DKP systems

[swaldman]

I know there have been many past threads about dkp, so I hope I'm not rehashing... feel free to point me to one that I've missed.

My raiding alliance has, for the last year or so, used a silent-bidding dkp system. This has the advantage, for a fairly casual group, that it is easy for late starters, or for people who attend less raids, to get items for low prices when the others have them, and thus to "catch up" - if somebody starts raiding later than the main group, they can reach an equal status fairly quickly and feel an equal part of the effort.

The disadvantage is that in a bidding system it is possible for the people with high dkp to bid manipulatively, and apparently this has been happening in some classes.

Therefore, many of the leadership want to change to a fixed-price system, where the cost of an item is always the same (and is high in relation to the amount earnt in a single raid). This is seen as "fair" in many respects because everybody pays the same amount, rather than the first people to see a drop spending lots of dkp to fight over it.

I've never experienced a fixed-price system, so there are probably implications that I've missed... but in my mind, this isn't very casual-friendly.
To me it means that those who didn't start raiding at the beginning can never catch up, and will always be in inferior gear to those who were in at the start. It also means that there will be a very wide disparity between those who attend Every Raid Ever and those who come to some, which I forsee eventually causing major Drama as some want to move on to later instances, while some don't have the gear for them yet.

I'm foreseeing a lot more disenchants, because people won't want to pay full price for an item that is good but not great - they'll be saving for a particular drop instead (wheras before they might have put in a minimum bid).

I'm foreseeing a growing disparity in gear and dkp between those who raid regularly and those who come sometimes, perhaps leading to a hardcore "elite" group and a split in the alliance.

I'm foreseeing a lot of resentment from a new guild that has recently joined the alliance, and whose members therefore have less dkp as of now and will never be able to catch up (a solution here would be to reset dkp with the new system, though I don't think that would go down well with the people who have accumulated lots).


..... does anybody have any relevant comments or advice?

[moopy]

I have lived with a fixed price and a silent system, and neither is any worse. I don't think that there's a perfect system, mind.

The FP system that I encountered gave the person with most current DKP the item which is how it was decided. The trick is to set the FP at a reasonable level, such that even a "decent" epic item cost the equivalent of three raids or such. Assuming three raids per week, anyone would have the Donkey Kong Points to potentially win within a week if their attendance was decent. Obviously, older players would have the edge, but it evens out after a bit. It also speeds up bidding hugely.

Also, there's no reason to DE something that someone needs. If someone wants an item, and no-one else does, let them bid and go into overdraft, as they are depriving no-one. A well-equipped player is more useful than dead mats in the bank.

The problem that I have seen, which applies to both FP and silent bid, is when officers ignore the rules for their own benefit. I don't mean a situation where you know you're working for a specific raid boss, which will require (say) two tanks to have massive X resist- there it makes sense to equip those people with the best X resist gear that drops. In those cases, they get the gear, even if they go into DKP overdraft- goes with the terretory. No, what I am talking about is when (say) a massive +spelldmg item drops which would benefit any of the mages, locks, boomkins etc, and an officer makes sure that he or a member of his cosy clique gets it, despite the fact that they fill no special role, it's just MOAR POWUH. No bidding system in the world can fix this.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry unduly- if the prices of items are set fairly compared to the DKP yield of raids, FP bidding works really well, and actually causes less resentment and goes a lot faster, in my experience.

[Aerath]

In my opinion, a fixed DKP system is the single most fair one. (Mind you, not a perfect one, but most fair.)

You won't have people who got the item when it first dropped paying 500 DKP, whilst the 10th one will get it for 5.

Instead, everyone will pay as much.

As to the comments about those coming later never catching up.... Yer partially correct.
Those who raided longer had more chances to spend DKP (might even end up negative) and the ones who raided longer had more chances of getting a particular drop (thus having no need for it when it does drop, leaving it for the new guy/gal). We've had people leave the raid in three new epics on their first run, simply because noone else needed the gear.

Yes, people might be stocking up. But, after all, it's their points and their choice in how to spend 'em.

[swaldman]

The FP system that I encountered gave the person with most current DKP the item which is how it was decided. The trick is to set the FP at a reasonable level, such that even a "decent" epic item cost the equivalent of three raids or such. Assuming three raids per week, anyone would have the Donkey Kong Points to potentially win within a week if their attendance was decent. Obviously, older players would have the edge, but it evens out after a bit. It also speeds up bidding hugely.

How does it even out? Surely if everybody is gaining points at the same rate and spending them at the same rate, everybody retains their relative positions (over a useful length of time)? OK, a new player could horde their dkp and not spend any to "catch up", but that is only catching up in dkp and not SUM(dkp+gear), and hardly benefits the raid...

Also, there's no reason to DE something that someone needs. If someone wants an item, and no-one else does, let them bid and go into overdraft, as they are depriving no-one. A well-equipped player is more useful than dead mats in the bank.

What I meant here is that wheras, with the old system, if something was a small upgrade but not all that great, somebody might bid a minimum bid in the hope of getting it cheaply, the same person is unlikely to bid at all for a fixed price, as they will want to save their dkp for something nicer. An example would be some of the 2-handed weapons in MC, which my (at the time holy) paladin picked up for minimum bids. They've been very useful outside of raids, but I'd never be prepared to pay a full price if it might have deprived me of, for example, an item of Lawbringer later on.

For this reason I'm predicting a lot more items that are marginal upgrades which nobody wants.

The problem that I have seen, which applies to both FP and silent bid, is when officers ignore the rules for their own benefit.

Remarkably enough, we don't seem to have this problem at present :-)

Anyway, I wouldn't worry unduly- if the prices of items are set fairly compared to the DKP yield of raids, FP bidding works really well, and actually causes less resentment and goes a lot faster, in my experience.

We'll see... my concern at present is that if this does go the way that I fear, then now is the time to bail and switch before other groups get into the new content... but I'll probably give it a month or three to see how it pans out.

[Clavina]

When i raided before we used 2 systems but both based on the person with the most dkp getting the item. I had no problem with it, in our guild DKP rewarded attendance so those with the highest attendance had a better chance at getting the loot.

Before TBC was announced there was some class prioritisation by the officers eg, rogues priority on leather, tanks priority on t3 tokens, priests priority on cloth healing gear. After TBC was announced and raiding dropped off a bit it was changed to a free bidding system, if you had DKP and could use the item you could bid (but still with a priority on cloth for clothies, mail for hunters/shams etc etc). Basically this just enabled healers to bid on DPS items.

Someone mentioned the first person getting an item for a huge amount and the price going down over time. I don't see a problem with that, like in real life you pay through the nose to be the first to have something!!

In TBC there still is no DKP system in place..

[Ignious]

sorry for the noob question but what's DKP?

[DrOsmius]

sorry for the noob question but what's DKP?

Just the acronym used to identify "points earned in raids used to buy epics"...i think it was originally DragonKillPoints.


1) We used the fixed price zero sum, and I am a BIG fan. Current highest points who say they want the drop gets it, and pays the rest of the raid memebers evenly those points. For example, if Polearm of Moopiness drops, is worth 40pts...and Moopy's hunter wins by having highest current total points, then Moopy loses 40pts and every raid member gets 1 pt (in 40person raid), and yes, even Moopy gets 1pt. And yes, you can go negative.

2) Those who are there more regularly SHOULD have more than those who are not. I was one of those that were not. Effectively then, I could not get gear that the 4/week attendees wanted...I had to wait until they were done. But it turns out, that the top priest got an average of 1 epic per 20 bosses downed...and casual me got 1 epic per 10 bosses. But I never had as many either.

3) We are likely moving to the relational system, where you get fixed points via zero sum for actual drops taken AND points for effort (attendance, tries on bosses that don't drop, etc). The highest ratio determines the winner, and is supposed to make it so that lower-attendance members don't have to wait until the higher ones are finished...they will get them more at the ratio of their attendance.

4) I would hate silent bids & variable costs.

[djiss]

We stoped with DKP since a while, always a pain to keep up-to-date, a waste of time slowing our raid too much.
Everyone work with a wish-list. If the item drop and is on your wish list, you can have it. The one who put it higher in that another in his wish list have priority, if 2 or more have it on same priority level, both roll. Once it you got your item, the winner got that item marked as looted with a date so no more count in his wish list but we still know he got it and when. That force the player to do his homework and figure what gear he want, in which prority so we get item loot discussion BEFORE the raid. If no one have the item on his list, then those who still need it, can roll. Most the time, it take no more than a minute or two and the loot is done.
That imply you trust your guildmate. But if you don't trust them... why are you there?

All in all, boss die, we link the drop, we say who get what. no one argue? 10sec. ok loot.

[Tanitha]

While I've never had the ... ahem ... pleasure of working with DKP I did read a rather interesting piece on Wikipedia about it just yesterday. It discusses the various options and systems that can be used and their advantages / disadvantages.

I don't know how much it is worth - but it was an interesting read and you can find it ... here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKP).

[JoeMuggs]

Ya I liked zero sum but the problem I have with it is there is no easy way to give incentive points i.e. bonus for showing up on time and prepared and bonus for staying till the end on a hard night of wipes learning a new boss. You can do this with zero sum but it becomes very complicated and since ppl are natural suspicious of DKP systems I find simple and transparent are best.

The weakness is if you add bonuses etc. then you start to see the inflation that is discussed above. What I have found works ok for this is you have different pools for each instance this means that ppl build up lots of point but once they have got the stuff they want from an instance it is not a problem cause the will not compete against new ppl and when you start the new instance every one is even. Ex. when we finally stopped running MC early this fall I had some huge amount of points (I had been there since we first started running it), but it was not so much of a problem cause I could not use those points in BWL AQ 40 and beyond.

You can change a huge point amount (like 3 raids worth for an item) or I’ve even heard of systems where every time you get and item your dkp is reset to zero. The problem with this, and we even had this problem with a more reasonable fix price system, is ppl will be saving up for one certain item that they want and the will start passing on upgrades to save. This can even happen to where upgrades are DE’ed. The problem with this is due to the tiered system of wow, the progressive natural of WoW, and the gear check cock block fights (rag, vael ect.) you need ppl to get that gear. What can work here is fix price with a default roll if no one wants (default could be free or at a discount). This is I guess a big problem it is even discussed on the wiki page some one listed.

Any way there are no prefect system but frankly I think for guild activity with rare and highly desired loot even flawed dkp is better that /random, and I would hate to be in a guild with a loot counsel I could only see this is a super hardcore progressed guild, in a normal guild the first time some one felt shafted (which would happen all the time) they would just leave. Any way I have no idea where I’m going with this post so ill shut up now.

[Thumbtack]

Fixed price system causes drama and people new to raiding or people who raid less will never benefeit from it, I have for years called it a Officer loot system since thats where all the loot goes in a set price dkp system.

best DKP system I have ever seen involved out loud bidding in party/raid chat and they usually limit each person to 1 item per night/dungeon or whatever and also best ways to do dkp is not allow alts to share dkp with their mains, this will make it fair for everyone.

[moopy]

How does it even out? Surely if everybody is gaining points at the same rate and spending them at the same rate, everybody retains their relative positions (over a useful length of time)? OK, a new player could horde their dkp and not spend any to "catch up", but that is only catching up in dkp and not SUM(dkp+gear), and hardly benefits the raid...


The main advantage is that it prevents classes rigging bids. If an item drops which is of primary interest to a particular class (or useable only by them), they can collude to agree not to bid, so one person can get it for the minimum bid. This subverts the whole idea of an auction. I saw this where the warriors used to collude to rig bids, so they never had to spend as much on their items as others- and since they earned DKP at the same rate as everyone else, they ended up at a considerable advantage.

[Thumbtack]

The main advantage is that it prevents classes rigging bids. If an item drops which is of primary interest to a particular class (or useable only by them), they can collude to agree not to bid, so one person can get it for the minimum bid. This subverts the whole idea of an auction. I saw this where the warriors used to collude to rig bids, so they never had to spend as much on their items as others- and since they earned DKP at the same rate as everyone else, they ended up at a considerable advantage.

Thing is Warriors doing it it wasnt that big of an issue except to new people. I have seen times where they roll amongst the class and winner pays minimum DKP. Seems to get rid of the original purpose of DKP to start with. What pisses me off with when some people bid insanely high on something with the intent to cost someone else a ton of DKP and knock them down.

Going back to the Sum Zero fixed price system of DKP. Most new people or ones who dont raid much will have impossible times of catching up to anyone in DKP since no one is deciding price through bidding, I have seen guilds use this system in both EQ and WOW, I am intent to say its an officers benefeit system since 90% of the loot went in that direction, then go by the fact that what loot is distributed other places within the guild is usually something the officers dont need and is usually of lesser quality of an item. Notice the guilds who use this system, all of the ones I been part of anyway, have all decided to disband at some point of their life, and I have always thought it was because the dkp system used evens out after a long period of time to where it might actually be fair. ONly for these guilds to reform on other servers or reform months later using the same system yet again.