributed a lot needs it.

Seems like a combination of charity + utilitarianism, and i don't think DKP fits a communistic idea(even with the DKP being equally distributed) nor a capitalistic one, with DKP you aren't properly rewarded by your performance(meritocracy) but by your mere presence, so even if you basically carry the content but isn't as constantly present as a slacker, they still get DKP advantage over you, a weak system for the weak that doesn't reward the most deserving if you would ask me.

A reasonable system must properly reward those who contribute the most and "carry the guild on their backs" and those who can barely carry their own weight.

From my perspective, mere presence deserves DKP being awarded.

In terms of people being carried by the raid, that simply shouldn't happen.

A DKP system is only really applicable in an organized guild. In such a guild, no one is being carried. This is why top end guilds are selective in regards to recruitment - we weed out people that may need to be carried. Basically, if you aren't pulling your weight, you aren't raiding.

In terms of these kinds of things, it is much the same as work. You get taken on if we think you will be a good fit and do your part, and as long as you are doing your part you get compensated for your presence. That isn't to say raiding is work, just that this aspect of it kind of is.

For me "mere presence" should only be deserving of reward if your "mere presence" is meaningful and couldn't be missed.

Yes, it shouldn't happen, but it does without very selective recruitment that just puts extra strain on the management.

In a proper kratocratic system the members basically sort themselves, the strong gets nicely rewarded the weak perishes in misery leaves or doesn't even enters in the first place.

In a game like L2 where PvP was the main focus and you had to PvP to be awarded with the PvE rights, PvP potential was the main ruler to measure your group's importance to the clan, party duels were fairly frequent even amongst same clan members to train and to prove themselves. Having PvP as the ultimate dispute settler is the wisest choice for a clan that wants to have the best among the best.

tautau

@JamesSunderland It seems like a guild such as you just described, where PvP settles disputes, would end up without healers and other support classes. They would tend to be the losers in PvP 1 v 1 matches in the guild and would then be excluded in gear distributions, etc.

I like to play as a healer and I would certainly avoid guilds with rules like that. If you don't have healers, how are you going to succeed in PvP, boss raids, etc.??

Korela

tautau wrote: »

@JamesSunderland It seems like a guild such as you just described, where PvP settles disputes, would end up without healers and other support classes. They would tend to be the losers in PvP 1 v 1 matches in the guild and would then be excluded in gear distributions, etc.

I like to play as a healer and I would certainly avoid guilds with rules like that. If you don't have healers, how are you going to succeed in PvP, boss raids, etc.??

In this scenario healers are the main priority. And 1v1 is absurd. Group vs group is the way to set the guild hierarchy. Have you ever heard about the "constant party" concept?

Percimes

BaSkA_9x2 wrote: »

Regardless of that, iirc the high-end gear will not be dropped by bosses, instead the materials needed to craft it will be dropped. So it doesn't really matter who gets the loot if you don't have someone who can craft the gear using that material.

In a guild context isn't it only an extra step? I mean, instead of being who benefits/gets the item right away, it simply become what can our crafters do with that rare material and who is interested/want those final product?

Ludullu

tautau wrote: »

JamesSunderland It seems like a guild such as you just described, where PvP settles disputes, would end up without healers and other support classes. They would tend to be the losers in PvP 1 v 1 matches in the guild and would then be excluded in gear distributions, etc.

I like to play as a healer and I would certainly avoid guilds with rules like that. If you don't have healers, how are you going to succeed in PvP, boss raids, etc.??

He said party duels though. 1v1 would usually be only between two people who want the same item and have both showed themselves as good pvpers in previous GvG encounters. Watching healer 1v1s was funny as hell

JamesSunderland

@tautau
NiKr and Korela understands it, 1v1 was rarer and mainly reserved for DPSs(specially Hero contenders), GvGs were the norm to settle those disputes and the healers were represented by their parties in such disputes.
And in such system healers were hella prioritized, a weak and bad healer would doom your group and a very skilled and geared one could make your group almost unbeatable.

Vaknar

I think I've experienced most loot distribution methods with the different guilds I've run with in the past. Personally, not sure if I myself have a preference. Usually, if the group I'm with is cool and we're doing well together, the loot rules seem to just work no matter which method is used!

Though, I know most people have preferences on which they prefer, which has made this thread interesting to go through!

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