A New Guild and the EPGP Loot System
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - 18 Comments Tags: being a good member, dkp, dkp systems, epgp, gquit, loot systems, making yourself heard, new guild, ninja, playing politics, political aspirations, stand-by
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - 18 Comments Tags: being a good member, dkp, dkp systems, epgp, gquit, loot systems, making yourself heard, new guild, ninja, playing politics, political aspirations, stand-by
[caption id="attachment_4967" align="alignright" width="300" caption="This Is All Done Without User Intervention"]
It finally happened. My Guild Master called it quits and Warriors of Faith is no more (for all intents and purposes). The guild that got me back into raiding - pot popping, min-maxing and all - fell apart for a few different reasons. Naxxramas and Ulduar will no longer feel the wrath of WoF due to the well-timed departure of a handful of key members for a variety of reasons, summer, vacations, money, ninja transfer and flat out boredom. The camel's back was not officially broken until the last two active Officers /gquit and formed a new guild, with the apparent blessing of their former GM. WoF is still alive, but raiding is done and said GM has been inactive since. With a need to raid I /gquit with a heavy heart, and asked for an invite to the next powerhouse of Magtheridon-NA, Smooth Criminals.
I know some people /gquit all the time, but it always depresses me a little bit. Its makes me feel like a, well, a quitter, and that annoys me. Then there is the notion of betrayal and abandonment to my former mates. When I quit my original vanilla WoW guild it ate me up for a few weeks, but I was quickly forgotten so I got over it. Since Smooth Criminals has a "blessing" from old GM, and one of my favorite people to play WoW with is an Officer, it feels more like a reformation rather than a new beginning. I hope these facts manage to keep my feelings of remorse to a minimum, but the simple 6-keystroke act still penetrated deeper than expected.
I already know many of the members in the guild, so I assume my "standing" won't differ much. Naturally I will continue to be highly vocal (see this entire blog) with my opinions, but respectfully so. My nature has already lead me to go head-to-head with my new Guild Master. Thankfully he is as chill, articulate and respectable as I (hope I) am.
We've discussed loot issues here at PL quite a few times, from ninjas to the woes of PuGs. I even went on a triad about my old guild's severe lack of a fair - in my mind - loot system when dealing with PuGs in the raid. After that ordeal the old (tear) guild saw its first loot system implemented. It was a newish system, not used by many guild, but it worked relatively well. It was basic enough to not impede raiding, but robust enough to deal with dual specs, auto-ignore members who can't use certain items and kept a running list of who received gear that night. We only used it for a few weeks, but it received my approval. Of course the new guild decided to go a different direction, EPGP.
In theory EPGP is a solid DKP system. It does all the basics, rewards players for attending successful raids, tracks one's points for receiving gear and allows raid leaders to keep records of all the happenings. The best feature is the basic design of the system. Like most systems players are given points for being present at kills (Effort Points or EP). Separate to this is their Gear Points (GP), a number which climbs as gear is acquired through the system. If two or more people want a piece of gear then the quotient of the two numbers (EP/GP) is calculated and the raider with the highest number is rewarded. Essentially it gives people who can only raid here and there a chance to acquire gear over time, rather than always losing to someone with super-high DKP.
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Confused or interested? Read more about it at the EPGP website.
Just going by the basic theory I like the system. It is as if it was written specifically for my raiding schedule. Unfortunately the stand-by EP system that my guild chose to run with is simply awful. You must be in the raid group to acquire any EP on boss deaths. This means that I couldn't do anything, dailies, quests or leveling my priest, outside of grinding while waiting to attend Ulduar. The opinion of the GM is that by being in the raid you are showing you are ready. Apparently you can't go AFK while in a raid group. It just doesn't happen, okay!
Expressing my dislike of the stand-by setup directly to the GM did nothing for me. He wouldn't budge. He did create the system, so his hardheadedness is understandable. In an effort to equalize the system without upsetting my GM I found other routes. After some secluded whining to my officer buddy, who went to the GM, the system was changed to allow raid ready members to receive 1/2 EP if they are outside of the raid group (and in the guild). A compromise, but at least I can level my priest (for the guild no less) and still be rewarded for my availability.
I still maintain that EPGP is overkill for a 10-man raiding group, possibly even 25-man - it would have been awesome in the 40-man days - and hope that the arduous task of recording everything becomes too much for the officers and it's abandoned. That being said the creator(s) deserve a pat on the back for its robust feature set, integration as an add-on and ingenious distribution system.
I re-learned two important lessons from the experience. Most importantly that making yourself heard, rather than sulking, is important in our massive multiplayer online setting. After all, if you aren't a happy raider chances are you won't be an active raider. Remaining rational, open-minded and cool-headed also goes a long way. Second, political shenanigans, ear-marking and wooing is not only for heads of state.
iTZKooPA 2012 perhaps?
What elaborate loot systems does your guild use? To bad we can't just find nine (or 24) close friends to employ the honor and worth system with.
Reader Comments (18)
whos ur daddy
In my guild we use EPGP. and i love the system, it rewards the ones that want to pu in the time with out allowing them to win every little peice of gear that they want.. there are always problems that people make find with any system but the EPGP system is pretty well rounded
That's a unique idea. Good for your speaking out.
I recently became an officer in my guild and loot is a controversial topic. It seems no matter what system you do, how you tweak it, or how casual you are about it, people get upset. When you find the "perfect loot system" tell me, please.
I run with 3 seperate guilds in raids as a radinig alliance. We've been looking for a good loot system that can account for peopl in guilds other than the raid leader's. Does EPGP do this?
DKP is one of the absolute worst loot systems in existence, and this is an even dumber version of it.
Congrats on using your outdated, terrible, loot system.
"I know some people /gquit all the time, but it always depresses me a little bit. Its makes me feel like a, well, a quitter, and that annoys me. Then there is the notion of betrayal and abandonment to my former mates."
I completely empathize with that. I should have /gquit from my old guild months ago, but was unsure if I should and if I'd be terrible person for doing it. I finally got the nerve to do it about a month ago, and apparently my /gquit caused a lot of other guildies to /gquit as well. I felt really sorry for the GM (who is a good person)...
But yeah, eventually the guilt and whatnot fades away if given enough time. I know it has for me.
We use suicide kings. 2 lists, tier and non tier. You move your way up the list by being in raid and killing bosses. An item you want drops, you either "suicide" and move to the bottom of the list or second as your offspec/not willing to lose your slot.
works good.
We use EGPG as well and it seems nice and all, but there is this one little problem... There is never any loot dropping in Ulduar that I need! It's like that place hates casters, even just few hours ago when we did it... Nothing but plate tanking gear and a collection of cloaks bracers, rings etc that were all either for melee or leather/mail sp gear There was however 2 items for a caster that dropped, but it dosnt help much when you already have those items! grrr
*rant over*
I have (and still are) gone through that felling of seeing your guild, the guild that cheered at you when you reached lvl 70 back in bc, the guild that saw you grow into an excellent raider, and a formidable adversary when pvping....well my guild "Stormguard" of the mok'nathal US server is no longer raiding, or alive for that matter, for the past 5 weeks no more than 5 people have been online at the same time, it saddens me....since i was the oldest (3 years) more active member of the guild i was left in charge of it, rather asked to, i couldn't let it go to waste, so now i'm trying to revive it, its gonna be hard but i know i can do it. If you're interested wsp me, names is Crystál of the Mok'nathal US Server.
The reason the GM might have had issues with the whisper-based standby system is that the checks it performs are minimal and it's open to abuse.
Let's say that Fred's running EP/GP for the raid and Barney is online on standby. Every time the addon says "whisper me to be added to the standby list", Barney sends a whisper containing "epgp standby" to Fred.
But if Barney is on an alt, he can whisper "epgp standby barney" to Fred so that the points go to the right person.
But here's the problem: Barney can send two whispers: one containing "epgp standby" and one containing "epgp standby wilma" (Wilma is Barney's S.O.). Now when standby EP is awarded, both Barney and Wilma get points, even though only one of them was online.
This was the case as of 5.4.8 when I wrote this article:
http://blog.cold-comfort.org/2009/05/all-about-epgp/
and I don't see anything in the changelogs through 5.4.12 saying that this has been fixed.
For this reason, I don't use the standby whisper mechanism. The manual "select who is on standby" system works just fine, but that requires more work on the part of the master looter.
It's also important to note that this is a bug or hole in the epgp addon, not the EP/GP loot system. If you're using the "official" addon developed by Alkis, it's easy to think they are one and the same, but you could do EP/GP on a spreadsheet in Excel if you wanted to. At the end of the day, the loot system is just a sort over the results of a simple formula.
My old guild took rolls from people, the masterlooter had an addon showing eligible loot members and the roll they rolled next to a small portrait of them, though that was just for 10 mans in a close knit guild. I doubt it could work in a 25man run. Or a busy guild for that matter.
Local system here for PuGs and Guild runs uses GP. Gold Payed!
It works in 2 ways. You bid on an item using Gold. As much as you like. The winner then pays up and the gold is distributed evenly across the raid.
In this way people always come out with something from a raid, not just points they may never use.
Another way is for guild free spots to be purchased, anywhere from 3000G and above buys you a raid slot. You get to keep your class specific drops.
This works for guilds that have already geared up but are doing achievements, training teams, PuGs and anyone that needs some quick cash.
Raids and Instances in general become less demanding on the wallet. No paperwork. Less fighting and in general very amicable across the board.
My guild uses an EPGP loot council. The addon allows you to roll need for mainspec, greed for offspec, and pass. It will then link the ML the items you are replacing. You can even send a comment along with it like "BiS" or "HUGE UPGRADE!!!" etc.
It then goes to a loot council. Not quite sure what goes on there though, but I think it's fair enough.
we use Qdkp, basically it allows for dkp being given at bosses deaths, gives a set amount of dkp for time spent in the raid group ( adds a marker ever set time frame to give out an hours worth of dkp at the closure of an hour )
Has an iron man bonus for those attending raids from strat to end. Plus it lets the addon leader award / subtract dkp's.
It also has a lootbid feature.
We don't use that though, mostly just the time / boss dkp. With an extra manual award for complete quarters done.
I find that in my guild we don't really need an other system. Progress is really slow and the dedicated players already have all the gear they need from either pugs or previous runs wich basically allows the lesser active players to roll on everything between them. We don't subtract dkp if someone is awarded an item, unless they state prior to the rolling they want to use dkp. If they do only those willing to spend the same dkp can roll. That allows players to outbid others preventing them to roll at all and we have fixed minimum prices they must meet before even being able to use dkp. If you are all gearing up together it means those active with tons of dkp get all the upgrades first, but to maintain that lvl of dkp they must be active raiders wich in essence means they will stick around to gear up lowbies a lot aswell.
Obviousely our tanks healers and the two top dps players have the largest stack of dkp's aquired, and in all fairness those are the ones i want to have the best gear the fastest anyway. It may take three lockouts before the gear starts moving to the lesser active players.
We also have a rule about ms / os in our guild, Dkp can be used for ms only in most cases, if we have a player with an offspec for healing he can only roll / use dkp on those items when the current healers have passed on it. This to prevent players using their epic gearsets in one spec to get a raid slot and then buying every piece of loot for there offspecs when mainspecs in that raid needed those same pieces. If you plan to gear up your offspec you have to play in it. ( with some exceptions where a dps offspec is forced to heal or tank for the raids benefit )
It may be a bit harsh on the players only raiding once every other week for a few hours, but in general they'll be in the raids with players that are decked out for the most so they'll still get upgrades. They will just lose out on some very rare drop items.
Owh, and the standbye's get an amount of dkp on their standby character for the time spent they were on standbye, this is done manually.
I personally think one of the problems with WOF is all the other officers were against a DKP type system. I like dkp systems personally.
I did give my blessing to smooth criminals, and I hope koopa does well there.
We use just plain dkp, and we like it.
For people who aren't readily available for raiding, therefore have no dkp, can earn small amounts by depositing useful stuff into the gbank.
You can also transfer dkp to an alt that you haven't raided on yet.
So even though its a classic dkp system, it works out fairly for everyone. Many of the members are kind and will bid the least amount possible if they know someone needs it more.
25 well geared people is > than 5 extremely well geared people, and the point of raiding in my guild is progression, not just gear.
"iTZKooPA 2012 perhaps?"
lol if the world doesnt end first sure
that system is really confusing and seems very unfair to me the chances of getting gear have to be equal and we dont have egual amount to play i think i farest way is to roll for it everyone has an equal chance of winning
i to often feall quilty about leaving a good guild for a better one in my opinion recentlt a guy i was raiding with offered me an invitation to join his guild a good raiding guild to and i really needed to start raiding more but being in the same guild for allmost 2 years i grown attached to the guild and i couldent say goodbye the guild was sertainly cappable of raiding but just couldent get a group togather so i decided to stick it out with my current guild wait till the yget thing togather but its nice to have a backup ever since i spoke out more sincei had more options now which owcurse got me in lots of trouble i find my self walking on my toes trying to avoid upsetting the guild leaders but its kind of hard and still manage to find my self on thin ice most of the time yat i cant bring my self to /gquit