Monday, February 9, 2015

Loot Council

So I'm in a reasonably serious raiding guild. It seems decent, we're 4/10 in normal Blackrock Foundry after the first week. Operator Thogar has proven to be more of a roadblock than expected, although it's not actually the trains that are killing people. But I'm happy with the guild overall.

However, the guild has recently decided to switch loot systems. We were doing open roll on all loot, but the new system will be loot council.

I'm not really happy with this idea. This is mostly philosophical. I don't really like leadership structures that aim for a large amount of control over people, and it's hard to get more controlling than a loot council. This is despite the fact that the new system will probably benefit me, on average.

I do understand the impetus for the switch. Open roll has problems of its own - it incentivizes farm runs more than progression, and can cause inefficient loot distribution, where items don't go to the player for whom they represent the biggest upgrade. As well, rewards under the new system are supposed to be based partly on attendance and performance, which should make people work harder in those areas.

However, this just seems a little excessive. Open roll is probably the least restrictive loot system out there. Is it really necessary to immediately jump to the most restrictive one?

Overall, I would have preferred some sort of DKP system. DKP does well at getting people to come to runs, and there could be a DKP bonus for behavior like on-time attendance that is supposed to be encouraged. As well, people will generally not spend DKP on minor upgrades, so the distribution issue mostly takes care of itself.

In general, I prefer if leadership can solve issues without imposing any more restrictions than necessary. Using loot council seems like a violation of that principle.

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