Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Tier gear qq - 7.10 vs 7.25

Hey all, I'm just going to get something off my chest about looting distribution with tier gear.

Now in my guild, we have a loot priority system for gear in that loot priority goes: Tanks > Healers > Dps
At first glance this seems fair enough, firstly without adequately geared tanks and healers you cannot clear the content (or at least comfortably). For tier gear, paladins share their token with priests and locks. As a result of this system, I've waited patiently at the back of the line as our two-three paladin tanks get geared, followed by our holy paladins and priests.


So in Naxx 25, my shoulder token dropped and as everyone else had their T7 shoulders, I expected to be next in line. A holy paladin however, that already had the T7.10 shoulders was given the loot under the healer priority system. I was absolutely stunned and was a hairs breadth close to rage quitting. Now I don't normally qq over gear, but this dual tier system in wotlk is screwing with loot distribution!

Yes T7.25 is slightly better than T7.10, but in my view, for loot distribution purposes it needs to be viewed as T7. For example, if you already had T7.10 and a T7.25 piece drops, as a general rule that loot should go to the person without the T7 piece. To treat it separately would simply take too long to gear the raid, and the upgrade from T7.10 is marginal.

This system is made more difficult since some tier gear can also be bought with badges. So, if I farm heaps of heroics and buy my T7.10 hands and chest, using the above loot system, I would automatically be bypassed if my T7.25 hands or chest drop. I'm actually gimping myself in the long run for getting T7.10, and may end up passing the T7.25 to someone in blues. So its actually a disincentive, and sends out the wrong message to the guild.

You could remove tier gear from being bought with badges to resolve this issue, however badges provide a means for casual raiders, players with low loot priority or dkp, and alts to obtain their tier gear. Additionally, you also cannot make the T7.10 reward the same as T7.25 either as there would be no incentive to raid the harder 25 man content.

So what is the answer? Well as irritating as it sounds, maybe Blizzard should significantly inflate the stats on the T7.25 gear to become T8. At least that way it is crystal clear that there is a major benefit to prioritising the gear to tanks and healers. Anyway, that's my rant. Oh wait, I just realised that this would still leave me without my shoulders... damn it!

4 comments:

Alex - aka Firelight said...

You should switch to a DKP (dragon Kill Points) System - like the one my guild uses.

Basically you get DKP awarded for downing bosses. You can use your DKP to "bid" for items in raid-channel. This is the fairest way of distributing loot. Obviously when you start this system you you have to build up some points on the first week - or you could give the tanks 400dkp, healers 300dkp and dps get 200 dkp - that way on the first week you know the tanks will get first priority to bid then healers, then dps.

So what happens to the points? Well lets say the Tier 7.5 Shoulders drop and bidding starts and they are finally sold for 1000 DKP to someone. That 1000 DKP will be split amongst the rest of the raid group. (thats 40 DKP each)

The person who won the shoulders wouldnt obviously get the 40 points.

But at the end of the night the raid could have spend upwards of 7000-10000 DKP - this being split amongst the team and points deducted for spending etc.

It sounds really complicated written like this but its fair. If you dont wanna spend your 2000 dkp on crap loot you can save it up and earn more then spend spend spend when the 2handed axe drops you really wanted!

Rexkicker said...

We have a DKP system in place but the normal RL's been offline there so no DKP was awarded.

Although I personally like DKP, it isn't perfect. You have problems with players rolling on minor upgrades which might not be in the benefit of the overall raid and inflation makes it hard for relatively new guildies to catch up.

Posh said...

I have over the years tryed alot of different loot systems. Dkp, no dkp, rolls, loot council and the like.
What my experience tells me, is that you have to find a system that works for the guild. There is no perfect match system, in my experience.

What my guild do atm, is to use closed bids. A item is posted, and people can bid on the item, but bidding to the Lootmaster in whisper. There is a start 40dkp for off tier items, 55 dkp for tier'ed items. In this way, people have to bid high and use there dkp to get the items they really want. (What I did on the Betrayer of Humanity.. :) )
This system works good for us. Ofc the people that have been in the guild long, will along the way have a surplus of dkp, compared to new members. I actually think that is ok, as there gear will help get the new people gear. And in most cases they have what they want, so the new people will get gear anyway.
Lastly when you do it like this, I would recomend, that you keep the dkp within the instance. So Naxx dkp earned is linked to naxx loot. And when ulduar come, you start on a fresh. So people cant harvest dkp in an easy instance, and use it when the new is on farm.

As always all systems, can be abused one way or another. To conclude, no system is perfect.. ;)

Alex - aka Firelight said...

Oh and BTW - we dont user DKP on 10-man stuff.

We roll for gear!

Let fate decide!! ;)