How Does Your Guild Distribute Loot?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Belkar_OotS, Dec 23, 2014.

  1. Belkar_OotS Augur

    I have been thinking about the time it takes my guild to distribute loot after raids. I want to find ways to speed up the process while maintaining accuracy/transparency etc. A blind/silent auction system would not be well received.

    We've used essentially the same system for at least 10 years. It has always been an element that slows down the raid, which I think is normal, but I am looking for ideas to see if they may be a good fit with our membership. It is generally only a 10-15 minute process when people predominantly want items on their mains. It can take 25 minutes on events where the loot primarily goes to alts, such as the CotF spell runes.

    Currently we use a single channel for open bidding. We don't always have a lot of Loot Council online so we would be resistant to things that would split up the team focus too much since they try to catch errors as they occur before things get looted.

    We are discussing having multiple channels. Have you had good success with maintaining say 2 or 3 channels to decrease the bidding time? Is there any way that you implement the channels that reduces the "oops I bid in the wrong channel" kind of issue?

    Our loot system is stacked pretty heavily in favor of mains before alts. However, after a while T1 events which we still farm weekly are almost entirely for alts/new recruits/guests. How do you keep the process fair for giving people a "reasonable" amount of time to get to the loot especially when you factor in some people have slow loading times etc. We have no way of knowing where the alt is located or which alt people are bidding for with how we currently do it. Does requiring the alt to be in the guild hall help? I personally don't want to make it a box-alt versus same account alt differentiation. Does your guild allow people to bid for alts during primary phases of loot distribution? Did that decrease or increase the distribution time for your guild?

    What are your experiences?
  2. Aghinem Augur

    I don't think there is any loot system that can make things more speedy. We raid on Friday & Saturday nights; and what we typically do is save all the loot from Friday events and then do the hand outs after the Saturday evening events.

    After that, we simply have people do /rand rolls on whatever is a true upgrade for them - when mains are taken care, we move onward to alts. The whole process takes about 20 minutes overall. We additionally only allow the loot winner to roll once unless there is stuff left over; then we do extra rolls so there are no left over raid items.

    Not as fancy as most raid loot systems, but it works and no one complains.
  3. Vlerg Augur

    trivial items such as CoTF spell are FFA unless we have a new recruit that need some.. ( and he loot all 4 of them). if you are rolling for them amongst alts, people probably don't care that much about them.
    weapons ( even some TDS ones) are in the same category ... there's just soo many of them they rot.

    As for alt loot, rule no.1 is your alt/box must be close to the raid and ready. we're not waiting for your alt parked in valley to run to argin-hiz in order to loot something... basicly, if we take more than 5 minute to handle loot, people go AFK and the entire raid get slower and slower.

    we use a zero-sum DKP system. you have ~15 second to bid. highest win. if you weren't fast enough to bid ( or in typical DKP system, if you bidded in increment of 1). too bad. better luck next time.

    alternativly, add a maximal bad... X is the max, is multiple people bid X, the guy with the highest DKP win... high-value item will be gone in few second.

    aghinem: not everyone is on firiona vie
  4. Bamkan Augur

    You should discuss how you currently do the loot. Then folks can look at stream lining it.

    One of the best systems I've seen is XXXX on Bertox.
    They have Loot bots which handle the loot. It's a blind auction handled by the bots.
    Alts/Mains etc all put in bids at the same time. It takes about 30secs per item. They generally will have 2 bots running (1 does visibles, 1 does non visibles). It accesses the websites DKP and then reports the winner, along with everyone elses bids.
    The advantage is people can bid what they want. Mains/Alts all bid at the same time (i.e there is only 1 tier of looting). And it's reported in a channel where the entire guild can see who bid how much.


    One of the big time factors is basically the number of Tiers of looters. i.e Mains over XX DKP, Other mains, Raid Channel members, Boxes, Alts, etc. If you can eliminate some of the tiers of loot or combine them then that will make loot faster.
  5. Hatsee Augur

    A few people and a drunk decide.
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  6. Crystilla Augur

    Ours is definitely NOT one that is fast, so I'm not suggesting it.

    We do have what is called "OOD's (officer of the day)" aka members volunteer each day to help take loot calls along with the officers. On good days, it is a 1-to-1 ratio and each person does one drop only for that raid. The OOD asks for tells with a link to what the person is wearing and if they're in at full or rot. They do 3 calls ("full" price or "rot/half price"). Names are in a loot channel to a single person who looks up the stats of those who put in. (Note, if we have eligible folks in at full, the rot/half price folks are never mentioned). So lots of look-ups required on that one player as the website is restricted so you only see your own data and no one else's (and it's total amount only, not a daily one where you can verify you earned attendance points, etc.).

    For alts/boxes you would want them parked in the guild hall. Boxes should already be online; alts of course you'd have to swap to.

    We do allow all members to go in at once, and the onus is on the OOD/looker-upper to determine who is eligible at what levels (we do have tiers).

    Editted to add: We're about 15-20 minutes per target on loot.
  7. Savager Augur

    so much corruption...
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  8. Belkar_OotS Augur

    We link the items from the chest, then basically work from top to bottom with each item individually for bidding. Nobody is allowed to loot 2 items from the same chest unless the second item would have been rot. If no mains are interested the loot is given to the person who wants it for an alt that has the highest dkp for a fixed amount. We do eventually FFA spells once the competition for them starts to dries up.
  9. Pwnography Augur

    So, what you're interested in is a way to streamline an open bidding loot system?

    One of my first recommendations would be to set a timed limit, so that every member knows exactly how much time the items will be open. One major issue I've had with previous guilds is that the loot caller would vary rates, causing some angst. Ideally, link the item and click a proper macro with pauses. It'd look like Link -> 60 Seconds Left -> 30 Seconds Left -> 10 Seconds Left -> Bidding Closed. People could try to sneak in a last second bid, but I've seen this backfire more times than not. No matter how close, anything after closed is disregarded (unless you want to be accused of favoritism and bending the rules.)

    If you are taking upwards of twenty minutes on some events for loot, you have a big problem here that simple, standardized times could fix. Optionally, reset the bid window for alts or incorporate it into the main timer. You could tell alts to bid if no mains have at the 30 second mark.

    I've been in every kind of loot system, from loot council to EP/GP, silent bids to open dkp. Here in Ring of Valor, we essentially use the above method with a stipulation - you can only bid 3 times, maximum. That stops the trivial one-up competitions you sometimes see. There are more complexities to the backbone of our system (power, max bids, etc), certainly, but the high level principles can be applied nearly anywhere.

    In terms of multiple channels - we don't use them and loot goes quickly. That being said, you can utilize raid chat and/or guild for loot. They work effectively as channels and are hard to confuse. Whatever loot system you have in place, I strongly suggest standardized times regardless. It keeps things predictable. Good luck in finding what works for you.
  10. Betenoire Elder

    Our DKP system looks like this:

    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA - (insert 1/2 price of last purchase as starting bid or min bid for expac if first time)
    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA -1500
    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA -1500- last call
    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA -1500 - end
    Loot is awarded.

    If no 75%+ RA bids:
    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA - (insert 1/2 price of last purchase as starting bid or min bid for expac if first time)
    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA - no bids
    /gu Usasium 75%+ RA - no bids - last call before Low RA
    /gu Usasium Low RA

    If no Low RA bids:
    /gu Usasium Low RA - (insert 1/2 price of last purchase as starting bid or min bid for expac if first time)
    /gu Usasium Low RA - no bids
    /gu Usasium Low RA - no bids - last call before Apps
    /gu Usasium Apps link current

    If no app bids:
    /gu Usasium Main Alts - random 1000
    /gu Usasium Main Alts - 986 is high
    /gu Usasium Main Alts - 986 is high - last call
    /gu Usasium Main Alts - 986 is high - end
    /gu Usasium Main Alts - 986 is high - end - Grats so and so's main alt

    Old expansions loot/alt loot is free of charge for anyone
    If no main alts want the item, it becomes open to all alts, maybe once a year we have something rot completely out. It goes fast, if you're going to bid you'd better be paying attention.
  11. Nniki Augur

    Two of the guilds (one being mine) that I raid with use a loot bot that parses the log file. These bids are private due to being sent via tells. Ours keeps it open until bids slow down; the other, I think, has it open for a certain amount of time... both are very quick systems. Results are copy-pasted into the game.

    Both of these guilds have separate calls for alts, but this, obviously, could be combined and done at the same time. I could see more people screwing their bids up if both are done at same time though.

    If you want bids to be public, you could make a loot bot monitor a channel instead of tells.

    I've been in all the different systems, and a loot bot is definitely my favorite. It makes things efficient and simple. It also frees people up from monitoring bids to answer questions and to get things ready for the next event. It only takes one person to handle loot with a loot bot.

    Personally, I'm against a set amount of time for loot. I find the bidding last second games annoying. If it were a public system, I'd say set a minimum amount of time to keep bids open for, a max number of rebids, and then close bids when bids slow down -- anything after the "closed" message doesn't count.

    As far as alts, it is expected to have them close by before winning loot for them. This is simple enough with the guild banner and most raids being right next to each other these days. If they are holding up the raid for too long, move on.
  12. Sirene_Fippy Okayest Bard

    The minimum possible loot time would be predetermining who wins what potential loot there is from an event, for the whole guild. We did this for a brief period on the Fippy server (at the time, a merit loot system) when ninjalooting by non-guild members was common, and GMs had stated once the 2 minute "open loot" timer was up, all items were FFA. It worked well as long as people were paying attention when loot was being called. It required some effort beforehand by the officers. We had a list of members, in order, for each item, and whoever was the highest on the list that went in at the time it dropped, would win.

    The fastest long term loot system I've seen (and I haven't experienced silent bidding by a loot bot, which is probably faster) is used by Sacred Fyre on the CT server. Members, apps, and boxes are assigned a "loot factor" type of value which is a combination of raid attendance, earned DKP (seniority), current DKP, and whether or not they are an alt (alts are penalized 90%). At the time of an item drop, all who are interested in an item "go in" in raid chat and link the item they're replacing. After a set amount of time, the item is awarded to whoever has the highest "loot factor." This system saves time because people cannot get into a bid war, alts and boxes go in at the same time as mains, and no work is really necessary by officers other than looking up the winner.

    I realize bidding is an extremely popular loot system - people want to spend their DKP the way they want. Unfortunately, it is quite often the slowest. If bidding was limited to a short time period, I can see it being reasonably fast.

    My suggestion for the OP is to allow boxes to bid at the same time, but do not recognize the alt bids unless no mains are interested. This could become confusing, perhaps marking a bid as "alt" would help.

    Alts who are not in the raid are only going to slow things down. You have to decide what's more with it to the guild - getting loot on alts (which is fun), or raiding more in a raid night (different kind of fun). Alts outside the raid also cause a lot of drama. I remember a particular former guildmate with a plethora of terribly played alts. Every night, he faithfully brought his alts outside the raid for rotting items. We /randomed for rotting loot for alts, and this guy had absolutely hot dice. He won so much loot on his alts. Other members would get extremely upset over this guy and all the alt loot he was getting, they simply couldn't compete by the amount of alts he had, and his super amazing /random skills. The sour feelings among members wanting alt loot was not worth the extra happiness winning could ever produce, not to mention the time wasted by officers overseeing alt loot and coddling upset members. Drawing more lines in the sand (limiting the raids in which alt loot is possible, specifying a location for the alt to qualify, limiting members to one alt, etc.) creates more work and solves few problems. I find alt loot quite simply not worth the trouble at all.
  13. Aghinem Augur


    You said my name - that means you must miss us =)
  14. Denhbers Elder

    Here's a possible solution. Parcels exist in Norrath now. Perhaps design a raid tool to have the guild/raid leader be in charge of distributing loot via parcel to the appropriate toon... quick, easy, happy raid leaders, alts rejoice, peace sweeps over the land, etc.
  15. Iila Augur

    The New Loot System is supposed to enable something like this. Letting a raid leader assign who can loot what from chests, no ninja or mislooting.
    When or if we actually see it is something completely different.
  16. Savager Augur

    Coming soon! (tm)
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  17. Corlen-Xeg Elder

    ROI is a loot council guild. We award items based on on several factors; how well it applies to the class(such as focuses), the persons overall performance, number of loots the person has won for the tier(which can be potentially split between visibles/non-visibles/weapon), their last loot date, and attendance.

    We have three out of our five officers+leader that actively participate in the council and make the decisions. However sometimes everyone gets involved. I take tells for all non-visibles and the visible/cultural is split between the other two(someones one needs to double up on visibles).

    When we get a chest, we announce in guild who is taking tells for what items and I'll make the shell award list which would look something like this, "Chest: xx/xx || Cultural: xx || Serpentis Umerium: xx || Amiculua Vis: xx || Faclutictus: xx || Aduroacer: xx" which goes into officer channel.

    We then collect tells and list who asked for what as we finalize the lists. We have a program which can easily display the loot counts and lots of other information for the people who asked for each item which makes the objective factors extremely easy to see. Then we plug in each loot as each item is decided to get our final list, "Chest: Fllint/Fllint || Cultural: Corlen || Serpentis Umerium: Qulas || Amiculua Vis: Shennron || Faclutictus: Bloodydagger || Aduroacer: Sottovoce".

    On award it takes me a minute or so to add everything in through this program so the data is available for the next event.

    We have this process streamlined and can usually have loot done for every chest in 10 minutes or under.

    Also, lots of google docs are involved.
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  18. Aghinem Augur


    Wouldn't this be problematic if loot is generally non tradeable on other servers?
  19. Edrick Augur

    CORRUPTION OF THE HIGHEST LEVELS
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  20. lagkills Slain by Fippy while guards stood and watched.

    Smokers, old people, etc are firmly against speeding up the loots between raids.
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