Loot System Discussion EPGP vs DKP vs Loot Council

Oriniwen discussed about how their guild has handed loot distribution. They used EPGP system. You can read all the juicy details here.

The emphasis of this Loot system is rewarding people with the most effort but at the same time trying to equally distribute loot amongst all raiders.

Here are some problems that Orin's encountered with DKP. I will also write down what we did as a guild back in Vanilla WoW when we were doing 40man Naxx.

1.) People hoarding DKP and disappearing, then later show up with their UBER MEGA DKP points.

EPGP Solution - 10% decay every week.

The only problem, although minor, is the players who raids and werent just lucky to get any items cause of RNG and this could go on for weeks. They are still in the same ladder position but their buying power went "poof".

What we did in Vanilla WoW

You need at least an 80%(I think it was 85%) attendance in the past 2 weeks to be able to loot/bid. This was really needed when we were learning 40man Naxx back then. But on the other hand, players got those DKP points for a reason. We believed that you did your part when we needed you so we didn't use dkp decay or anything. 80% restriction did the job though so current players won't throw a fit.

Also DKP points acquired in Naxx and MC/BWL/AQ were in different database. There were tons of old players who had tons of dkp when we were still doing MC/BWL/AQ. The concern was brought up so everyone starting from scratch in Naxx was just the only way.

I can see alot of guilds in Wrath separating Tier 7 and Tier 8 DKPs to give those new and upcoming members a chance.

2.) New members winning items over old members with negative dkp.

EPGP Solution - new members can't bid need unless they have earned x amount of EP.

What we did in Vanilla WoW

Simple. If they are only trial they can't win over main raiders. Plus they can't loot anyway till they have enough % of attendance unless it's going to be sharded.

Upsides of EPGP

1.) They can reward people who are not in the raid.

We also did that too. People just had to farm certain amount of mats that we need for pots etc and that would translate to DKP.

2.) Penalize people.

Any system that has points which directly translates wether people get loot or no can be used as a disciplinary tool.

I can see some areas where people can take advantage though. Just like what Orin said if no one else is going to bid why pay the full price? Just go greed with 50% of the price. You can expect the same problem if an item can only be used by 2-3 people. They can conspire to just greed so when a ring or token drops where theyre up against 5+ players they have more to spend.

Overall I think with the right officers and raiders this will play out as one of the most fair loot system.

We just tweaked our DKP system a little bit and you'll see alot of those going around in various guilds changing it according to their needs.

What my Guid does(no it's not better)

We use the dreaded Loot Council. Hurry run for the hills! We don't use DKP anymore.

Then you might ask why the hell did I went thru all that post defending DKP? Well I wasn't really defending I was just comparing how we handled the same issues they had.

Our loot council doesn't really focus on equally distributing loot at first but rather it adjusts to what the raid needs for progression so that we can beat it in the shortest amount of time.

We also did it with Four Hourseman back when it was a 40man Raid. Tanks were priority to get their set piece bonus. We could have killed him anyway w/o loot council but we just killed him earlier maybe 2-3 weeks early cause of what we did instead of waiting for another set of tokens to drop.

We did it when 25 Naxx came out gearing tanks first.

We did it again when learning 3D Sartharion. We funneled our upgrades to the dps classes seeing that's what we needed to make the final push.

Our officers are pretty good in assesing if we need more heals or dps on a certain encounter. It was actually the holy paladin officer who voted that dps classes gets priority until we get the kill for 3D.


We do have a system in place called the Gear Score Sytem to aid the loot council.

Here are a few rules in our Gear Score System.
1.) Everyone is expected to have the best gear outside of raiding. Like your wearing a blue gear instead of the X drop from a heroic Y or the one from the Emblem of Heroism Vendor. If you don't thats minus .5 GS.
2.) Gems and Enchants. If you don't have the best in slot for your class/spec that's minus .25 per gem and enchant on each slot. Also take into account how you distribute your gems for bonus and meta gems.
3.) Everyone starts at 10GS. You at least need a minimum of 8 GS to raid. I think it's 9 now.
4.) Fucks ups will result in minus GS.

An exception would be spending 1.5k gold enchant on a weapon that you'll be replacing in a matter of weeks. Another one would be putting +10stats on a blue quality chest(but your suppose to have farmed emblems for your t7 chest anyway!)

How does it work?

What happens is if you want the item announced in Raid Warning you sent a tell to the officer and link the item that you will be upgrading from.

And from there who knows? Actually I think they have been fair distributing loots. Our GM tends to reward consistent raiders by funneling loots to them. There's been so many nights where I got 4+ gear in one run.

After we have cleared naxx and malygos the next week there were no more tank first priority

it's a fair game from there. For offspecs it's usually random roll unless a person respecs back and forth often for the guild.

Sometimes I do question how they distribute loots but I can't really do anything. So far it evens out in the long run and everyone gets their upgrade.

Loot council will always have drama and is the most susceptible to corruption. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They do loot council because they can afford it. Sometimes I wish they would do dkp but that would go against the main goal of the guild, to get server first kills.

EDIT: I don't think loot council will work on a guild that is not progressing or doing well. How would they expect me to pass an item to a tank where we have been stuck on that encounter for a month? I pass loots cause I want to beat clear a dungeon faster and in return we get loot faster.