Why the DKP system is a fraud

[Lightforged]

Tbh, i understand but don't forget that these players make the guild do what it does.
If you don't agree with it you should just join a new guild and suffer untill they have a solid roster.

People who "work" hard get more in life.
That's just how it goes.

Ofcourse working hard gets you far but the DKP system is more of a warehouse, you go in there and just slave for the higher people in charge.

[Shiruba]

Which system do you propose in its place?

[Lightforged]

Which system do you propose in its place?

I wrote it in a previous reply on 2nd page :) hope it helps.

[Shiruba]

Why do people deserve equal treatment where they do not produce equal results? Why not have a Loot Council based purely on who performs (relative to their gear, obviously). What does rolling do that LC does not, except allow for stupidity like one guy getting five items and another getting none, or the toe-sucking 5.9 lock who does 4k dps getting loot over the 4.9 who does 8k?

[hezente]

Ofcourse working hard gets you far but the DKP system is more of a warehouse, you go in there and just slave for the higher people in charge.

I don't understand how you feel like a "slave".
I never really had a long trial for any guild.
Got in mainruns really quickly.
Better yet, when i transferred ally and join a "old guild" i got raider rank after 1 raid.
Joined main runs and boom, few weeks later my 6k sp was 6.5.

I don't know who you are and how you play.
But is it like a problem from your side?
Trials have a hard time, always.. they have to prove themselves worthy you know.

Besides the whole, "they got/"get" more than i do" i don't really feel ya.
Any system gets rigged by either preference/rank or ignorance.

[Skoobydoo]

Thank you, something new :)

Well of course each Guild can have their custom rules for their DKP, but through average guilds it tends to be plus/minus the same thing. I am not so sure how other systems work, but If I were to suggest....I'd suggest people join guilds without a system at all, just the good old fashion rolls (yes it's luck but at least you get the opportunity and do not have leavers like in pugs), until the point you learn the tactics so well, you are able to create your own raids, where you are able to reserve items for yourself.

I am personally one of the GM's in my guild, it's fresh but the whole point of my guild, is just no system at all, just simple roll and goodluck. People who stay will be a guaranteed finished raid and not like pugs where people leave at PP. Sure people can join and get the item they need and leave, but would you really want to leave knowing each time you raid with the guild you actually have a chance despite what rank you have? And ofcourse I do understand people who been in the guild for a long time, keep losing rolls to new comers, could get frustrating, but that's why they could easily make seperate raids within the guild, like a main run let's say, and have a bunch of people of the same rank who have devoted more time into the guild, run the raid together? And have a whole seperate raid for newbies.

My old guild master on Classic Vannila and TBC runned Pug discord for our server and was extremely successful with multiple raid leaders from different guild running 10-ish pug raids a week. They used free roll with soft reserve on one item. How this works is you can reserve a item and only people who also reserved same items can free roll, but on other items you lose against soft reserves or have to free roll if no one reserve( there is website that do the job, people just need to select what they reserve). This prevent situations like Paladin rolling on DBW and later on Warrior rolling on Tiny Abomination.

Now i wanna say by the nature of Warmane been old server with no new content and people running ICC for years, the chance of DKP( or LC) guild been scumbags that just wanna loot whore items to their main and alt characters and **** everyone else is extremely high. Here maybe even free roll can work just fine for a guild. But i wanna give you prospective from retail or classic where there is upcoming content, there is actual progression and guilds usually wanna prepare and clear is as fast as possible. Letting a new members free roll would be a huge problem, because you will end up in situations where people who are there just so they can get some loot will take their items and then leave, or quit. This will lead to overall slower guild progression simple because you are bleeding items away from it. I can tell you from personal experience in p1 of TBC we give x3 Dragonspine Trophy to hunters who all quit before p2 release and we felt it. On retail my guild is using LC and that's only loot system i am willing to be part of if i have to raid mythic. Content is just hard at release, bleeding items to people who can quit tomorrow and not optimizing your loot will make progression take longer and be more frustrating.

My point is in good guilds they usually focus more of guild progression first and forming stable roster, that's their first priority. And later on over time everyone will get their characters geared. But there need to be loot distribution system in place that prioritize your main roster first even if that mean new members must give their loot away at first. I have personally done this many times, i had to give my personal loot to core raider simple because i know he will be there for every boss on progression while i may not.

[Skoobydoo]

The solution was implemented in the newer expansions and is callled personal loot.

I dunno why people keep talking how personal loot is a "solution", It literally function exactly the same as before for guilds. Only difference is you have to trade away your personal loot item to someone else which feel way worst for trial/member players since they have to trade away item that is already in their inventory. Also in Dragonflight they are bringing group loot back.

[Lightforged]

I don't understand how you feel like a "slave".
I never really had a long trial for any guild.
Got in mainruns really quickly.
Better yet, when i transferred ally and join a "old guild" i got raider rank after 1 raid.
Joined main runs and boom, few weeks later my 6k sp was 6.5.

I don't know who you are and how you play.
But is it like a problem from your side?
Trials have a hard time, always.. they have to prove themselves worthy you know.

Besides the whole, "they got/"get" more than i do" i don't really feel ya.
Any system gets rigged by either preference/rank or ignorance.

I am not speaking from my problems with DKP (I actually benefited from it) I speak in behalf of those who are new player or just don't get the benefits from guilds who have been up there for long, to the point grinding for a rank or points, is just not enough, not enough to catch up. Sure there may be an exception (1 item in a month or so) but that is just in my opinion, scamming, scamming of people's time just to almost get nothing.

[Lightforged]

My old guild master on Classic Vannila and TBC runned Pug discord for our server and was extremely successful with multiple raid leaders from different guild running 10-ish pug raids a week. They used free roll with soft reserve on one item. How this works is you can reserve a item and only people who also reserved same items can free roll, but on other items you lose against soft reserves or have to free roll if no one reserve( there is website that do the job, people just need to select what they reserve). This prevent situations like Paladin rolling on DBW and later on Warrior rolling on Tiny Abomination.

Now i wanna say by the nature of Warmane been old server with no new content and people running ICC for years, the chance of DKP( or LC) guild been scumbags that just wanna loot whore items to their main and alt characters and **** everyone else is extremely high. Here maybe even free roll can work just fine for a guild. But i wanna give you prospective from retail or classic where there is upcoming content, there is actual progression and guilds usually wanna prepare and clear is as fast as possible. Letting a new members free roll would be a huge problem, because you will end up in situations where people who are there just so they can get some loot will take their items and then leave, or quit. This will lead to overall slower guild progression simple because you are bleeding items away from it. I can tell you from personal experience in p1 of TBC we give x3 Dragonspine Trophy to hunters who all quit before p2 release and we felt it. On retail my guild is using LC and that's only loot system i am willing to be part of if i have to raid mythic. Content is just hard at release, bleeding items to people who can quit tomorrow and not optimizing your loot will make progression take longer and be more frustrating.

My point is in good guilds they usually focus more of guild progression first and forming stable roster, that's their first priority. And later on over time everyone will get their characters geared. But there need to be loot distribution system in place that prioritize your main roster first even if that mean new members must give their loot away at first. I have personally done this many times, i had to give my personal loot to core raider simple because i know he will be there for every boss on progression while i may not.

Yeah I mean Loot Council as far as I know has been working really well, and with the right guild it would be really beneficial for everyone despite their rank....however unless you find a non biased guilds that would truly not mind giving loot to new comers who are good, then you would most likely encounter raid leads who just give loot to people they like. But that can be fixed by just searching for the right guild, but then you can search always for the right guild until you're happy, speaking generally I am not sure every raid lead would want to give an item to a newbie unless they do not need. I would take LC any day over DKP.

[Lightforged]

The DKP is just cheaper way to gear yourself than directly from the marketplace. It's not about dedication, but only about how much you're willing to spend from your ingame wealth. You can buy such points for gold in every guild. Playing X months for <X>, then newcomer joins out of nowhere, buying dkp from multiple players = ending up with more points than you.
Can't fight the system.
The solution was implemented in the newer expansions and is callled personal loot.

Cheaper way to gear yourself? Sure for people who been in the guild from early on, ofcourse. But for people who are new comers (does not have to be bad players only) have to spend roughly 8+ hours slaving in the raid a month for the guild to not get anything from it? All I see you spend 8 hours of your life, to get nothing in return, other than perhaps some fun, but when is wow ever been fun lately (it's all a race to BiS)

[angrylol]

With LC they will discuss and first weeks fresh guy will only get the loot, most likely, if members don't need it. Or with DKP he will get it for 1 DKP with the same chances. Actually they have better chance with DKP, because LC can easily decide that this new guy is unworthy of loot and is not a fit, but no one can argue with DKP.

Best fit for new players is /roll distribution, because they have a chance to benefit from the effort of players who established the guild, organized and made it happen. They can just stroll in and doink ezpz 100 roll on that STS. Then they can gear up, join a guild that has a future with other kind of system(they can't be considered "new player" anymore). Guild "core" will be fed up with revolving door of a guild system, sooner or later.

If spending 8 hours raiding and having fun is not worth for the player without getting loot - they don't need him, whole design is made to weed them out. You can go race to BiS somewhere else.

[Obnoxious]

I dunno why people keep talking how personal loot is a "solution", It literally function exactly the same as before for guilds.

By itself it isn't, because, like you say, people ruined it. It has to be coupled with the loot being bound to the character, so no one can harass or threaten the player to force them to hand over something RNG legitimately gave them. Many games have done that, some that are superior to WoW, like FF14. The side-effect of being unable to hand over a duplicate is minor when compared to the never-ending tsunami of drama it avoids.

[Crystalleia]

So, to start off: There is no person with no bias. Even if, say, you are able to make arguments based off pure logic, these always start from assumptions, which is where the bias comes in. An example would be thinking that your personal experience reflects that of other players / the playerbase in general (no, the sample size of 'your personal experience' tends to be too small in order for it to be statistically significant).

That said, let me break your points down, and present my own counterpoints:

1. People who have long been in the guild would have massive amounts of DKP that new players cannot compete with, and therefore new players cannot get items.
- This is partially correct, as some people *will* have stacked humongous amounts of DKP that they can basically bid for whatever they want and win it ez. HOWEVER, this generally happens to people who already have most their characters geared up (hence why they're able to stack that much DKP to begin with - since they don't need gear as much, they do not bid/buy items as often, therefore the DKP stacks up).
- When these people do bid, it's usually for expensive sought-after items, which means it's often done against others of the same 'standing' within the guild on (i.e. comparable playing time). This can lead to very high bidding amounts, which ends up with the winning person ending on a much more manageable DKP amount.
- The implication that this leads to new players not being to get items 100% is also false. Some guilds may not have fully progressed through Heroic, and the Normal bosses may drop items that people who have played longer don't need, there are also stuff like normal Marks, and so on, and 10-man raids don't always use DKP either.

2. Priority(?)
- This is NOT part of the DKP core system. If a guild uses Priority alongside DKP, then it's no longer pure DKP, but more of a Loot Council.
- Since you claim that your first post's explanation is 'DKP system usually works in most guilds', then you would need to provide data to prove that, since in my personal experience I've never been in a guild where it uses both priority + DKP for loot, and I've been playing for nearly a decade.

3. That joining a raid in a guild setting means you are contributing as much as any other person in the raid.
- In a sense, this is correct. Every single person in the raid contributes (their class, their DPS/Tanking/healing, their raid lockout) to *that particular instance of a raid*. As such, everyone's awarded the same amount of DKP for that raid.
- On the other hand, this does not necessarily equal *contribution to the guild*, which is reflected by the amount of DKP a person has earned in their history with the guild (some of which they would have spent for gear, ofc).
- Guilds require management, as well a raiding core: Competent players who are able to fill roles and classes and still do well, people who assist the raid leader (be it via DKP bidding, or mechanic calls).
- These things do not come from thin air: Guild leaderships often have to grow select guild members into the role, and it takes a lot of investment until someone is able to fill roles (since they first have to gear said characters). Add to that that some people may quit midway, and you have to start all over again with someone else.
- All these mean that guilds have an incentive to reward loyalty to the guild, and DKP is one such way.

4. That this puts new players in the role of 'slaves'
- While 3) may imply that DKP is a way to 'reward', if you will, more senior players, they still did those raids to earn their DKP. It's not like the GM just goes "Hey to appreciate y'all here's 1000 DKP so you can outbid the new guys".
- Guilds DO provide something(s) in return, the most important of which Raid stability: You will generally have regular raids, and you can expect these raids to fulfill a certain standard set by the guild. You can also get raid invites without achievements, and some guilds may even teach you tactics and class gameplay and so on your first ICC 10 run, for example.
- However, where does this Raid stability originate exactly? Well, it's all the things I listed in 3): the long-term contribution of the people managing the guild, and those forming the backbone of its raids.

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All those stuff said, let me reiterate the following points:
- If a guild uses Priority + DKP both then it's pretty obnoxious (especially in stale servers aka Icecrown), and getting the heck out of there is probably a good thing.
- However, I also think DKP done right is pretty reasonable when you consider the entire guild's interests (instead of just limiting it to just that one raid).
- I do think that different loot systems fit different people, and that's okay :) I applaud that you've chosen to learn to raid lead yourself. Your raid, your rules, and that's great!

[angrylol]

You don't have to spend single second raiding to gain dkp in any guild.

Such a thing has a name - "corruption". Unless it's by design, which would make it GDKP or some weird mix. Which is fine, but why are you saying that "you can buy DKP in any guild"?

What you want to do is join a guild with transparent DKP history.

[angrylol]

Right, that's all fine and good, if it's out in the open up front. I'm just hearing about such a thing first time, saying you can do that in every guild is just not true. Which comes back to OP great dilemma, every guild makes their own system and gathers players who want it.