These aren't numbers, these are people - hopefully your friends, by the time you're raiding. You're going to clear it all anyway, why obsess about doing so slightly faster?

It's not about getting it down faster, it's about principle. If my main perspective is about "let's make friends and not hurt anyone's feelings" then that doesn't inspire a lot confidence in my ability to raid lead. After all, WoW is a glorified DnD math game where you should, in theory, get your rewards based on effort,ability and luck - not World of Feelingscraft where you get your rewards based on how good they're going to make you feel.

If we all start getting riled up about feelings, we're never getting anywhere. Bosses don't care about how good you feel about your staff, the 39 other people who are there with you aren't going to be as no-fucks-given as you after 3 more wipes on the same raid where you got your epic staff.

And the "you're going to clear things anyway" - yeah, at launch maybe, but when you'll have 4-5 raids to farm every week you're not going to clear things anyway. That's what the casual /r/edditards don't tell you - that no one's going to want to clear MC in 3 hours when there's Onyxia, BWL, ZG and also AQ to farm. People will want to clear things of course, but if you are not going to be able to clear all of them every week then they're going to leave for other guilds who can, the good ones who can do better. That's why the casual guilds don't get to AQ/Naxx generally, among other things.

Again, you're only considering the feelings of the laziest folks who know nothing about the extra effort the others who are carrying have to put in, and I'm mostly considering the feelings of the ones who are putting in the real work that is needed to clear the bosses, people who shouldn't be held at the exact standard as the one who aren't asked to respec every week or buy consumables - but these two categories don't have to be mutually exclusive, and instead of designing a DKP system for every little tidbit of effort put in, you could just use a balanced and educated council.

If you can't understand the rational decision to guide my raid to victory isn't always aligned with your ideals all the time, you are the one with an attitude problem. We can still be friends if you understand that it's far more important that we keep a solid raid team together by distributing loot on the basis of us getting better and better at clearing raids together rather than pleasing every person in the raid. You can't please everyone, that's a given - but the fact that the raid is getting better, that the person who got the item earned it and that your time will come eventually anyway is an easier pill to swallow than "it was fair to give it to him because he showed up as often as you did", regardless of anything else.

I'm sorry, but this comparison is not accurate. This council idea looks to me a lot like corporation. People who clean are of little importance, but we need them to keep running (warlocks, druids, hunters). People who do actual work are a little more important so they'll get bigger pay checks (shamans, paladins, fury warriors). Management, boy oh boy (mages, rogues, prot warriors, priests). Of course you should give your life to corporation. Corporation is your family and well-being. Nothing puts a bigger grin on my face than steep upwards charts!

My idea is, we're not there for the guild as for the idea or organization. Rather people are what makes the guild, and guild (the organization) should serve them. With your concept some classes get shorthanded. Not to mention underlying issue - people are not objective so they'll distribute loot subjectively. Or do you suggest you keep track of every single one of 40 people and notice what consumables they bring, how much they try? How do you keep track of it? I bet this whole council works on "feeling" who deserves what and not objectively determining it, because that would be much harder to track than DKP.

Your comparisson is flawed because money, in this context (gear), isn't just there for personal spending - "money" we give to the people in our raids helps our guild get better and better. The cleaning lady does roughly the same job as the CEO, except worse (for now). The people who are getting more money actually do tend to make more money for out guild as a whole and that is why they get money in the first place. It's not at all like that.

But yeah, good luck getting people with degrees to give a shit about your company when you're paying the cleaning lady the same salary as that of an engineer. :lol:

You keep track of it by using Class Leads and demanding minimum requirements to join those raids.

To qualify for loot, let's say you need to have attendance of over 80%. That's easy to track at the end of each raid and the Raid Lead usually handles it.

Meters show you how well they do in raids. Threat meters show whether or not you can actually handle an upgrade. Class Leads should know every BiS item on every boss, so by looking at the meters and looking at the Class Leads, it should be easy to figure out which class should get it and, more or less, which person should receive that item. We'll then ask everyone from that class to link which item they'd be replacing so we can get a better view at how well that improvement would work. We come to a decision and explain it to them, then give the item if no one has any better argument. Consumables are easy to check for (you can just hover over that person) and then see those buffs - but usually good meters go hand in hand with consumables.

..and then after 20 minutes of discussion you move to next boss? :wink:
Ok, I'll grant you that it might work and it seems to be be popular. My realm must have been exception that I took for norm.

TL;DR

You take a methodical approach.

First check attendance of the raid. (if over 80% then good)
Then check for class. (most of the times it will go for the best class available, but like I said, sometimes it won't because it's not fair to always do this)
Then check for meters and consumables. (if people are too high on the threat meter for no reason they're out, look at DPS meters, check for consumables)
Then look at the items they'll be replacing. (no sense replacing a good epic with a slightly better epic instead of replacing a mediocre blue with a really good epic)

Have a short deliberation and commit.

Yeah it does/will suck ass for the first raids, but once a bunch of people have gear and everyone knows what they're basically after it should work out quicker, it always ends up with having a part of the raid that's a bit more geared up than the other part of the raid - so they usually pass on most things and stack karma (in this case, attendance) for the next raid tier, whereas the other part is happy to get whatever at a much faster pace than the one we had when we first entered the raid. Class Leads will be very important in speeding up this process.

Ok, I don't have much more to add to discussion. I'll just leave it here and quote a couple sentences. Of course it's from retail, but I can easily imagine same situation in Vanilla: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753178448
All I can say is Loot Council does not take into account those who work harder on their gear than others, infact it rewards putting in as little effort as possible, as people with lower level gear will nearly always get the upgrades.

Loot council is a massive red flag for me when joining any guild. Just don't use it.

Even on the slim chance the officers don't abuse it they are still human and will make mistakes.

I've been screwed over by loot council twice. Two different guilds. Two different games. (That's how dumb I am).

Never, EVER again.

There is one method, and one method only that determines your contribution and that's DKP. So either DKP or, as a compromise - /roll. (Because loot is tossed at you like beads at Mardi Gras)

Loot council is as good as the council running it.

"I've run out of arguments, here's a thread where people are debating the exact same things you've just argued against for the past hours" :lol:

Well, if you're going to bring retail into discussion, please try and find any guild that's using DKP and how many are using Loot Council. Can't find a single decent guild on Kazzak, Tarren Mill or Draenor (servers generally worth a fuck in terms of PvE progression) that still uses DKP.

Taking it bit by bit:

Jackass#1: DKP is more likely to allow people with lower level gear to get upgrades because they can just farm DKP points while getting carried by others. This of course depends on how your LC / DKP system is designed - to cater towards the lowest common denominators, or the people who are actually deserving of that loot.

Jackass#2: I just explained why DKP is also human and prone to bias in design.

Jackass#3: Sorry, the guy wasn't even raiding on that character at the time when he made that comment and the only thing he couldn't even finish the heroic raid which launches 1 month after he made that comment. Credentials aside, if I had 1g every time some random jackass complained "LC was not fair" just because he didn't get loot, I'd have a year of sub right now. Anyone who takes /roll as a valid loot distribution system is also a confirmed jackass.

And you know how I can tell that people who complain about corrupt LC are in the minority? Because it's still the most popular loot distribution system used by most guilds out there. There are far more people satisfied with this system than there are people upset about it.

I actually agree with Jackass#4, if you have idiots running LC you will get idiotic results.

I'm not sure, but it might fall under meme thread.

Yeah, in reality if you do something like that people will fuck off in an instant. Seriously, I dare you to conduct an LC where all your loot goes to 5 people and see if people can/will sign up for the next raids, see if you can run more than 3 raids before people quit.

I'd feel uncomfortable deciding who gets what anyway. Would never want to be on the council.

How about this then, my guild isn't looking to progress quickly. The premise of joining my guild is an understanding that people have lives, responsibilities, job, kis etc etc. It'll be very difficult for all members to earn DKP consistently due to other commitments. As such, I believe that for us a Loot Council would be a better solution. But our LC won't be looking at min/maxing for faster progression, we'll be looking at doing our best to make people smile. My guild members joined after reading a very transparent description of the expectations of being a member. AFK's, alt f4's and slacking, having babies sat on your lap crying into the mic at 2am. DKP won't work in my guild, imo, it'll be too situational for many to ever expect to win drops. Its a really tough choice to make. But I believe with the maturity of the community now there won't be any cry babies /gquitting when they don't get what they want. I'd rather run a raid 40 times and every time make someone happy, than run it 20 times to make 10 people happy so we can clear it a little bit faster. I don't know, maybe it's just me. I also don't want to spend half my evening tracking DKP, it's not fun, I've got shit to do too. I'll be relying on "grown ups" making "grown up" decisions and maybe making a sacrifice here or there, for the moral of the guild. Hopefully Dave the Tank may feel a bit empathetic to John the tank as he's had a tough time with his kids the last couple of weeks. So when that new shield drops Dave may just say, "Hey John, you take it bro". That's the guild I want to run. A loot Council by the people for the people.

we'll be looking at doing our best to make people smile

Okay so how do you decide which person gets a staff? A smiling contest? :mrgreen:

Also, my wife, kids, and any IRL people I know won't be playing, and I don't care if you're an officer or not. If you're not in it for the love, and to share that love, then you won't be in it. Personally I believe Pamela who is a single mum of 3 kids and plays when she can should be just as entitled to a bit of loot when she's with us as Jack who raids every week is. Who's really more dedicated, the person managing a family, a house and a job or the guy who has the luxury of sitting at his PC all day? If Jack doesn't think it's fair he's in the wrong place. Why shouldn't Pamela have her moment!

That's just loot socialism in my opinion. Look at Venezuela. :wink:

In my experience, in the right hands, Loot Council unequivocally better for the success of the guild in regards to progression. Get the right pieces to the right people in order to achieve success. With that being said, if your leadership/council play favoritism or puts personal issues in the way, then your guild will suffer harder than a poorly run DKP system.

My vanilla guild on Malfurion started with DKP and ran into some issues early on with hoarding. People were turning down clear upgrade in favor of something else that they wanted. These upgrades were then being sharded and wasted.

A big discussion was made on our forums, we voted and scrapped the DKP system for a Loot Council system. Because of the switch, we lost a few members along the way, but in reality, those individuals weren't real team players, to begin with, and it was a positive loss.

Our guild thrived under Loot Council. Our Loot Council was extremely fair in all but 95% of the looting (we're human and make some mistakes here and there). If a close call came between two people in regards to upgrade, attendance was factored in. If that was equal, they rolled off. The arguments, the gossiping in /tell, the drama stopped. You knew exactly who was most likely getting which pieces first and you knew when you were guaranteed second, third, etc.

Overall, I think both systems work. I prefer Loot Council.

That's just loot socialism in my opinion. Look at Venezuela. :wink:

I'm not sharing our loot with Venezuelans. No dice.

Also, my wife, kids, and any IRL people I know won't be playing, and I don't care if you're an officer or not. If you're not in it for the love, and to share that love, then you won't be in it. Personally I believe Pamela who is a single mum of 3 kids and plays when she can should be just as entitled to a bit of loot when she's with us as Jack who raids every week is. Who's really more dedicated, the person managing a family, a house and a job or the guy who has the luxury of sitting at his PC all day? If Jack doesn't think it's fair he's in the wrong place. Why shouldn't Pamela have her moment!

I would not like to be in this kind of guild. You are opening whole new Pandorra's box. I mean if we take a look at it - Pamela made her choice, she has kids, she manages family and house AND wants the gear comparable to the guy who spend more time progressing? Poor Jack might not have kids or his home but he raid hard and spends his time for the good of a guild. But he will have the same chance to get a loot as some player who plays much less, gets carried all the time and brings less to the guild/raid?

For me that is discouraging and I would not be in guild deiding like that.

Personally I believe Pamela who is a single mum of 3 kids and plays when she can should be just as entitled to a bit of loot when she's with us as Jack who raids every week is.

So it's the person who can come up with the best and most convincing story then? Heck, even if you were to ask people to prove their stories, why should that matter in this game? Did she have those 3 kids with the raid team? What's one got to do with the other? I don't get you.
Who's really more dedicated, the person managing a family, a house and a job or the guy who has the luxury of sitting at his PC all day?

Who's really more dedicated to the guild between those two? Evidently the guy, unless Pamela is having the 3 kids farm herbs for the raid's consumables.

I guess it's a hard concept to grasp. I get that, I'm not even sure it would be feasible at all either. It would require a guild full of trusting, empathetic, selfless and understanding team players who were in it for the love of the community feeling rather than the progression. I can see how that might prove difficult to achieve.