Non-raider asks a raider question

[MrHat]

Q:

How does raid rewards work in the 25 man raids? I haven't raided since MC and when loot dropped you either (a) bid raid time points on it in hopes of winning it, or (b) were awarded it by yer guild/group.  As I see it now, the bosses drop their heads, or tokens, or whatnot and then you go and spend that on something?  Does this mean that everyone in the raid gets that token to go buy their headpiece? Or only 1 token drops and gets given to whomever?  I"m confused!

[Kitsune]

I don't know for certain about the new stuff, but as of the latest raids before the expansion came out, each boss would usually drop one or two items that could be traded in to an NPC for a piece of equipment.  So the whole 'everyone bids for the item' thing is still in place, only now you don't have to pray that an item drops for your specific class.  You can expect that the raid will only collect a handful of tokens for each run through the instance, I rather doubt that Blizzard will have set it up for every member of the raid to get a token.  Though it would be a pleasant surprise if they did.

[Merusk]

My guild's been debating this.  Where you used to use DKP to determine loot, how will we do it if there's only 1 or 2 folks in a raid who can use it?  If it's something that say, only hunters can use and we've got 2 hunters in the raid, we'll be doing /random on it.  It's what we did in UBRS, Strath & Scholo when we ran them, and it's what we're doing in the 5-mans and will do in Kharazan.

However, if the drops wind up being an item drop that goes to multiple classes like ZG, etc, DKP will probably still be used, simply because it's the most fair system of distro.

[Kitsune]

My guild's been debating this.  Where you used to use DKP to determine loot, how will we do it if there's only 1 or 2 folks in a raid who can use it?  If it's something that say, only hunters can use and we've got 2 hunters in the raid, we'll be doing /random on it.  It's what we did in UBRS, Strath & Scholo when we ran them, and it's what we're doing in the 5-mans and will do in Kharazan.

However, if the drops wind up being an item drop that goes to multiple classes like ZG, etc, DKP will probably still be used, simply because it's the most fair system of distro.

There should still be plenty of random drops to roll or bid on, but the main loot comes from token turnin.  I don't think you'll ever see DKP vanish entirely.

[Nebu]

Let me be clear in understanding this...

Are you saying that you can get the best gear in the game with 5 or fewer people?  If that's the case, then I'm going to step up and say some nice things about Blizzard for a change.

[Chenghiz]

Are you saying that you can get the best gear in the game with 5 or fewer people?

In terms of PVP gear, arena gear will be on the same level as the best PVE gear in the game, and it's attainable just by being good at PVP in 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 with a pretty minimal time commitment. As far as PVE gear goes though, the best gear will still be obtained through 25-man raids. One could contest though that you don't need the best PVE gear ever if you aren't doing bleeding-edge 25-man raid content, though.

I don't think you'll ever see DKP vanish entirely.

DKP is a valid and useful distribution system whether or not the loot dropped is useful to one or more classes.

[Jayce]

Are you saying that you can get the best gear in the game with 5 or fewer people?

In terms of PVP gear, arena gear will be on the same level as the best PVE gear in the game, and it's attainable just by being good at PVP in 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 with a pretty minimal time commitment. As far as PVE gear goes though, the best gear will still be obtained through 25-man raids. One could contest though that you don't need the best PVE gear ever if you aren't doing bleeding-edge 25-man raid content, though.

I don't think you'll ever see DKP vanish entirely.

DKP is a valid and useful distribution system whether or not the loot dropped is useful to one or more classes.

Another aspect of this is that the PvP gear is mostly aimed at PvP specific things, like doing maximum damage.  PvE gear is more aimed at the variety of roles someone might have to play in PvE (+healing, damage mitigation type stuff, fury warrior).  The two do overlap, but not as much as you might think.

[Paelos]

We use a modified DKP system in our raids in the past and coming in the future regardless of class drop affiliation. Here's the gist.

We start with a zero-sum DKP system, which means that everyone earns points equal to the point value of the item that dropped. So, if you had 40 raiders and a 5 point item dropped, the winner goes -200 and each raider gets +5 in points.

Some people stop there and just have people bid on things, but I find that kind of system to encourage both point hording and discourages raid attendance for those who have no chance at new items. So, instead of a bid, we do a "Rolling Upgrade" or RUG system. Basically you add your accumulated points to a base value of 10, and you roll for the item. So if you had 20 points, you'd roll a /random 30.

Obviously some people will win a bunch early and go negative, so we installed a system where everyone negative rolled a /random 9, but that roll doesn't supercede a positive roll regardless of outcome. Then, on top of that we had people who would dig ridiculous holes in DKP and go well beyond -200, so we instituted a rule where those people roll a /random 8, and that roll doesn't supercede a /random 9.

The up side to such a system is that people who are involved in the raid for a long time get lots of points and win most of the items, but people that are close to each other in points aren't assured anything so you don't see hording. It also adds an element of excitement to every item that's contested rather than just a simple handing out of things. On top of that, it encourages people to keep coming in the hopes that they may have a lucky day.

The downside is that sometimes a person waits a long time for one thing and has a really really shitty roll on it, but that happens very rarely so far from what I've seen.

[ajax34i]

Blizzard might be trying to replace the "points" in DKP with tokens as the form of currency to get the item, and it might work for some guilds, but I think most guilds will just have all tokens go to the bank, and still use DKP to dish out items after the raid (in the form of, ok the people with the top DKP numbers, contact the bank to get your tokens, rest of you, thanks for coming).

Looking at ZG and AQ, it didn't help that we had a zillion different tokens for the instance; it needs to be ONE token, just one, to be used as currency, otherwise it's too complicated to keep track of everything.

[Shavnir]

Are you saying that you can get the best gear in the game with 5 or fewer people?

In terms of PVP gear, arena gear will be on the same level as the best PVE gear in the game, and it's attainable just by being good at PVP in 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 with a pretty minimal time commitment. As far as PVE gear goes though, the best gear will still be obtained through 25-man raids. One could contest though that you don't need the best PVE gear ever if you aren't doing bleeding-edge 25-man raid content, though.

I don't think you'll ever see DKP vanish entirely.

DKP is a valid and useful distribution system whether or not the loot dropped is useful to one or more classes.

Another aspect of this is that the PvP gear is mostly aimed at PvP specific things, like doing maximum damage.  PvE gear is more aimed at the variety of roles someone might have to play in PvE (+healing, damage mitigation type stuff, fury warrior).  The two do overlap, but not as much as you might think.

Actually the new PvE sets are specalized, including mutiple sets where it is needed (2 for warriors, 3 for druids, etc etc).  However PvP gear will focus a lot more on survivability and damage rather than just damage (most dps classes), healing or survival (tank classes).