Spinks wrote about a problem that affects both MMOs and RL. Several actions require a group to act, but only a person (or a few people) reap (most of the) rewards for the action. Her example is perfect: shadowmourne. It needs a whole ICC25 doing guild to support one's quest and one, only one will own it.
Usually this action is considered a social challenge, as Spinks describes: "One person in the raid has to be chosen to receive the main reward. I guess the social challenge for the rest of the raid is to pick the right person and hope that s/he will stay with them afterwards."
Of course the same applies to all loot rewards. 10/25 worked for it, 1 gets it. While unbiased loot systems helps, but their fairness lies in large numbers. If the loot system is unbiased, and you raid lot of times, everyone gets equal share. Of course it's not the case. At first a a guild won't raid the content infinite times, secondly RNG is evil, thirdly in WoW (and RL) time matters a lot. Getting something now is much more important than getting it 2 months later, as the rewards inflate fast. The legendary healing mace is no longer BiS, and replacements can be found easy. Getting one now on the "alt run for fun" Ulduar is not the same as having one a year ago.
Of course social challenges are usually solved by anti-social measures: cheating. I can't count how many times I've read the story: someone with good loot left the guild for a more progressed. They tricked the system where their "friends" placed their trust in them, they got the solo reward for the group effort and left the group.
If it would be a philosophy post, I'd suggest to be this guy and abuse those socials who are so easy to trick. But this is an analysis post that tries to find and cure the root of the problem.
The root is simple: the reward cannot be divided. If a heroic weapon drops (I mean a raid weapon with "heroic" written on it), you can't give a part of it to everyone. One must get it all. All social tricks and unbiased loot systems require the person to compensate the others with promises. In the loot council system the (often untold) promise is that "I'll stick around and use it for the good of all". In the DKP system the group makes you a promise: "keep making efforts , collect DKP and one day you'll get reward".
The problem with promises is not that they are easy to break. The problem is that they are illiquid. "Liquidity" in economics means how easily you can reuse your value. For example cash in real world is very liquid. You can buy items from cash now. On the other hand if you own a 10000 tons/year copper smelting plant that is temporarily shut down due to oven failure, good luck selling it in a week! It has value, just illiquid.
If you have 1500DKP points, you can't buy items for it now. Only when the guild raids and the item you want drops. Illiquididy also put you at risk against changes. The market value of things change. Smart person sells those that will drop in price. No one in his right mind would hold a battered hilt in his bag when cataclysm hits. If you have one, you shall sell it now. On the other hand with illiquid value, you often can just watch the change inevitably come and unable to do anything. For example you see that the summer and the Cataclysm will kill the raiding in your guild. But you can't do anything to burn your DKP in the remaining few raids unless the RNG shines upon you.
The only solution is compensating the others who made the effort with liquid currency. In WoW (and RL) there is one really liquid currency: money. The only fair and liquid compensation in a WoW raid is GDKP. The item winner pays the group with something they desire: gold. Why is GDKP not more widespread and the common loot system in WoW? It has three reasons:
At first, many people see it more easily cheatable than other currencies. "people who buy gold get loot". WoW is free of duping gold, therefore from hyper-inflation, but gold-sellers are really active. This is a problem and a valid counter-argument, however a self-solving one. The GDKP doesn't change the amount of gold in the hand of players. So if people buy gold from farmers, the amount of gold increases, inflating the prices. Example:
The second problem is - ironically - that gold is illiquid if there are not enough GDKP runs. You got gold, but if there are no other GDKP run to spend it, you just have lot of yellow pixels. So there are few GDKP runs because there are few GDKP runs. However this cycle is broken by goblins (who are rich) and overgeared players (who don't need loot). The standard GDKP PuG is formed by these players.
The third problem is fundamental and not yet mentioned anywhere else: the loot has different value to everyone, yet everyone got equal compensation. I mean if a +str axe is sold for 10K G, then everyone in the raid gets 1K. The axe worth a shard to a priest and 9K G to a DK. Yet they both get 1K. A Marxist would say it's fair as both the priest and the DK did the same work for the drop. However this thinking kills GDKP as it motivates everyone to "optimize" the raid against competition. If I'm a DK wanting +str axe, then I make sure that I'm the only DK, warrior or paladin in the raid. Of course such "optimized" raids cannot function as priests will refuse to join as 5th, so the roster can't be filled. The other DK deserves higher compensation for the +str axe than a priest since he not only did his job as a raider, but refrained himself from "optimizing" the raid by not inviting you or not joining after seen you in.
So as experiment, I announce new rules for the GDKP runs of the ganking guild:
Usually this action is considered a social challenge, as Spinks describes: "One person in the raid has to be chosen to receive the main reward. I guess the social challenge for the rest of the raid is to pick the right person and hope that s/he will stay with them afterwards."
Of course the same applies to all loot rewards. 10/25 worked for it, 1 gets it. While unbiased loot systems helps, but their fairness lies in large numbers. If the loot system is unbiased, and you raid lot of times, everyone gets equal share. Of course it's not the case. At first a a guild won't raid the content infinite times, secondly RNG is evil, thirdly in WoW (and RL) time matters a lot. Getting something now is much more important than getting it 2 months later, as the rewards inflate fast. The legendary healing mace is no longer BiS, and replacements can be found easy. Getting one now on the "alt run for fun" Ulduar is not the same as having one a year ago.
Of course social challenges are usually solved by anti-social measures: cheating. I can't count how many times I've read the story: someone with good loot left the guild for a more progressed. They tricked the system where their "friends" placed their trust in them, they got the solo reward for the group effort and left the group.
If it would be a philosophy post, I'd suggest to be this guy and abuse those socials who are so easy to trick. But this is an analysis post that tries to find and cure the root of the problem.
The root is simple: the reward cannot be divided. If a heroic weapon drops (I mean a raid weapon with "heroic" written on it), you can't give a part of it to everyone. One must get it all. All social tricks and unbiased loot systems require the person to compensate the others with promises. In the loot council system the (often untold) promise is that "I'll stick around and use it for the good of all". In the DKP system the group makes you a promise: "keep making efforts , collect DKP and one day you'll get reward".
The problem with promises is not that they are easy to break. The problem is that they are illiquid. "Liquidity" in economics means how easily you can reuse your value. For example cash in real world is very liquid. You can buy items from cash now. On the other hand if you own a 10000 tons/year copper smelting plant that is temporarily shut down due to oven failure, good luck selling it in a week! It has value, just illiquid.
If you have 1500DKP points, you can't buy items for it now. Only when the guild raids and the item you want drops. Illiquididy also put you at risk against changes. The market value of things change. Smart person sells those that will drop in price. No one in his right mind would hold a battered hilt in his bag when cataclysm hits. If you have one, you shall sell it now. On the other hand with illiquid value, you often can just watch the change inevitably come and unable to do anything. For example you see that the summer and the Cataclysm will kill the raiding in your guild. But you can't do anything to burn your DKP in the remaining few raids unless the RNG shines upon you.
The only solution is compensating the others who made the effort with liquid currency. In WoW (and RL) there is one really liquid currency: money. The only fair and liquid compensation in a WoW raid is GDKP. The item winner pays the group with something they desire: gold. Why is GDKP not more widespread and the common loot system in WoW? It has three reasons:
At first, many people see it more easily cheatable than other currencies. "people who buy gold get loot". WoW is free of duping gold, therefore from hyper-inflation, but gold-sellers are really active. This is a problem and a valid counter-argument, however a self-solving one. The GDKP doesn't change the amount of gold in the hand of players. So if people buy gold from farmers, the amount of gold increases, inflating the prices. Example:
- all 10 people have 5000G at start, and make other 500/week
- one guy spend all 5000G on an item. At the end of the week, everyone else has 5000+500(from work)+500(from GDKP) gold. He has just 500(from work)+500(from GDKP) gold. To remain competitive he buys 5000G.
- to outbid the others he has to spend 6000G now. At the end, everyone else has 6000+500+600 = 7100G. He has 500+600=1100, so has to buy 6000G
- to outbid the others, now he's paying 7100G. At the end, everyone else has 7100+500+710 = 8310G
- 9641
- 11105
- 12716
- 14487
- 16436
The second problem is - ironically - that gold is illiquid if there are not enough GDKP runs. You got gold, but if there are no other GDKP run to spend it, you just have lot of yellow pixels. So there are few GDKP runs because there are few GDKP runs. However this cycle is broken by goblins (who are rich) and overgeared players (who don't need loot). The standard GDKP PuG is formed by these players.
The third problem is fundamental and not yet mentioned anywhere else: the loot has different value to everyone, yet everyone got equal compensation. I mean if a +str axe is sold for 10K G, then everyone in the raid gets 1K. The axe worth a shard to a priest and 9K G to a DK. Yet they both get 1K. A Marxist would say it's fair as both the priest and the DK did the same work for the drop. However this thinking kills GDKP as it motivates everyone to "optimize" the raid against competition. If I'm a DK wanting +str axe, then I make sure that I'm the only DK, warrior or paladin in the raid. Of course such "optimized" raids cannot function as priests will refuse to join as 5th, so the roster can't be filled. The other DK deserves higher compensation for the +str axe than a priest since he not only did his job as a raider, but refrained himself from "optimizing" the raid by not inviting you or not joining after seen you in.
So as experiment, I announce new rules for the GDKP runs of the ganking guild:
- The item is sold via bid, just like previously.
- Of course, if you win the bid and can't pay, you are kicked for disrupting the bid (discouraging artificial bids). If you really want the item, get a loan before the raid.
- The minimal price is set to 250G so you must pay for raid loot even if there is no competition. No more 50G ilvl 251!
- 1/3 of the price goes directly to the second highest bidder and not to the pot.
- It rewards staying in the bid if there are more than 2 bidders (as the first gets item, the second gets gold). It overall increases the price of items.
- It strongly discourages "strategic bids" (when you bid only to elevate price), because if the competitor stops bidding, you not only lose gold (the difference of the price and the item value in your eyes), but you also give lot of gold to a competitor who will use it against you in the future. So the item will be properly valued.
- The competitor is compensated for refraining himself from "optimizing" the raid. Having 2 priests is no reason to not join as third, you'll be a very rich priest!
37 comments:
Ok, why make it so complicated and detract from the basic issue at hand? I think the argument here is: The overwhelming consensus is that GDKP is the best loot system for a PUG. However, is it the "best" loot system for a guild? Once this question is decided, you can think about refinements to the GDKP system (as there are for DKP systems).
The question I'm going to pose is that Gevlon's perspective is from an average raiding PUG. However, is GDKP as a loot system viable for an advanced progression guild?
I somewhat disagree that it would discourage strategic bidding: there is certainly an incentive to increase the price *and* be the second bidder. It's obviously a more risky thing to attempt, but could be worth it to attempt in certain circumstances.
you say "Having 2 priests is no reason to not join as third, you'll be a very rich priest!", but won't the exact opposite happen? having 2 priests is optimal: assuming a priest drop, either you win the item or you get the 1/3rd. adding a third screws it all up as you get a chance to be left with nothing and it might cause nasty bidding wars between the 3.
seems like you are just increasing the optimal number of competitors by one, not removing all desire to stack the raid. that might still be a good thing.
On the other hand, artificially inflating the bid might also pay off for the inflater in the sense that if he places his estimate correctly, he will end up with 1/3 of the final bid. I'm not sure this change will overall discourage bid inflation, but on the other hand I don't think bid inflation is a Bad Thing.
Good post! Though I'd say that some people have always been trying to optimize their chances of loot, for example by ruling that no other druids/death knights/rogues could come. (at least, I remember joining a PuG with a friend on my rogue, with the rogue already present causing drama since he didn't want another rogue to roll against him) It would hardly be a new problem caused by GDPK.
The only problem is that this brings outside aspects of the game into raiding which is the only appeal to a lot of people.
I and many of the players I play with almost exclusively raid in WOW. I am currently 11/12 H ICC 25 on two characters so running heroics is irrelevant, general raiding does not require any significant gold and the excess emblems of frost are more than enough to fund consumables etc, however I have only maybe 15k gold because I make no effort at all to make gold elsewhere. I have no interest in playing the game that much.
GDKP doesnt reward players who raid with more raid loot, it rewards players who do things other than raiding with raid loot. GDKP runs are a convenient way to make money, but they are far from efficient ways to make money relative to playing the AH, and intelligent use of tradeskills such as glyph selling, etc.
@third Anonymous: if you are not in the top 2 bidders, you either did not want the item, or you are broke.
@Akanet: bid inflation is bad because it has the risk that the item is lost. I mean if a rogue bids on plate just to grief paladins, the sum gold in the playerbase stays, but a plate drop is wasted.
@Valdor: raid "optimization" is the problem of all unbiased loot systems. If you have no competitor, you get the item for minimal bid, or nobody rolls against you. The only way to fix it is to directly compensate the competitors, by paying gold or DKP to them.
GDKP works fine for a one-off PUG that can clear the content. It would not work for a guild that's progressing, for one simple reason.
There is absolutely zero incentive to show up to a GDKP wipe night.
@Gelvon: True, the Legendary Mace is no longer BiS, but in the Hands of a Holy Paladin it is a Godsend.
@ Azzur. No, most definitely not. Raiding Guilds are way more concerned about RaidDPS, Setup, etc. Giving Shadowmourne (for example) to the highest Bidder instead of the best eligible Melee would be unthinkable. But the Loot Discussion in most raiding Guilds is obsolete anyway as there are almost no Socials and definately no M&S (figures).
As Cirian below already mentioned, GDKP does reward Activities outside of raiding and is therefore worthless to Raiders as they focus on raiding Goals and need the means to achieve them regardless of their ingame Gold.
"@third Anonymous: if you are not in the top 2 bidders, you either did not want the item, or you are broke."
broke != having less money than the other two bidders. and finishing 3rd will result in the gap between you and the guy in 2nd by even more.
the point, however, is that having a 3rd competitor makes you less likely to place in the top 2. so stacking the raid is still incentivized.
Well, he's organizing raids for a PVP guild... so surely he will be not doing progression raiding with lots of wipes... so no need to motivate their raiders into wiping some more.
I like GDKP. I'd love it if pugs would use it more instead of /roll (which is bullshit)
"1/3 of the price goes directly to the second highest bidder and not to the pot."
Rewarding the poorer loser (for being poor and a loser) with big cash.
Obama would be proud of you.
@Last anonymous: no, rewarding the poorer WORKER (as opposed to welfare leech) to keep working despite he cannot win item.
So... in a three-bidder war, there is no more incentive to not-bid, and considerably more incentive to bid.
This also appears to generate situations in which it is rational to inflate the price, hoping to still be second.
On the third hand, what it mostly serves to do is *discourage* people from bidding in a genuine two-person bidding war, which will keep the top-end price low, and make the rest of the raid unhappy.
Yeah, not convinced. Be interesting to see logs of the bidding history if you try it, though.
The hammer from Ulduar is still good. Our priest who got it wears it and I don't believe it's only for vanity.
I lost you a bit on the way concering your view on legendary weapons. It's not something you do once you know, but a long-time project. Currently we have a pala collecting some insane 50 shards in one of the final stages. Those drop from bosses in ICC. Do you think he should pay gold to the raid for every shard he gets in your system?
This will be solved with the Cataclysm's new system, which will bind such items to the guild.
Don't see any reason why wouldn't it be good loot system for a guild. If a guy decide to leave or get kicked both sides would be less damaged (player for DKP points and Guild for wasted time on no-good-traitor-bastard). In my old guild we had need before greed loot system and it worked just fine, no one felt damaged, if an item is a slightest improvement for a player a, he would have advantage before player b. Of course in those days there was few things as team work, common goal and more than anything there was trust.
Today, especially in a PUG i would never even think about using GDKP, I'm an old dog and won't let my self be easily fooled but I'm sure there are some raid leaders that are ready to ninja gold and item, considering stupidity of average WoW player today that can easily occur. And imagine the price of some rare imba trinket.
GDKP excellent for PUGs precisely because PUGs are unreliable, and because people who get certain pieces of loot are less likely to come back for another raid. Maximising the utility of items is irrelevant since it won't benefit the player. It is in his interest to grab as much as he can now.
However in a guild with GDKP you can easily end up with suboptimal loot distribution, because in a reliable guild you can gain more by maximising the utility of an item.
GDKP has very little memory to help with this because gold can be gained and spent in many other ways. DKP has a better memory because only by attendance can you gain more; the more DKP you have, the more often you turn up.A 500DPS increase that is available 99% of the time is far better than a 600DPS increase with a raider who only shows up 50% of the time.
DKP can be thought of as an investment opportunity. GDKP can be thought of as an instant payoff with no risk. If you're likely to get more by investing, go with DKP. If the group is unreliable, GDKP is a better option. However guilds by their nature tend to be more reliable than random groups, and so lend themselves far more to DKP.
In a reliable group, a rational selfish person would also maximise the utility because his interest and the interests of the group match.
One other thing I would say is that giving the 2nd highest bid 1/3 of the pot turns looting in to a game of poker; it can be in a player's interest to get his competitor to keep raising up to the point where he is about to fold.
It doesn't discourage strategic bids, but it does reward those who are better at reading and manipulating people. It makes the game harder but potentially more rewarding as well. Normally a skilled bidder might increase his chance of getting items by forcing the value up. Under this system a skilled bidder can gain additional gold as well as increasing his chances of gaining items!
if you are afraid about people inflating the bids to more than is optimal for the greater good (the raid) for personal gain, try giving the item to the highes bidder, but for the prize that the second highest was bidding. You can read in one of the management books for econ students why this leads to optimal reveal of hidden knowledge.
This is the most sensible system when you go in and kill the boss right away. But what about progression? How is one rewarded for coming to potential wipe content, but not in a way which encourages wiping? DKP systems have this same flaw, so it's not aimed at GDKP specifically, but it's something to consider.
You might find this post interesting.
http://drivendraenei.blogspot.com/2010/01/gdkp-free-market-spending-with-marxist.html
A interesting aspect of that system is that it allows bluffing - I don't have enough money to bid, but I can bluff that I have, by estimating the highest price to be paid and bidding just under that. That is specially true for 3+ competitors, as someone else should be surely able to compete with you.
Inquis,
And all three respond to lowering the fraction the same way. Third doesn't work out? Try a fourth.
More generally addressed, I'm curious. Do you have your own solution, or have you just given up?
In my experience, GDKP in 10 man is probably just a bad idea. You have the administrative overhead of GDKP, which slows down every loot distribution, and you dont even have many people bidding against each other, and also the items are subpar, compared to 264 stuff, so people arent event tempted to bid much.
I think simple rolling is probably best for 10 man. Many times you dont even have anyone rolling against you anymore.
Shadowmourne can never be distributed by GDKP. You need 50 shards and I very much doubt that you can get these without a raiding guild. A raiding guild will not give them to the guy with the most gold but to the guy who contributes most to the raid.
In my guild we have one guy with Valan'ar. A discipline priest, so arguably not the perfect class to get it, but he is with the guild since 5 years (and also a very good player). We are an average guild not doing hardmodes. We had a lot of trouble getting Yogg down. Since we farmed up to Vezaxx often enough before, the Yogg kill would normally have pretty much ended our Ulduar time.
But for said priest we farmed more shards and then took on Yogg three lights so he could have his mace. I guess half the guild didn't want to do it but nevertheless we made the group effort to down Yogg again in the semi-hardmode. We call him "The Mace Man" :)
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As for loot distribution via dkp: bidding is the problem in my eyes. Don't bid dkp but have a set price for every item. If you have 2 guys competing for the same item, it drops in week#1 and the make a bidding war, next week it drops again and the second guy gets it for minimum bid? Let them pay the same and you'll see over time that competitors will often decide between themselves for whiom it is the greater upgrade, or whatever. We have no loot drama.
Gevlon, getting Shadowmourne as an example first, and then getting into just heroic weapons as a way to propogate GDKP as the solution is a flawed comparison. I'll explain why, and it has to do with the liquidity you talk about as well.
Shadowmourne, as an item, as well as Valanyr, are not liquid items. In the guild I raid in, the Shadowmourne is going to the guild leader. I had no say in this, because we work with loot council, and this is how the loot council decided. I also have no voice in who make up the loot council. Yet, I consider myself to be a goblin most of the time, promises are all nice and dandy, but I would like something tangible for my work.
I also consider myself to be one of the worse players in my guild. I'm not on top of dps meters all the time, in fact, I'm at the lower ranges. I die a bit more often than the average member. It's not that I'm a bad player, it's that the others are near exceptional.
Our loot council is impossible to be completely unbiased, and proclaims that they will award loot to people who attend more, contributed more, were a member longer etc, as in, they reward consistency. Long term consistency. As long as the members of the guild believe that, it's an extremely strong mechanism.
The guild leader got rewarded for organising etc etc etc with an awesome weapon, that required the rest of the guild to donate items of illiquid value to him. We can't sell those shadowfrost shards, advertising "going 11/12HM ICC, selling shadowfrost shards for 5k gold each" because people wouldn't come along. They would have to come along on many many raids before they would have shadowmourne, AND it'd cost a hefty sum of gold. We could (and probably will) sell ilvl 264 and ilvl 277 items that are superfluous to people who tag along. Not that we need the gold, but because an ilvl 277 item in the hands of an M&S and gold in our pocket is better than a shard in our pocket.
So, Shadowmourne you cannot sell. It's like your copper smelting plant. It's not something you receive NOW and can pay for NOW. The ilvl 277 items are (except LK hardmode obviously). Yet the promise of our guild leader to keep the guild together, to keep our goals in mind, and to keep progressing towards them are worth more to the guild than gold, because apparently there are things gold cannot buy in this game. In the very minute community that is this guild, a promise is worth much more than gold. We believe in this, and are vulnerable to this belief, but as long as we all believe in it, it's better. Current currencies work much in the same way. Why is the dollar worth as much as it is? Because people believe the US will keep it's word regarding repaying it's debts. As long as we all believe that, the dollar is actually worth what it is.
Chopsui
There are still issues:
1. Having a very high minimum bid results in no free epics, but it also means that nearly everyone will have equipment that is less good than it could be. I would not upgrade my ilvl 250 item with a 260 if I had to pay 250g (plus enchantments and gems) for it. But for the raid, it would be good if I did so anyway.
2. Strategic bidding is at least as bad: Now you try to be second highest, because you then actually get a ton of money. There is also the technical issue of lag and typing speed. One frequently sees numbers such as "100, 150, 200, 180", because the 180 guy just typed faster than the 200 guy. Bidding would have to be strongly regulated, which makes it drag on, which in turn can have horrific results on raid morale.
Rewarding the second guy does not solve anything.
"I would not upgrade my ilvl 250 item with a 260 if I had to pay 250g (plus enchantments and gems) for it. But for the raid, it would be good if I did so anyway."
That's actually not a problem for GDKP, because at the end of the run, you'll probably get ~700-1200 gold from splitting the pot. You'll still come out ahead.
Soulbind legendary items to the guild. Allow the GM to assign it to a player. If it takes a guild to get it, it should be property of the guild.
Create more tangible mechanics linking players and their guild to reduce the "social" flaws. Linking your possession to gear seems like an interesting place to start.
@Anonymous - You are referring to a Vickrey auction, where the highest bidder wins, but pays the price bid by the second highest bidder. It is (and has to be) a sealed auction system, where bidders submit sealed bids one time only.
I don't like the idea of a sealed bid system in a GDKP run because of the (even greater than normal) opportunity for collusion, and corruption in the RL.
A Vickrey Auction would not work in a traditional, open auction with multiple bids, because:
Bidder 1: 750g!
Bidder 2: 1000g!
(Bidder 1 is thinking about bidding 1250)
Bidder 3: I bid the gold cap!
...Bidder 3 can't be beaten, and only has to pay 1000g, even though Bidder 1 was thinking about bidding 1250g.
So it doesn't work as a normal, open auction, and in WoW I don't trust the other members of the raid not to collude. Distrust is actually one of the reasons that GDKP exists.
As far as Gevlon paying the 2nd highest bidder 1/3 of the bid, I don't think I'd care for the resulting game of poker, nor the greatly increased complexity of figuring out everyone's payouts.
Of course, I haven't participated in a GDKP run, so I should do a little more research into the issues that Gevlon is trying to combat. Possibly those issues are not present in 25-mans, which are the only GDKP runs that interest me. I very much want to try one, but the Alliance GDKP runs on my server have not been at convenient times.
I think you are trying to apply a solution to a non-problem. It is not the hypothetical ax, worth only a shard, that the priest is getting paid for. The priest is getting paid for the service of providing a DK with the ability to buy the loot. What difference does it make if the out-bid player does not get more compensation? He got paid the same fee for the same work. Both the second highest bidder, and the mage did the same work. That work was to get the bid winner to his axe. The fact that the second highest bidder wishes he could give up the reward he got and buy the axe instead does not matter. Both bidders signed up to EITHER get paid to boost someone to the loot buying counter, OR to buy some loot.
instituting a second highest bid payment system will be rewarding people for NOTHING. Did the bid losing DK do more to help the raid suceed than the mage who already has everything? Not at all. to reward the second highest bidder, meerly for being unlucky while taking that money out of the pockets of everyone who earned it goes against everything I thought a Goblin stood for. Everyone in the raid is getting paid equally for their collective work, not based on neediness but based on the agreement that they would do their part in getting the man with the money to the gear.
Changing things around will just open up people to bidding games where people that don't want gear, but know someone else wants it badly, will bid just to get the payoff. They can always then sell the item back to the neey person if they acccidently win. Either way they win.
All someone has to do is bid the item up high, then, if you win the bid but did not want it, offer to sell it to the second bidder for 1/3 the winning price + the second place bid.
Chopsui said: "Yet the promise of our guild leader to keep the guild together, to keep our goals in mind, and to keep progressing towards them are worth more to the guild than gold, because apparently there are things gold cannot buy in this game. In the very minute community that is this guild, a promise is worth much more than gold. We believe in this, and are vulnerable to this belief, but as long as we all believe in it, it's better."
Very well stated, sir.
The primary problem I see with this is it penalizes the heavily overgeared players who aren't bidding on anything/just want one drop.
"1. Having a very high minimum bid results in no free epics, but it also means that nearly everyone will have equipment that is less good than it could be. I would not upgrade my ilvl 250 item with a 260 if I had to pay 250g (plus enchantments and gems) for it. But for the raid, it would be good if I did so anyway."
If you don't think a 264 is better enough than a 251 to pay 250g for it, then why do you think it's even worth running icc for the possibility of such upgrades at all, considering the time investment involved? I have absolutely no understanding of the viewpoint behind your post. You are aware that people spend 15k for 264 boe's, right? 250g is a negligible sum in today's WoW, it's fine for you to be completely unreasonable like this, but to extend your personal experience to "nearly everyone" is a horrible thing to do when you are so unusual.
"I would not upgrade my ilvl 250 item with a 260 if I had to pay 250g (plus enchantments and gems) for it. But for the raid, it would be good if I did so anyway."
Oh woe is you that 250g is deemed expensive! - the GDKP runs on my server have 1000 gold start price for armor, and 5000 for weapons, trinkets and jewellery. Bids increase by 200g increments. This weeks pot was over 100k with each member leaving with a little over 4300g. For a three hour raid.
The runs are filled with average players gold capped and good players on well geared alts. Tokens regularly go for 8k+, Deathbringers Will went for 36000g this week.
If 250g is deemed expensive then you need to refocus efforts on your income.
GDKP runs are a very efficient way to make gold - 4000g just for attending - and with BoEs clever investment could net over 20k a run - so please don't complain about 250g being an expensive price for an upgrade.
Any decent goblin has more than 250g sitting in their mailbox after a three hour raid.
You can do a really complicated system where bids only give a chance to win, so someone who is short of being able to match by 200g still has a chance to win... but if it weren't for the limited attendance I think it would be easier to just try for a balanced composition lol >.< Of course it's harder with so much gear saturation and a small group size, so many items are not upgrades at all for part of the raid...
The guild leeching isn't due to atomic rewards, it's due to atomic ability to contribute to raid progression. Social 'promises' are not a problem if the rewards do not cause someone (classically a tank) to enter the extremely small pool of players who are prepared to contribute to a higher tier of content. And would be even less of a problem if the "pressure to fill a raid from within a single guild" was addressed in combat and logistical mechanics.
The Chinese inception of GDKP was described as "everyone benefits". The mentality on NA servers at least, probably tends more towards "I benefit", and this might be the reason for reactionary attitudes towards it. If there was more "excuse" (= progression?) to raid outside loot and it wasn't seen as such a source of drama, I think not as many people would see it as a selfish thing to seem to be demanding compensation for each item another receives. Any 'non-social' loot distribution is "preventing someone else from achieving their goals", but this depends on what the goals are. I think a useful question is, "Does GDKP make the fight against the Scourge seem less meaningful?"
My 50cents:
It would not discourage strategy bids as much as it would be likely, because the strategy bidder will have additional profit, if he succeeds in inflating the price (as he will get 1/3 of the bid AND the share of the pot)
Also, a good part of the illiquidity of gold comes from raid reset restrictions. If you have a crapload of gold, but only need a few items, you cant just run ICC until the item drops and place a huge-ass bid on it, if it won't drop, you have to wait another week. Of course you will be richer because you dod a GDKP where you dodnt bid, but it did not benefit you much, because you are likely to outbid everyone for the item with your current gold anyway. On the other hand there is still a chance that someone will outbid you (maybe someone who buys gold), further delaying getting your desired loot.
Even if on the long run, the goldbuyer cant afford to buy all his GDKP loot, as you said, loot inflates, as getting icc25HC loot is more valuable now, than 1 week before cataclysm, because you will replace it anyway. The problem is self solving, but can delay individuals from getting their desired items. If you could just farm for ICC epics like you farm normal instances if you had enough gold, this self-solving will be much faster, as an eventual goldbuyer would not push you back a whole week (well if there were no raid resets, pretty much all loot would have no value, but that is another question).
Also, guild wont work with GDKP, as guild try to recruit people with skill, not with money, as poor people who know their class will have more success than rich people (even if they dont buy, but earn gold) with lower skills, as most current guild loot distribution systems value the effort/skills of the players (DKP - time spent raiding, loot council - who deserves it the most) In guild with GDKP, there is a much higher chance of some lowskill/low raidattendance guy will get loot, than in a guild with any of the current popular guild loot distibution systems, and obviously, a loot in the hands if a high skilled, or high attendance player will help more in progress, than 10k more gold distributed between members, as bosses dont die by giving them 10k gold.
Well, it's still better than "Group rewards for solo effort", isn't it?
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