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Guild Loot Distribution
Eathan
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
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!
- 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!
3
Comments
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.
Aren't we all sinners?
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Aren't we all sinners?
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.
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.
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.
Aren't we all sinners?
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?
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?
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.
Aren't we all sinners?
Though, I know most people have preferences on which they prefer, which has made this thread interesting to go through!
I totally agree with your last post. I misunderstood your earlier one, I thought you meant that a healer would have to fight a DPS in order to try to get guild gear, hence my comment (as a healer) I would not want to be in such a guild.
I play a healer and certainly would want to be in a guild which respects healers and values the really good ones, so Yes, we agree, thanks! TT
My point is - if this doesnt apply to someone, they aren't even in the guild, let alone the raid.
We dont drag dead weight with us.
It isnt exactly much of a strain on the guilds leadership, you shouldnt need to recruit any more than 1 in 10 people a year (we had multiple years in a row with no new recruitments in EQ2). If you find yourself needing to recruit more than that, then there is probably something wrong with tour guild (quite possibly your loot policy).
and when you add in the notion of PvP it becomes even easier. With pure PvE, you only need what you need. With PvP, someone just being present with your guild tag can alter the decision making of your opponent.
This only works in a game where loot isnt all that important.
In a game where loot makes a difference, the strong are usually strong because they have better gear - at least in part. If you set up a system where the strong are rewarded and the less strong are not, you are depriving the less strong of the opportunity to become stronger. Clearly, this is a shit system.
What you seem to be forgetting here is that the guild has as much of a responsibility to its members as its members have to the guild. If you were playing any game other than L2, this kind of loot distribution would guarantee your guild wouldnt last more than a year. The only reason there may be an exception for L2 is because not all top end gear was obtained via guild activities - in any game where this is the case the guild has that aforementioned responsibility to its members.
And in later updates L2 got instanced bosses that requires 36+ people to even enter the instance and those bosses had the best loot. But even this didn't change the gear distribution (at least in my experience).
Not much of a strain but a extra strain nonetheless, unless in a already well stablished guild specially in a PvE Focused game where competition mostly pales in comparison and such system becomes unnecessary.
Nope, not at all, in a game where loot/gear is important for PvP and you desire a system to have the strongest amongst the strong, you must prioritize gear for the most skilled, so the most skilled and geared can secure gear for the not as skilled and less geared in a extremely efficient cascade effect.
The absolute majority of top end gear was indeed obtained via guild activities, but by "guild activities" it doesn't mean just Raids but also means securing farming spots for clan groups which also required PvP.
A strong guild requires strong members, hierarchy is important and necessary, not just "diplomatic strength" like Guild Officers, but a proper hierachy to determine the Top 1 group of the clan to the Top 10 group.
Creating direct incentive for members in the pursuit of becoming stronger and more skilled was simple necessary to become and maintain Top 1 Clan status for as long as our clans maintained.
A system that equally rewards the most skilled and the less skilled is certainly a shitty system bound to failure in L2, it creates no incentive for constant personal improvement.
Aren't we all sinners?
You've said a few times on these forums that bosses in L2 just had increased/100% chance to drop the same gear as regular mobs - as well as other drops iirc.
To me, assuming people give a shit about those drops, they are top end.
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but that was the basis for the above comments.
I can't speak to L2 in this regard, but with PvP focused guilds in Archeage (or - L3), having an underperforming person in your guild wasn't an issue - you just basically ignore them.
This seems to me to be the basis for what it is you are saying here. If someone isn't good, you just ignore them and don't give them any loot. Perhaps this is just the way more PvP oriented guilds think.
If we are going to assume that this kind of treatment is wide spread in PvP focused guilds, I now have to start to wonder what part this kind of treatment of guild members has on the longevity or lack thereof) of most PvP focused games.
If this is indeed standard among PvP guilds, the starting point to the above question is "some", there is literally no scope left to say it has no impact. The question is how much of an impact.
Either way, it would seem fairly obvious to me at this point that top end guilds in non-WoW PvE MMO's give far more of a shit about their members than any PvP based guild does.
This is a logical fallacy.
It may be a widespread fallacy, it may be that many believe it, but it is a fallacy.
Imagine a scenario - you have two people of the same class, one having significantly better gear than the other. Both players are present equally for guild activities. An item drops that is an upgrade for the better geared player.
According to you, your guild would give that item to that player with the better gear. Unless that person is then handing the item they are taking off to the other player, the guild is objectively worse off than if you gave the item to the other player. It is an outright objective fact that the value of an item is 100% relative to the item it is replacing. The greater the gap, the more of an impact the item has.
In a scenario where you are not limited on the number of people present, there aren't even any mitigating factors to this.
Sure, that may well be the way it was done in L2 - but I guarantee you that it was originally done this way because the people making that decision were the ones getting the gear, and everyone else was either unable or unwilling to speak up about how factually incorrect they were.
Even with the similarities i would hardly call Archeage something like L3, it was a way more Solo-style game with top end gear acquirable throw entirely PvE means with far less guild necessity other than literally Kraken and Red Dragon for a nice portion of its existance especially considering its Faction vs Faction context.
In L2 with the kratocratic system ignoring those would mean occupied clan slots for way better players so the absolute majority of times the weak groups would leave by themselves after losing too many times the PvP standoff for the loot, and them join weaker clans were they could actually shine alongside weaker players
You are free to assume that, what i can tell you is that the kratocratic system wasn't the standard and there were plenty of casual guilds with limited and weak styles like DKP and such, the kratocratic system was simple the meta for those who desire the apex of the game, those whom aimed for Top 1 and possible achive Hero Status in their respective classes.
Would you mind telling me which logical fallacy would it be?
According to me? Have you really read what i wrote?
In the scenario you presented, there would be a dispute, which would be settled through PvP, both players or their respective groups would duel against each other, the winner would receive the item.
If the item wasn't a upgrade for the better geared player, the better geared player simple wouldn't be considered or qualified in the dispute for the item, as it simple wouldn't make him stronger in terms of gear.
Nope, Clan Leader and his group, Officers and all Party group leader were all bound by the same rules,
want the item?
Fight over it, prove yourself more worthy of it than your fellow clan member/group.
Aren't we all sinners?
I specifically said in the scenario that it was an upgrade.
But that aside - holy shit that is a horrible way to treat people. And here I was thinking WoW was bad. Blizzard developers at their worst have nothing on you guys.
So, here is the question I have for you (both of you, really). How long did these individual guilds last, and what is the record for the longest such guilds went without any people leaving?
I'll leave this to James because my L2 experience is way too different from his (private vs official servers). What I can say of my experience is that across the years I've gathered a ton of friends, who were all happy to play with me on a new server under my leadership. And I was using that exact system. They trusted my judgement and never left the guild due to a gear argument. There could be other personal arguments or people just stopped playing the game, but I cannot recall a single leave over a gear dispute.
If I had the same situation of "my favorite game gets amazing updates super often and none of them go wildly against the general preferences of the players", I'd also play that same exact game for years and years with the same people. But alas, L2 was not that. I might've experienced that had I played the game since the release of its official servers back in 2004, but I was too young and poor to do that. Which is exactly why I'd assume James had a different experience.
p.s. a small clarification on the "who gets the item" thing. If there's, say, player A with tier4 gear and player B with tier5 and their guild manages to drop a tier6 item that fits them both - the item goes to player B and his tier5 gear goes to player A. The tier4 item would either go down the line or left for any newcomers, or just sold on the market (or broken into crystals for crafting).
That tier6 item would let player B help out player A in future pvp fights, which would make A's farm faster and more reliable. This system works on the logic of "you're only as strong as your weakest link". The strong links do their best to support the weakest links, because it's in their own interest.
i Literally addressed your scenarion above this alternative scenario quote.....
That's the fairest way to treat people.
Throught the absolute majority of my time in the official L2 servers(2004-2012) i played in 2 Clans, 1 clan for each official server i played in, and the clan in the second server had alot of members from the clan of the first server who migrated alongside us, i played for about ~3 years in the first and about ~5 years in the second.
The clan in the first server lasted for about ~4 years, the clan in the second one is still active till this very day on the official server, even tho the main groups left alongside me back in 2012 for private servers.
As for "the record for the longest such guilds went without any people leaving" probably a week at best.
A weaker group leaves a stronger enters, the eternal cycle. (clans would have up to 200 players)
On the other hand, for those groups whom managed to keep their positions in the hierarchy remained for years.
Aren't we all sinners?